When I was a kid, Lenny Dykstra was a baseball phenom. Small, but he could hit like hell and he fielded with reckless abandon. I liked him a lot. Always with that big ole cheek full of chewing tobacco, he epitomized the over-achiever. Turns out, he's great in business, too.
Brash. Opinionated. Smart. Caring. Those are the words that came to mind when I read this story: The Sporting Scene: Nails Never Fails: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker.
He's now trying to give back. His biggest endeavor at the moment is creating the Players Club magazine. In it, he hopes to guide athletes down the path of continued riches, rather than down the path many of them seem to take, like Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson.
Even giving back, Dykstra is abrasive. But it works. Tough love? You be the judge. Speaking of pro athletes:
"You’ve got the ten per cent who are going to find their way no matter what,” Dykstra said of the athlete population. “And you get the ten per cent that are f---heads no matter what—we’ll paste an ‘L’ to ’em.” The rest need guidance, and Dykstra, who will write a regular column called “The Game of Life,” is prepared to give it. “This will be the world’s best magazine,” he said.Give 'em hell, Lenny!
