Lenny Dykstra is trying to rebuild his life at 63. He says it starts with finding ‘the best teammate ever.’

SCRANTON — On March 8, Nails found God.

Barefoot, dressed in a Baltimore Ravens short-sleeved T-shirt and black sweatpants, former Phillies center fielder and 1993 World Series spark plug Lenny Dykstra — nicknamed “Nails” during his playing days for his bulldozing style on and off the diamond — let his body go limp. Steamtown Church pastor Dennis D’Augostine then dunked the three-time Phillies All-Star backward into a Jacuzzi-size pool of holy water while the congregation behind them applauded and cheered.

“I got the best teammate ever now. That teammate is God, you know?” Dykstra, a Scranton resident for several years, told The Inquirer in a phone interview 10 days after his first baptism. “I’ve had a lot of good things happen in my life. This is something I’m most proud of.”

A wild child during his 12-year major league career whose post-playing days read like a tabloid reality show — business deals gone sour, divorce, legal woes, bankruptcy, prison time, family strife, pitchman for a Manhattan strip club, even an aborted “celebrity” boxing bout — Dykstra is trying to reconfigure his life at age 63.

He is a few months removed from a New Year’s Eve arrest, when he was charged with two misdemeanor drug counts after a traffic stop in a remote stretch of northeastern Pennsylvania. Dykstra waived a preliminary hearing on the charges during a brief March 31 court hearing, and the matter is now in Pike County Court.

Though Dykstra declined to comment on his legal matter on advice of his legal counsel, one of his attorneys, Thomas Mincer, told The Inquirer that he has had positive ongoing discussions with District Attorney Ray Tonkin and assistant DA Dave Marra and that “both [sides] believe the matter will be resolved without going to trial,” signaling a possible plea deal.

Dykstra is also newly sober, according to D’Augostine. The pastor said Dykstra entered a rehab facility in early January and completed a 75-day program. It’s his longest stay in a treatment facility, and Dykstra continues to attend regular Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings.

The 2026 Lenny Dykstra says he’s finished with his past profligate lifestyle. He says he’s done with the drug and alcohol abuse that characterized his time with the hard-partying 1980s Mets and 1990s Phillies teams and, later, his post-baseball life. No more womanizing.

He says he has jettisoned the gluttonous personality traits — he once bought NHL legend Wayne Gretzky’s California mansion for a reported $18.5 million, drove a Rolls-Royce, launched a glitzy magazine, and traded stock tips with CNBC’s Jim Cramer — that ultimately helped sink his marriage and his relationship with his family, and contributed to stints in state and federal prison, among numerous setbacks that stretch back decades.

“That lifestyle is over. I don’t have to say it. We all know it,” Dykstra said. “That’s not the way to live. I’m blessed to have great, great people in my life now. It’s up to me to go forward and get better. I’m in it to win this time.”

Nails was headed to a party.

According to testimony by Pennsylvania State Trooper Kody Nowicki and a criminal complaint, fellow Scranton resident Kevin Zelna was behind the wheel of a GMC Sierra on New Year’s Eve 2025, while Dykstra was in the passenger seat. The two men were headed north on Route 507 in Pike County when the vehicle was stopped by Nowicki around 8:16 p.m.

Zelna, 38, failed to stay in his lane, prompting Nowicki to activate his emergency lights and siren, according to the criminal complaint. Zelna was eventually placed in handcuffs at the scene, but not before he resisted arrest and was “flailing on the ground,” according to Nowicki’s testimony at a court hearing. Zelna was charged with 19 counts, including driving under the influence and use of drug paraphernalia, both misdemeanors.

Dykstra remained seated during the stop, but when he requested to retrieve his ID and credit card from a pouch in the glove compartment, “troopers observed, in plain view, a glass smoking device and a jar/container containing suspected narcotics,” according to the criminal complaint.

Nowicki testified that the narcotics seized tested positive for crack cocaine. Because the truck was towed after the traffic stop, Dykstra was left without a ride and was “expecting to go to a party,” according to Nowicki’s testimony.

Dykstra’s attorney Mincer released a statement Jan. 6 that said, in part, “the alleged narcotics in the vehicle did not belong to Lenny” and added that Dykstra “is currently recovering from a serious stroke.” (Dykstra suffered a stroke in 2024.)

“Lenny was not knowingly in possession of or under the influence of any narcotics, had none on his person and was not taken into custody at the scene,” reads the statement from Mincer, who is based in Milford, the Pike County seat.

What remains unclear, however, is how Dykstra ended up with Zelna, who is 25 years Dykstra’s junior and who has several arrests on his record. Those close to Dykstra say Zelna is not a Dykstra friend, and Mincer said his client was “with the wrong person, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.”

During Dykstra’s March 31 court appearance in Pike County, the ex-Phillie said little other than agreeing to waive the hearing. Judge Randy Schmalzle released Dykstra on his own recognizance.

Dykstra’s legal issue comes almost 35 years after another traffic incident, when a drunken Dykstra drove his Mercedes sports car into a tree on Darby Paoli Road in the Main Line suburbs, and nearly killed himself and passenger Darren Daulton, the late former Phillies catcher.

Early that morning of May 6, 1991 — an off day for the Phillies — the two players were returning from the bachelor party of teammate John Kruk. The Mercedes was demolished, and Dykstra suffered multiple broken bones, a bruised heart, and a punctured lung. Daulton had a scratched cornea and a fracture above his left eye.

“If they don’t go to church, they better start, because they are very lucky to be alive,” Phillip Marone, then the Phillies team physician, said of Dykstra and Daulton after the crash. (Daulton died of brain cancer in 2017.)

What could have served as the first real wake-up call for Dykstra to change his hard-charging ways instead was a mere pothole in his bull-in-a-china-shop approach to the game and life.

If they don’t go to church, they better start, because they are very lucky to be alive.

Of course, before Dykstra was traded to the Phillies in 1989, he had already reached the MLB mountaintop, winning a championship with the well-chronicled 1986 Mets, a team known as much for its players’ swagger and bacchanalian ways as for the club’s dominance on the diamond.

D’Augostine, the Steamtown Church pastor, and Dykstra’s ex-Mets teammates Howard Johnson and Darryl Strawberry are part of the inner circle of people who know Dykstra now and speak positively about him.

“Lenny has made some really good decisions,” D’Augostine said. “Unbelievably good decisions that are life-altering. He looked like a corpse when I first met him. He went from corpse to Christ.”

Strawberry has posted support for Dykstra numerous times on his Instagram account, including the video of the baptism and a recent testimonial in which he is seated beside Dykstra at Steamtown.

There is a larger list of people, however, who are less inclined to talk about “Nails.”

Many did not return calls or texts for this story (including more than a dozen former Phillies and Mets teammates; Dykstra’s ex-wife, Terri; and his son Luke) or declined to be interviewed outright.

“You want to give him advice, and tell him, ‘OK, enough’s enough. You’re getting older.’ But Lenny’s Lenny. Lenny’s always been Lenny,” said Wally Backman, 66, a Dykstra teammate on both the Mets (’85-’88) and the Phillies (’91-’92) and the godfather to Dykstra’s oldest son, Cutter.

“It doesn’t really help, I don’t think,” Backman said. “I’ve said things to Lenny before, but then you see that he gets in trouble again here and there. It’s tough. You know, the ’80s was a different world. For some of those guys, they never quit partying.”

Pete Incaviglia, a member of the 1993 Phillies, added that it was “easy to write about all the off-field stuff” pertaining to Dykstra and his myriad woes.

“Nobody condones what he’s done. Still doesn’t take away what he did on the field,” said Incaviglia, 62. “If we’d have won Game 7 [of the 1993 World Series against the Blue Jays], Lenny would have been MVP. No doubt. When we took the lead [6-5 in Game 6], I thought we had a chance. But the good Lord had a different plan for us, and Joe [Carter] had a different plan for us” — hitting a walk-off home run to win the Series.

Veteran baseball columnist Bob Klapisch, now with the Newark Star-Ledger and NJ.com, was a young New York Post baseball writer who actually lived with two young Mets players during spring training in Florida in 1985. One was a first-round draft pick (current A’s executive Billy Beane) and the other a 13th-rounder (Dykstra). All three lived in a condo on St. Petersburg Beach — “Insane!” Klapisch said — and one thing was certain: Dykstra wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of playing in the majors.

“Lenny was the greatest overachiever I ever met. He was laser-focused on baseball,” said Klapisch, 68. “If you look at Billy Beane — 6-foot-4, perfect-looking athlete, first-round draft pick by the Mets, turned down a scholarship at Stanford to play quarterback to be a Met — you would think of those two, Beane was going to be the star, and Lenny was going to be a minor league washout. The exact opposite happened. Lenny wanted it so much more. He was so fiercely determined.”

Dykstra and pitcher Roger McDowell were shipped to Philly in 1989, in a lopsided trade for Juan Samuel. A year later, Dykstra graced the cover of Sports Illustrated — his signature wad of tobacco chew lodged in his cheek with the headline BAT MAN — as his midseason batting average rose above .400. Dykstra played 7½ seasons in Philly and ended his major league career there in 1996.

“Lenny knew exactly what he was going to do against an opposing pitcher,” Incaviglia said. “He would tell us, ‘Hey, I’m going to walk a couple times, steal a couple bags,’ or ‘Hey, this guy’s going to pitch me in, I’m gonna go deep today.’ I’m telling you, exactly what he said he would do is exactly what he did. He was an amazing student of the game.”

As the public would later learn, there was more than hard work behind Dykstra’s baseball success. He was named as a steroid user, along with dozens of other former and current players, in former Sen. George Mitchell’s 2007 report on baseball’s doping history.

Kirk Radomski, a former Mets clubhouse attendant and a key witness for Mitchell’s inquiry, is identified in Mitchell’s findings as Dykstra’s steroid supplier after he got to Philadelphia. (Radomski declined to comment for this story.) Dykstra confirmed his juicing days in his 2016 memoir, House of Nails: A Memoir of Life on the Edge, and also detailed his many excesses and setbacks.

Starting in the 2000s, Dykstra’s professional and personal life started to read like a train wreck on repeat. A 2009 ESPN story on Dykstra said that he was the “subject” of 24 legal actions over a two-year stretch. After Dykstra hosted a lavish Midtown Manhattan launch party for the Players Club magazine in 2008, the publication shortly folded, and dozens of its employees reportedly went unpaid.

Dykstra was charged in 2011 with exposing himself to several women who responded to his Craigslist ad. In 2012, Dykstra pleaded guilty to bankruptcy fraud, money laundering, and concealment of assets and served time in federal prison. He was released in June 2013. He also spent time in California state prison after pleading no contest to charges of grand theft auto and providing a false financial statement.

In 2020, New York Supreme Court Judge Robert D. Kalish dismissed a defamation lawsuit Dykstra had filed against former Mets teammate Ron Darling. Dykstra alleged that Darling defamed him when the former pitcher wrote in his own memoir (108 Stitches) that Dykstra had shouted racial taunts at Red Sox pitcher Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd before Game 3 of the 1986 World Series.

The cause of Dykstra’s past behavior or where it is rooted is a complicated case study, but he alluded to the weight that comes from fame and wealth during a 2016 interview with Dan Patrick to promote Dykstra’s book. Patrick asked Dykstra what it was like to serve time in prison and if Dykstra had any money left.

“That’s probably what I learned more than anything in prison,” said Dykstra. “Money became kind of my drug. It was never enough. I got some clarity in prison. It made me realize what was important and what’s not important. I think when you do something for the love of money, just like the baseball gods come and get you when you think you got baseball figured out, kind of, the life gods come get you.”

“They got ya,” said Patrick.

“In a big way, yeah,” said Dykstra.

Dykstra divorced from Terri in 2009, the same year he filed for bankruptcy.

Sons Cutter and Luke pursued professional baseball careers like their father, but neither reached the majors. Cutter, 36, advanced as high as triple-A in the Nationals’ farm system before his pro career ended in 2016. Luke, 30, made it as high as double-A ball in the Cardinals’ system. In 2018, Luke Dykstra played in the independent Atlantic League with the Sugar Land Skeeters, with Incaviglia as his manager.

» READ MORE: 30 years after Macho Row, former Phillies slugger Pete Incaviglia is enjoying the journey as indie-ball manager

Multiple sources told The Inquirer that Lenny Dykstra took Cutter’s signing bonus money — Cutter was drafted by the Brewers in 2008 — around the time Dykstra was in financial straits. But Dykstra said his relationship with his sons now is a good one, albeit a work in progress.

“I talked to Luke not too long ago. He’s a great kid. I have great kids. Terri, she’s a special woman. We know that. I take full responsibility …” Dykstra said, before trailing off. “I’m gonna do everything piece by piece.”

I talked to Luke not too long ago. He’s a great kid. I have great kids. Terri, she’s a special woman. We know that. I take full responsibility …

Dykstra said that he plans to attend the Mets’ 40th anniversary celebration of the 1986 title team Aug. 1 at Citi Field and that Cutter, his wife (Sopranos actor Jamie-Lynn Sigler), and the couple’s two young sons (Lenny’s grandsons) are scheduled to join him, as will D’Augostine and his family.

“It’s gonna be special,” Dykstra said.

Even some of Dykstra’s estranged family members are in his corner. Casey Dykstra, Lenny’s nephew, said although he has never had a relationship with his Uncle Lenny, he’s hoping that will change in time.

“I have a great relationship with my dad [Brian Dykstra, Lenny’s older brother] and my Uncle Kevin [Lenny’s younger brother] and would love to have a relationship with my Uncle Lenny, now that he has made the decision to redirect his life,” said Casey Dykstra, 27, who coaches high school baseball in California.

“I admired every single part of my uncle’s style on the baseball field. He played the game the right way, and played with his hair on fire,” Casey said.

These days, Dykstra lives in a Scranton apartment complex. D’Augostine, the pastor, said he met Dykstra several years ago, when a mutual friend reached out and said D’Augostine could help him. Dykstra has since become a regular church member at Steamtown, and he refers to the pastor as “Preacher Dennis.” D’Augostine said he continues to be involved in Dykstra’s faith and sobriety journey.

“It’s the best I have ever seen him doing. Emotionally, physically, he is doing fantastic,” D’Augostine said in an interview before Dykstra’s baptism.

“Preacher Dennis, he’s been there with me,” Dykstra said. “Now I got the bat and I’m in the batter’s box. All I can ask is that I have a chance to go forward, and that’s what I’m doing.”

D’Augostine was instrumental in the effort to bring former teammate Johnson to Steamtown to speak to the congregation March 8, the same day Dykstra was baptized. Johnson, 65, who runs a baseball academy in Franklin, Tenn., said in an interview that he was proud of Dykstra for taking the steps to get clean. (Dykstra’s rehab stint may have accounted for why his preliminary hearing on the drug charges was postponed twice.)

“I need to know where [Dykstra] is mentally, physically, spiritually after that mess,” Johnson said. “He went into [rehab] voluntarily, but it’s one of those things where guys get into trouble that they know they shouldn’t, and next thing you know, because of who [Dykstra] is, it’s everywhere.”

As for his Phillies ties, Dykstra said he hopes to “reestablish” his connection with the team and the fans. “Those are great fans in Philadelphia. I played for the best fans in the world — New York and Philadelphia,” Dykstra said. “Love them all. Miss them. Hopefully I can work out something with the Phillies.”

Dykstra and Johnson took their assigned seats in the basement of Steamtown Church after the March 8 service, two old Mets ready to exercise their John Hancock skills for a long line of fans.

Before they began the autograph session, Johnson had Dykstra sign a poster for him.

“I’ll treasure that,” Johnson said of the souvenir, carefully tucking it away in his bag.

Every so often, in between signing photos and baseballs and posing with fans, Dykstra sneaked a quick puff of his vape bar. As Dykstra later put it, “One day at a time.”

“All I can say is that it’s up to me to do the right things, and live right. Nobody owes me nothing,” Dykstra said. “Great team here [in Scranton]. I’m close to New York and Philadelphia. For now, I’m gonna be here, and moving the ball down the field.”