“Yep, I Blackmailed Gay Baseball Umpires”

Although things are changing rapidly,homophobia in sports in nothing new. It goes back to the days of Lenny Dykstra. If your days don’t go back far enough to remember Lenny Dykstra’s career — or his meteoric fall from grace, let me put it this way. That tobacco coming out of his homophobic, criminal little mouth is a fast improvement over the shit that is coming out of it now.

Lenny Dyktsra was first signed as a 13th round draft pick in 1981 for the Mets and played for them until 1989 where it was off the Philadelphia Phillies until 1996. Then, it was off to jail. Dykstra has been the subject of at least two dozen legal actions since 2007. Dykstra’s net worth was estimated at $58 million in 2008. By 2009, he was living out of his car.

The years that followed brought charges including; sexual harassment, possession and intent to distribute controlled substances, credit card fraud, and sexual assault to name a few. The big kahuna came in 2011 when Dykstra was arrested and charged with 25 misdemeanor and felony counts of grand theft auto, identity theft, filing false financial statements and possession of cocaine, ecstasy and the human growth hormone (HGH).

On March 5, 2012, Dykstra was sentenced to three years in prison. Dykstra was released from the federal penitentiary in Victorville, California in July 2013 after serving six and one-half months of his sentence. Arguably though, one of his most biggest crimes just happened.

Dykstra, who coincidentally is trying to garner press for a promised tell-all book, was recently Fox Sports where he told a gobsmacked Colin Cowherd …

“Their blood is just as red as ours. Some of them like women, some of them like men, some of them gamble,” said Dykstra. He then imagined a scenario in which he asked the umpire if he “covered the spread last night” after a called strike, then the strike zone shrunk to his advantage. It wasn’t a coincidence that I led the league in walks the next few years. “I had to do what I had to do to win, and to support my family.”

And one more thing, Lenny …

Tags: gays in sports, homophobia, Lenny Dykstra