A Cocaine Car Wash

Welcome back to the Bill Bradley Collective, where this week as part of to our season-long theme of criminal justice in sports we deep-dive the life and crimes of baseball ne’er do well, Lenny Dykstra. Coming to you from the intersection of the BBCollective and E! True Hollywood Story, “Nails’” footprint in our sporting culture is one of both brief on-field excellence and protracted off-field delinquency. Born into the great cocaine and ego-fueled Mets’ of the mid-to-late ‘80s and later the overachieving Phillies of the early-‘90s, Dykstra’s baseball career excels and declines as a product of injury and platoon, while off the field it is, to paraphrase Zak’s hopeful conquering hero of Florham Park: all gas, no brakes. Dykstra’s post-career rap sheet is one that would make some of the 20th century’s most esteemed gangsters blush. A supremely accomplished con-artist and white-collar criminal par excellence, Dysktra’s offenses run a proverbial gauntlet: sexual assault/harassment amok, drug abuse and DWI, economic impropriety and fraud, racial abuse, and on and on we go. And yet, Lenny Dykstra remains welcome on Howard Stern’s airwaves and in the Barstool media sphere. Criminal justice, the cult of white blue-collar celebrity, and the fallacy of accountability: It is all this week, on the Bill Bradley Collective.