LENNY Dykstra’s legal battles have entered a new inning.
The former big-league ballplayer known as “Nails” is involved in yet another squabble over money, this time with high-powered New York literary agent David Vigliano, who claims he lent Dykstra $250,000 last May with an agreement Dykstra would pay him $300,000 by early November.
According to the lawsuit, Vigliano was to receive a $300,000 payment after Dykstra sold some $23 million in notes tied to his former car wash franchise businesses.
Vigliano claims he kept a $106,000 book advance that was supposed to go to Dykstra. As a result, the ex-ballplayer owes the literary agent $194,000.
The advance was part of a deal that Vigliano said he secured for Dykstra to write a book about the financial advice he dispenses in a column on the financial Web site Thestreet.com. Sources say Dykstra never got around to writing the book or delivering a manuscript.
Back in the days when he was still getting favorable press, Dykstra boasted that he had made $60 million since ending his playing days with the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies.
But it’s been all downhill since his appearance last year as a presenter at the National Magazine Awards, when, donned in tuxedo, he said he hoped to be accepting one of the prestigious awards one day.
Dykstra has been slammed with lawsuits over failed magazine-publishing deals, back pay to former employees and payments owed to accountants and landlords.
Dykstra did not return several calls for comment on the latest claim.
Going tabloid
The Chicago Tribune, the flagship newspaper of Sam Zell’s Tribune Co., said it will begin publishing a tabloid-size version of itself for newsstand sales in the Windy City, even as it continues to deliver the standard broadsheet version to home-delivery customers.
Though Tribune Co. filed for bankruptcy late last year, Zell is still apparently willing to gamble that such a move will help boost newsstand sales, which account for about 9 percent, or 46,495 copies, of the Tribune’s average paid week-day circulation of 516,032.
Its tabloid rival, the Sun-Times, sold 186,626 copies on the street, out of its total circulation of 313,176.
Dimming star
American Media isn’t out of the woods yet.
The embattled publisher of Star magazine, The National Enquirer, Shape and Men’s Fitness, has once again gotten an extension to try to work out a deal to turn over control of the company to bondholders and avoid bankruptcy or liquidation.
The new deadline to work out an agreement is 11:59 p.m. on Jan. 26, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
The company is already in default on its $413 million in outstanding corporate bonds.
“It’s only a matter of time before the bondholders take over,” said one source.
But even that is not a lock.
In its latest filing, the company warned, “Given the continued weakness of the credit markets, there can be no assurance that the company can refinance its existing notes or obtain the additional capital necessary to satisfy its short-term cash needs on satisfactory terms.”
If the bondholders demand payment on that debt, the company warned, “the company may have to liquidate assets on unfavorable terms or be unable to continue as a going concern and incur additional costs associated with bankruptcy.”
As CEO David Pecker negotiates around-the-clock to save his job and his company, he is apparently still cutting staff.
But how many were cut is a mystery.
One source said that the count went as high as 75 last Friday – about 10 percent of the workforce. But a company spokesman insisted only eight or nine people were cut.
Among them is Country Weekly Publisher Marie Wolpert and Jeff Kimmel, Men’s Fitness’ ad director.
At least four of the cuts were at Star.
“Everything is being done very quietly,” said one source close to the company. “It’s never a massive layoff, but it probably rolls up to around 75.”
Country Weekly is also going to drop all 300,000 subscribers and instead become a newsstand-only title with a circulation of about 75,000. The newsstand price will be cut, and the 15-year-old magazine, which was published bi-weekly, will return to being a weekly.
Separately, the company on Jan. 9 issued its quar terly earnings report for the three months ended Sept. 30, about two months later than it was supposed to file.
In that report, the company said it posted a $623,000 profit, com pared with a year- earlier net loss of $17.8 million. Revenue slipped to $128.8 million from $131.9 million. keith.kelly@nypost.com