Mickey Callaway’s in-game decision making isn’t the only
thing leaving Mets’ fans heads spinning.
Apparently a war of words could land two former Mets in
court, as controversial outfielder Lenny Dykstra said he would sue former Mets
pitcher and current broadcaster Ron Darling for slander.
In a new book authored by Darling, titled: “108 Stitches:
Loose Threads, Ripping Yarns, and the Darndest Characters from My Time in the
Game,” Darling claims that in Game 3 of the 1986 World Series Dykstra was
cursing out Red Sox starter Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd with a barrage of racial
epithets that Darling called, “the ugliest piece of vitriol I ever heard.”
Darling calls Dykstra a “thug” and an “a-hole,” and labeled the
barrage as one of the “most shameful moments I ever experienced in the game,”
adding he regrets not doing anything about it.
Darling writes: “I
don’t want to commemorate this dark, low moment in Mets history in that way,
but I will say that it was the worst collection of taunts and insults I’d ever
heard — worse, I’m betting, than anything Jackie Robinson might have heard, his
first couple times around the league.
“And yet whatever
Lenny shouted at Oil Can out there on the mound that night might have had the
desired effect, because Dennis looked rattled.”
In response,
Dykstra took to ESPN’s Michael Kay Show and promised to sue Darling for
creating “lies” to “try to sell a book.”
Ironically, Darling
was on the other NY sports talk show, Mike’s On with Mike Francesa and
continued his critique of his former teammate.
“In those
days, and if you read the whole paragraph, Lenny had a way about him. He was a
little crazy … The world has changed. What was said 33 years ago in a
fraternity of young men trying to play a sport, as you look back on it when
you’re 57 or 58 years old, you’re kind of ashamed of the complicity of yourself
to these kind of things … in those days people tried to rile each other in a
lot of different ways, you hoped it didn’t happen that way.”
Guess
there won’t be a nice reunion when these two see each other again.
Comments