Dykstra Discusses Carwashing, Other Ventures

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. -- The cell phone rings. "Dude," Lenny Dykstra says. "Do I know you?" We had arrived unnanounced at the Lenny Dykstra Car Wash looking for a rental car rinse and an interview with the former Mets postseason hero. A manager says Dykstra will call. When he does, he laughs. "You're Pearl Harboring me?' he says. "Dude, I like that. It shows guts. Come up to my office. Just two rules, man: No questions about steroids or my partying days."

When we enter the office, we realize Dykstra, now 43, has been watching us the whole time. From his paneled office, with the lights off and the wooden blinds opened only in slits, he watches it all, either from the large window that overlooks the final wipe-down area or on the television next to his desk. That screen is divided into 16 panels -- 16 closed-circuit eyes on this location, his other carwashes and his home.

"In the past, people have tried to take advantage of me," he says. "Some have stolen from me. I've had business partners and family members stealing. I mean, what do you think, I won't find out? Do they think I'm stupid?"

Actually, they probably did. And they weren't alone. Bring that 1986 picture of Dykstra into focus: He is a cocky, trash-talking kid playing center field for the Mets. He has a wad of tobacco bigger than a catcher's mitt in his cheek. He is the symbol of the Mets in the 1980s: a guy with a big mouth and the game to back it up.

Then, everyone around him would have said he wasn't the tightest stitched baseball in the ump's pocket. But from a clubhouse that included Ivy League-educated pitcher Ron Darling, soft-spoken and reflective left-hander Bob Ojeda, cunning first baseman Keith Hernandez and camera-loving catcher Gary Carter, Nails has emerged as wealthy and savvy as any of them.

Now the man they called Nails is an entrepreneur, worth millions more than when he was the sixth-highest-paid player in the game. He owns a string of carwashes. He is dabbling in corporate real estate. He says he has devised a system of option-playing to outsmart the stock market.

"Lenny met my sister when he was playing Double-A ball in Jackson, Miss.," brother-in-law Keith Peel says. "We thought what everybody thought. Don't get me wrong: We loved Lenny. But when he said he was going to play in the majors, we said, 'Sure, sure.' He was a little runt."

Peel then holds his hand waist high, pauses, and moves it above his head.
"When it comes to smarts, everybody thought he was down here," Peel says. "But he was really way up here."

The carwash campus is immaculate, and it includes a cul-de-sac of squeaky clean buildings: a handful of bays form Dykstra's quick-lube business, a large garage houses a detailing operation, another is used for the installation of car toys, like DVD players and navigational systems. The buildings are being remodeled, and Dykstra is sparing no expense.

"A money pit," he joked.

He is washing 1,000 cars a day on the weekend. And every few minutes the land in Simi Valley climbs in value. Cha-ching. Cha-ching. As a free agent, Dykstra took the Phillies' $27 million and invested wisely.

Between the oil change bays and the detailing business is a lounge, with flat screen TVs. One was tuned into Bloomberg, the other a football game. Dykstra soon will provide his customers with wireless Internet and Dell laptops, in case they want to bang out a few e-mails while they wait. The laptops haven't arrived yet, and it's killing him, because he wants to show his visitors the new toys.

So, he launched the Internet on the billing computer, called up the Dell Web site and pointed to the model he ordered: the XPS M1710, which runs about $2,500 a pop.

"They're monsters, dude," he said.

But they're just part of the empire. In the lobby of the carwash, there is a trophy case with sports memorabilia, including photos and some of his jerseys and a miniature world championship trophy from the 1986 Mets. Fish swim in a large aquarium. You can buy anything from air fresheners to floor mats to greeting cards and knick-knacks, ice cream bars and soda. The place is spotless.

Outside, customers sit on a beautiful stone patio. Music is piped in. There is a rock formation with a waterfall. Workers have just installed granite floors in the detailing center. Dykstra likes them, but doesn't like that the job is still unfinished. He gripes about that. He points at a small patch of brown grass at the base of a palm tree and orders it restored. Everywhere he goes, he spots something he doesn't like and assigns an employee to fix it. Wipe this, Polish that. Pick that up.

When he thinks the wipe-down guys are slacking, the guy who always hustled calls Ricardo on the cell phone.

"They're human Xanax," he barks. "Get them hustling. They're human sleeping pills. Look at 'em all, dude. They're all dreary. It's misery. Nothing is happening. No one is moving. We're all falling asleep watching them."
It's easy to see why people have underestimated him. Even now, years later, the words still crawl from his mouth. Check that. They don't crawl. They awaken, sit on the edge of his tongue, stretch and yawn and then exit his mouth. Jose Reyes could go first to third on one Dykstra syllable.
But if the words only trickle out, the ideas come fast and furious.

"You have to be ready for anything with Lenny," Peel says.

One day not so long ago, Dykstra decided he wanted out of the car repair business. So he canned the mechanics and turned the bays into his oil change business. Leftover space went toward the installation of stereos and DVD players. There was too much conflict in auto repairs.

"When they would get hit with a big bill, they acted like they had just lost their life savings in Vegas," Dykstra said.

Said Peel: "Lenny wants to do happy stuff. Even when the mechanic is totally honest, people still feel like they're getting ripped off. Lenny couldn't stand that."

Meanwhile, Dykstra was talking to oil change customers. He tells everyone who will listen that Castrol's synthetic oil is the best they can buy.
"It doesn't come out of the ground, man," he says. "It's made in a lab, by scientists, the smartest people on earth. Which would you rather put in your car -- something we pulled from the earth or something specifically designed for you car?"

By the time he's finished, they think he's a genius. He is launching other ideas. Some are big, like The Players Club, a financial vehicle to protect athletes with virtually risk-free investment income when they retire. Some are small, like his landscaping business that employs the overflow of Hispanics that come to the carwash looking for jobs.

"Almost every day he comes in here with something new," Peel said.
There are a couple of things that still get Dykstra's juices flowing. One is coffee, which he drinks continuously. Into each cup, he pours a mountain of powdered creamer. He scoffs at caffeine-free drinks.

The other is the stock market. For a while, he wrote "Nails on Numbers," a column on TheStreet.com. Imagine that: Lenny Dykstra, stock wiz. Web site owner Jim Cramer said Dykstra "plays the market with the same enthusiasm he played baseball, which is a total blast to watch. I think the guy comes to play everyday."

These days, Dykstra is trading only for himself. He says he is making big money by trading options on ignored companies with sound financials. Within minutes, he is talking about price-to-earnings ratios, contracts, debt and debt-to-equity ratios, and again we find ourselves thinking, "This is Lenny Dykstra?"

He calls up his personal finance page on Yahoo! and invites us to look at the scoreboard. There are far more winners than losers. He pulls out spreadsheets on the carwashes. Dykstra likes to keep score, and, just like in baseball, he can do that in business and the stock market.

At times like this, he doesn't sound like Lenny. But in minutes he is Nails again, describing parties thrown by Wayne Gretzky, his neighbor, or telling the story of how he needed a better mortgage, so he walked down the street and banged on the door of Countrywide Mortgage COO Angelo Mozilo.

"He answered the door and I said, 'Dude, I'm in a bad deal.' I didn't know the guy," Dykstra said. "But he took care of me. He locked me in at 5.5, dude. He's cool. He gets all the free carwashes he wants."

Like everything else, Dykstra keeps an eye on the Mets. Two years ago, in spring training, he spent time teaching Reyes how to be a leadoff hitter. When he talks baseball, people are sure he knows what he's talking about.
"I was a punk when I played," Dykstra said. "Things change. People underestimated me. But that's how I set up pitchers, man. They thought they could outsmart me, too."

He recalls John Smoltz's near no-hitter, which Dykstra, then with the Phillies, broke up with a one-out double in the ninth inning.

"He tried to sneak the cheese (fastball) by me," Dykstra said. "I knew he would try that. So, I'm at second and I'm down there retying my shoelace and I'm laughing to myself and thinking, 'Outsmarted 'em again.'"

Source: The Star-Ledger 

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