Former Baseball Stars Who Are Surprisingly Poor

Publish date: 2024-05-08

Younger readers who aren't fans of the Philadelphia Phillies or New York Mets may know Lenny Dykstra more for his post-career exploits than for anything that he achieved on baseball diamonds. From 1985 through 1996, the three-time All-Star who was part of the 1986 Mets squad that beat the Boston Red Sox in the World Series, spent 12 seasons in the Big Leagues, and he went to become, as CNN described it, "a successful self-taught investor."

But the public eventually learned such successes allegedly weren't on the level. In March 2009, GQ published a piece written by photographer and photo editor Kevin Coughlin in which he accused Dykstra of credit card fraud and bouncing checks, among other things. That summer, Dykstra filed for bankruptcy.

Dykstra earned two different prison sentences in 2012. Per Reuters, he received three years behind bars following a no contest plea to grand theft auto charges. As reported by CNN, he was given 6.5 months in federal custody in December of that same year after he pled guilty to bankruptcy fraud, concealment of assets, and money laundering. The once-beloved baseball figure failed to avoid trouble after his release from prison. According to the Associated Press, he was indicted on multiple charges in 2018 regarding an incident with an Uber driver. While he was cleared in March 2019, he told NJ.com that case cost him "millions of dollars" because of a canceled deal with Amazon that included a reality-television show.

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