This guy...

quote:

---

In an interview Tuesday with Fox's Colin Cowherd on "The Herd," Dykstra revealed that in 1993, investigators were given a budget of $500,000 to turn up information on umpires that he could then use to strong-arm the umps into calling a more favorable strike zone for him.

"Their blood's just as red as ours," Dykstra said, as quoted in The New York Daily News. "Some of them like women, some of them like men, some of them gamble, some of them do whatever."

He claimed in the interview that his blackmail attempts correlated closely with the fact that he led the National League in walks, hits and runs that season, in addition to finishing second to Barry Bonds for most valuable player and leading Philadelphia to the World Series.

---

quote:

---

"It wasn't a coincidence, you think, [that] I led the league in walks the next few years, was it?" asked Dykstra, who signed a multiyear contract worth almost $25 million after the season. That deal made him baseball's highest-paid leadoff batter.

"Fear does a lot to a man. ... I had to do what I had to do to win and to support my family," he said.

---

Link to full article

"Pete Rose, Line 1..."

He enjoyed a small pinch of chaw every now and again.

Chaw! The best!

Sounds like he's planting seeds for a tell all book because he's broke.

Back then, the leagues had separate umpire staffs. There were at least 7, probably 8, crews and an additional half dozen vacation and fill-in umpires. That's 33-38 or so, almost all of which he'd have to blackmail to have any REAL affect on his plate appearances. That is very unlikely.

Besides, there is nothing Dykstra knew about the umpires that all other national league players didn't know as well. They stayed at the same hotels and drank together.

The girl sitting down at the table behind Dykstra is hot

quote:

---

He enjoyed a small pinch of chaw every now and again.

---

I think I remember reading that after they pulled up the turf at the Vet before it was torn down, the cement beneath CF was stained from his spit

lifetime ban

He's a nut job.

quote:

---

lifetime ban

---

Agree. Call him on it and ban him.