A new book about Lenny Dykstra’s financial history reportedly includes the former Mets center fielder’s first admission that he used steroids while in the major leagues.
“I was like a pioneer for that stuff … The juice. I was like the very first to do that. Me and [Jose] Canseco,” Dykstra says in the book “The Zeroes: My Misadventures in the Decade Wall Street Went Insane,” written by Randall Lane.
Philly.com reports Dykstra, who won a World Series with the Mets in 1986, started using performance enhancers during his time with the Phillies. He confessed to Lane while watching Roger Clemens’ testimony to Congress in 2008.
“At first it wasn’t even illegal. Then, after a few years, I had to go to a doctor, and get a prescription,” Dykstra says in a book excerpt. “You know how I got my stuff? Just walking into a pharmacy, bro. It was as simple as that.”
After helping the Phillies to the 1993 World Series, where they lost to the Blue Jays, Dykstra signed a four-year, $24.9 million contract extension, the Philly.com report says. He did not play another full season after that.
Dykstra, now under scrutiny for a stock picking scandal, told Lane, “So I needed to do anything I could to protect my job, take care of my family. Do you have any idea how much money was at stake? Do you?”
Lane concludes: “What Lenny Dykstra really did, by his own admission, was steal $25 million. He had duped the Phillies into that contract based on a completely manufactured performance. But he didn’t view it that way.”