‘Baseball bad boy’ allegedly held weapon to Uber driver's head & threatened to kill him
Lenny Dykstra has been the poster boy for anyone who wants to show their kids how drugs can ruin lives.
The former Mets and Phillies outfielder has had numerous run-ins with the law, resulting in a rap sheet long enough that even Harry Houdini would have a hard time escaping the clutches of life in prison for some of the things Dykstra has done.
Well, add another biggie to the list for the man who Yahoo Sports referred to as “the baseball bad boy.”
According to the New York Daily News, Dykstra, 55, has been accused of pointing a gun at the head of his Uber driver early Wednesday morning in New Jersey. Dykstra, who was also charged with possession of cocaine, marijuana and MDMA, allegedly threatened to kill him after the driver refused to change the agreed-upon destination midway through the ride.
As a result, Dykstra was charged with making terroristic threats. However, police did not recover the weapon he allegedly used.
The driver apparently out-foxed him, driving not to Dykstra’s intended destination but to the Linden police station instead, where he pulled into an attached garage, honked his horn and created a ruckus to attract police attention.
Dykstra, however, claims he was the victim.
“The guy went nuclear on me,” he said of his Uber driver. “He f—ing kidnapped me and almost killed me going 100 mph. He locked me in his f—ing car, and he wouldn’t let me out.”
Dykstra’s history is as colorful as his baseball persona.
In 2012, he got hauled in on a bankruptcy fraud charge, though he reached a plea deal and spent less than seven months in prison.
In 2017, Dykstra got rung up for sexual harassment, as Caroline Heldman, a professor of politics at Occidental College, said Dykstra harassed her in the green room at Fox News and claimed he “gets sexually aroused when I talk politics.”
Dykstra didn’t even bother to deny that latter claim, saying instead that “she’s just one of many, dude. She got to get on the space shuttle.”
And, of course, no good story about a rockstar persona is complete without the bingo card free space of trashing a hotel room, which he allegedly did in the Hamptons last August.
Dykstra took to Twitter on Thursday in the wake of the latest accusations, defending himself with (you can’t make this stuff up, folks) Taylor Swift lyrics.
But I keep cruising, can't stop, won't stop moving
It's like I got this music in my mind, sayin' gonna be alright
– @taylorswift13— Lenny Dykstra (@LennyDykstra) May 23, 2018
Dykstra also pointed out that he and Swift apparently have in common their penchant for threatening participants in the “gig economy”:
Retweeted Michael (@mbacco):@LennyDykstra @PhillyNewsGuy @Phillies @Uber @taylorswift13 She actually wrote that song after a fight with a Lyft driver coincidentally
— Lenny Dykstra (@LennyDykstra) May 24, 2018
Dykstra was released pending a June court date, and insisted afterward that he was not arrested.
Said the man himself, when asked by the Daily News whether he had in fact been formally placed under arrest, “No dude. It’s another day in the life of Lenny Dykstra.”
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