Pro athletes often seem uniquely poised for epic declarations of bankruptcy, but baseball legend Lenny Dykstra is giving other sports figures a run for their money (so to speak).
Former Mets and Phillies slugger Dykstra filed for bankruptcy last week with reported assets totaling $50,000, despite claiming in April that he was worth $60 million.
According to the Los Angeles Times:
In the bankruptcy petition he said he owes JPMorgan Chase & Co. $12.9 million and Bank of America Corp.’s Countrywide and credit-card units a combined $4.2 million, according to Bloomberg News.
Dykstra also owes almost $1 million to jet charter services, about $342,000 to celebrity lawyer Daniel Petrocelli and $229,000 to literary agent David Vigliano, Bloomberg said.
Dykstra may have played an instrumental role in the Mets’ 1986 World Series win, but his financial endeavors have yielded few home runs. ESPN.com profiled his “business acumen” just three months ago. Television finance personality Jim Cramer has repeatedly hyped him as an investment savant: Dykstra will even sell you his stock picks on a website for a subscription fee of $999.95 per year.
But after years of living high on the hog, Dykstra has nothing to show for it. He purchased Wayne Gretzky’s mansion in Thousand Oaks, Calif., for $18.5 million in 2007, but his bankruptcy filing shows a combined $17.2 million in borrowing against it. He claims to own a Gulfstream II private jet, yet owes $1 million to a jet-chartering service.
Like Michael Vick, Lenny Dykstra serves as a grim reminder of how easily a fool and his money are parted — and how financial education is just as important for the filthy rich as it is for people of lesser means.
