Lenny Dykstra has apparently done so many vile things in his life that people are free to say what they want about him without legal consequences.
That’s essentially what New York Supreme Court Judge Robert D. Kalish ruled on Friday, when he dismissed the defamation and libel lawsuit Dykstra filed last year against his former New York Mets teammate Ron Darling. The lawsuit stemmed from a passage in Darling’s autobiography “108 Stitches: Loose Threads, Ripping Yarns, and the Darndest Characters from My Time in the Game,” in which the ex-pitcher claimed Dykstra hurled racial slurs at former Boston Red Sox pitcher Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd from the on-deck circle during Game 3 of the 1986 World Series. Darling described the racist language as “the worst collection of taunts and insults I’d ever heard.”
Darling argued in court documents that Dykstra has been “publicly referred to for years as a homophobe, misogynist, and racist whose bigotry is undeniable.” Kalish agreed. According to Mollie Walker of the New York Post, Kalish dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that Dykstra’s “reputation for unsportsmanlike conduct and bigotry is already so tarnished that it cannot be further injured.” The lawsuit was dismissed under the libel-proof plaintiff doctrine.
Dykstra last played in the MLB in 1996, and his post-playing life has been nothing shy of a circus. The 57-year-old was sentenced to three years in California state prison in 2012 after pleading no contest to grand theft auto and providing a false financial statement. He was also sentenced to 6 1/2 months in prison less than a year after he plead guilty to bankruptcy fraud, concealment of assets and money laundering. His sentences were served concurrently.
More recently, Dykstra was arrested and charged with drug possession and making terroristic threats after he allegedly threatened an Uber driver in 2018. The case was later dismissed.
It’s hardly a surprise Dykstra was shown no sympathy by a judge.
H/T Barstool Sports
