Former major league outfielder Lenny Dykstra had a stroke this week and is recovering at a Los Angeles hospital, the New York Post reported Thursday.
The Post reported that Darryl Strawberry and Kevin Mitchell, teammates of Dykstra on the New York Mets, said Dykstra was in good spirits and set to undergo further evaluation at UCLA Medical Center.
The former players said Dykstra had been moved out of intensive care. Mitchell told the Post that Dykstra would likely be hospitalized into next week.
“He’s laying down, but he is being Lenny,” Mitchell told the Post. “We get to an age now where we have got to take care of ourselves. I told him he has to take more care of himself. You can’t let stress bother you. He’s been through a lot. I love him with all my heart.”
Dykstra, 61, was on the 1986 Mets championship team with Strawberry and Mitchell and played for New York from 1985-89 before being traded to the Philadelphia Phillies.
In 1993, Dykstra was runner-up for National League MVP honors as the Phillies reached the World Series before losing to the Toronto Blue Jays on Joe Carter’s series-ending walk-off homer.
In 12 major league seasons (1985-96), Dykstra batted .285 with 81 homers, 404 RBIs and 285 steals in 1,278 games.
Since his career ended, Dykstra has been in trouble and spent 6½ months in jail over 2012-13 because of bankruptcy fraud, money laundering, grand theft auto and false financial statements charges. Among other incidents was a threat by Dykstra to kill an Uber driver in 2018. Those charges were later dropped.
Strawberry defended Dykstra to the Post.
“He’s a special friend and I will never turn my back on him and say negative things about him because his life has had some challenges. We’ve all had challenges,” Strawberry said.
“I think a lot of times people look at a person and say, ‘Look at what happened to him.’ It’s not for us to judge people. If you are not trying to help the situation it’s better to not say anything. That is clearly what I believe.”