Lenny Dykstra

LOS ANGELES - Former Phillies and New York Mets star and financial guru Lenny Dykstra was sentenced to three years in state prison on Monday, after a judge rejected a last-ditch effort to change his no contest plea and fight the charges. Dykstra, who faced up to a four-year sentence, must serve his time in state prison. He had pleaded no contest to grand theft auto and filing a false financial statement in connection with a scheme to use somebody else's paperwork to steal or lease several new cars, according to court records.

Did the baseball strike torture anyone more thoroughly than Lenny Dykstra? The missed paychecks and months of inactivity clawed at the Phillies' restless centerfielder, forced him to question his loyalties. Surely it would be a transforming experience. Surely he would be a changed man when it ended. Yeah, and Kato Kaelin enrolled at the Sorbonne minutes after leaving the witness stand. Once a Dude, apparently, always a Dude. "Hey, Joey, bring me a cup of coffee, will you?" Dykstra yelled good- naturedly at assistant equipment manager Joe Dunn shortly after bopping into the Phillies' locker room yesterday for the first time in nearly eight months.

For the Phillies, the signs of hard times are everywhere this gloomy August. Except for the standings, however, few signs are as revealing as this one: The number of players the Phils have used this season (46) is rapidly approaching the number of games they have won (49). Outfielder Braulio Castillo became the 46th Phillie yesterday when he was summoned from Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to replace the injured Lenny Dykstra on the roster. The 24-year-old Castillo was en route from Richmond, Va., where the Red Barons were playing, to Philadelphia when last night's Phillies-Reds game became the Phils' third rainout in a week.

Terry Francona was the picture of cool as he kicked back in his office chair for his daily meeting with reporters yesterday morning. The Phillies' manager casually breezed through a few early questions, the answers rolling off his tongue freely and easily. His relaxed demeanor changed, however, when the center-field battle between Lenny Dykstra and Doug Glanville was brought up. Suddenly, his smiling face was clenched as tightly as a fist. He picked up a black pen and began doodling nervously on a yellow legal pad. He squeezed that pen tighter and tighter with each question.

Life isn't easy when you're The Run Machine. When you roll those runs off the assembly line the way Lenny Dykstra has this year, people come to expect things, you see. They don't expect there are ever going to be nights like Monday - when The Run Machine went 0 for 6, when The Run Machine failed to score for the third game in a row, when the Phillies (not coincidentally) failed to win for the third game in a row. They don't expect stuff like that from Lenny Dykstra anymore.

A simple handshake and some baseball chat with a ballplayer has become a complicated legal issue for Chester County Court Judge Robert Shenkin, who presided over a zoning appeal filed by Lenny Dykstra for a proposed car wash. The few minutes of conversation followed a hearing last Tuesday in Chester County Court. Reports about it incited neighbors of the proposed Tredyffrin car wash to call upon the judge to remove himself from the case. Members of the Old Forge Crossing Condominium Association oppose the car wash.

Numbers go only so far. According to the calculator, each of the 162 games on a major-league team's schedule counts for six-tenths of 1 percent of the regular season. That's the math. The truth is, every season is punctuated by games that mean a whole lot more than that. The Phillies' 7-2 loss to the Dodgers on Saturday night was one of those games. It was the Phillies' third straight loss, for one thing; it dropped them below .500 (20-21) for the first time since April 23, when they were 9-10.

John Kruk admits that the 1993 Phillies swung for the fences when it came to partying. But steroids? "If someone was using steroids on that team, they were awfully quiet about it," the former Macho Row stalwart said by telephone yesterday, a day after the Los Angeles Times reported allegations of steroid use and baseball-related gambling activity by former teammate Lenny Dykstra. "If someone was using steroids, they hid it really well. I never heard it spoken about and I never saw it. "Let me tell you, we partied hard on that team.

After 18 months of waiting, Phillies outfielder Lenny Dykstra has encountered another roadblock to the construction of a much-disputed car wash in Devon. In an executive session last week, township supervisors voted, 7-2, to appeal Chester County Court Judge Robert Shenkin's decision of June 30 to allow Dykstra to build the car wash at Valley Forge and Swedesford Roads. Shenkin's ruling, which contained restrictions that the township could impose on the car wash, overturned the township zoning board's December 1995 decision to deny Dykstra the variances he needs to go ahead with his plans.

Phillies centerfielder Lenny Dykstra has sued a Chester County woman he hired to decorate a home he almost purchased, demanding that she return money he gave her before the deal fell apart. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Montgomery County Court, seeks the return of more than $30,000 of the $50,000 Dykstra gave Barbara F. Woelke, an interior designer in Paoli. The money, deposited into an escrow account in February 1994, was to cover Woelke's services in revamping a house on Wrenfield Way in Villanova that Dykstra had agreed to purchase.

FORMER PHILLIES outfielder Lenny Dykstra pleaded no contest to charges of lewd conduct and assault with a deadly weapon related to sexual misconduct with women who responded to ads he placed for housekeeping on Craigslist, the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office said Wednesday. Dykstra, 48, was sentenced to 9 months in the county jail and 3 years' probation. He also was ordered to stay away from five victims and told not to "solicit" on Craigslist or other social networking sites.

SAN FERNANDO, CALIF. - Disgraced ex-Phillies outfielder Lenny Dykstra was sentenced yesterday to three years in a California state prison after pleading no contest to grand-theft auto and providing a false financial statement. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Cynthia Ulfig sentenced Dykstra after refusing to allow him to withdraw his plea and said the scam to lease high-end automobiles from dealerships by providing fraudulent information and by claiming credit through a phony business showed sophistication and extensive planning.

LOS ANGELES - Former Phillies and New York Mets star and financial guru Lenny Dykstra was sentenced to three years in state prison on Monday, after a judge rejected a last-ditch effort to change his no contest plea and fight the charges. Dykstra, who faced up to a four-year sentence, must serve his time in state prison. He had pleaded no contest to grand theft auto and filing a false financial statement in connection with a scheme to use somebody else's paperwork to steal or lease several new cars, according to court records.

Mike Trout played 40 games in the majors last summer, then spent the winter at home in Millville, N.J., working in a batting cage. After the Angels' first full-squad workout on Monday, manager Mike Sciosca said he wouldn't rule out Trout's making the team out of spring training. "You always got to think you can win a job," Trout told Yahoo Sports, "but it's still up in the air right now. If they put me in [triple-A] Salt Lake, wherever they want me . . . I'm still young.

Moneyball was born as the 1993 Phillies were dying. Billy Beane, the general manager and now part-owner of the Oakland A's - who developed the statistically based system of player analysis out of financial necessity - told a Villanova Law School symposium Friday that his successful philosophy was inspired by the surprising success of that Phillies team. "I was right here in Philadelphia watching the World Series [which the Phils lost to Toronto]," said Beane, who was part of a panel discussing "Moneyball's Impact on Business and Sports.

You hear it all the time. Philly likes its heroes dirty. We like our idols to wear their hearts on their sleeves, to show some emotion, tell a funny tale afterward, maybe even make an incendiary comment now and then. Do a face-plant into a wall as Aaron Rowand once did; play on two bad knees the way Dutch Daulton did; spit a wad of who-knows-what between your cheek and gum as you round third as Lenny Dykstra once did, and we'll understand when you bypass the autograph line on your way to the dugout every day. Take your beatings with no complaint or regret the way Michael Vick has, we might even work harder to forget your past.

Who: Sex specialist and group therapy leader on "Bad Sex," a new series from Logo that deals with the most personal of addictions, phobias and obsessions. Airs Fridays at 9 p.m. Age: 34. Where from: Westtown. Where now: Los Angeles. Job: He's a therapist who specializes in sexual compulsivity and addiction, and mood and intimacy disorders, both in private practice and at L.A.'s Hills Treatment Center (sometime home of Lenny Dykstra). Donaghue calls his field "very unresearched and understudied.

WHERE'S a professional athlete who's gone broke and facing criminal charges to turn? If you're a loyal reader, you know there is only one answer: Celebrity Boxing Federation promoter Damon Feldman . Embattled ex-Phillies star Lenny Dykstra will take on Jose Canseco in Alki David's Celebrity Fight Night, featuring a Battle of the Baseball Bad Boys, at the Avalon Concert Hall, in Hollywood. The fight, at 9 p.m. Saturday, will be streaming online at FilmOn.com and, according to Feldman, will also be available on pay-per-view TV through Comcast and other providers.

FORMER Phillies star Lenny Dykstra has been released from state prison in California after reaching a plea agreement in a car theft and drug case. Yesterday in San Fernando, Calif., Dykstra pleaded no contest to three counts of grand theft auto and one count of filing a false financial statement with a value of more than $100,000. Dykstra is scheduled for sentencing Jan. 20. As part of the plea deal, he faces up to 4 years in state prison. With Judge Cynthia Ulfig's decision to release him, Dykstra reverts to being out on bail in his federal case.

Former Phillies centerfielder Lenny Dykstra, already facing legal troubles involving his failed financial ventures, was charged yesterday with two counts of indecent exposure involving several women responding to advertisements he placed on Craigslist, according to the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office. If convicted, Dykstra, 48, could face up to 6 months in jail and a $1,000 fine for each count. Arraignment is scheduled for Sept. 7 in Los Angeles Superior Court. According to prosecutors, Dykstra placed ads on the website requesting personal assistant or housekeeping services.