Former Major League Baseball Player Brags He Paid Investigators So He Could Blackmail Gay Umpires

Lenny Dykstra says he spent a half million dollars on private investigators so he could blackmail umpires and force them to give him more generous calls.

Lenny Dykstra was a star Major League Baseball center fielder in the 1980’s and 1990’s, playing for the NY Mets and the Philadelphia Phillies. 

On Tuesday Dykstra bragged that he spent $500,000 on private investigators to dig up information on umpires, which he would use to threaten and blackmail them so he could get better calls. And he didn’t discriminate. Dykstra admitted to targeting closeted gay umpires, or married men having extramarital affairs with women, or umpires who gambled. 

“Their blood is just as red as ours,” Dykstra said. “Some of them like women, some of them like men, some of them gamble. Some of them do whatever.”

“I had to do what I had to do to win,” he told Fox Sports’ Colin Cowherd “and to support my family.”

“Fear does a lot to a man,” Dykstra said, explaining it was a very effective tactic.

“It wasn’t a coincidence that I led the league in walks the next few years, was it?”

Calling it a “disgusting display,” Outsports’ Cyd Zeigler writes, “I’m not sure what is lower: Invading the private lives of men whom he should have viewed as his colleagues and then blackmailing them, or then using your children and wife as a shield to keep naysayers at bay.”

Zeigler notes that “Dave Pallone and Dale Scott were closeted gay umpires in the Major Leagues while Dysktra was playing.”

Sports Illustrated adds Dykstra “was a World Series champion with the Mets in 1986, and a three-time All-Star while with the Phillies.”

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Image: Screenshot via Herd w/Colin Cowherd/Twitter