Nailing His Niche : Dykstra Chews on NL Pitching, but He Can’t Hit .400--Can He?

PHILADELPHIA —  The stack of cartons sits on a chair in front of Lenny Dykstra’s locker at Veterans Stadium. Dykstra opens one and knows what is in the others.

Fans, cognizant of the resemblance, are inundating Dykstra with Bart Simpson dolls, Bart being Homer Simpson’s son on the TV show, “The Simpsons.”

Teammate Roger McDowell looks over and says, “Put a wad of tobacco in their mouths and they’d look just like you, Lenny.”

Dykstra scratches the stubble on his bulging cheek and smiles. Rivulets from that omnipresent wad have provided the only real stains on a season in which the 5-foot-10 Dykstra has become bigger than either Bart or Homer.

Portrayed by the New York Mets as a platoon player incapable of hitting left-handed pitching, Dykstra has proven differently as the center fielder of the Philadelphia Phillies, batting .400 or better for a total of 27 days and still leading the National League at .380, including .321 against left-handers.

In the process, Dykstra has provided glimpses of his admitted arrogance and a persona disturbingly reminiscent at times of a 27-year-old punk.

The Phillies, who hope to sign Dykstra to a multiyear contract before he becomes eligible for free agency after the 1991 season, are delighted with his performance on the field and privately dissatisfied with it off the field. He has strained their patience by failing to show up for interview appointments, flatly rejecting others and treating some of those interviews he agrees to do with both sarcasm and smugness.

Said a club vice president: “We’ve talked to him, told him the importance of that part of it, but it doesn’t seem to do any good. We’re not happy about it, but there’s not much we can do.”

Said Dykstra, of the media demands: “I try to do what I can, but after a while it starts to affect the way I play. After a while I start to feel like I have no time for anything else.”

On this day, he has already stayed in the clubhouse players’ lounge and kept a network television crew waiting 90 minutes past a scheduled appointment, snubbed a West Coast reporter with whom he also had an appointment and caused a wire service reporter to abort an interview by keeping his back to the reporter in the locker room.

No one, of course, has ever accused Nails, which is his nickname and his own expression for things he regards as positive, of being polished. He still doesn’t read books because he is afraid they will hurt his batting eye. And who, among those who were there, will ever forget that October night in 1986 when the Mets wrapped up the World Series against the Boston Red Sox and Dykstra kept bulling and pushing the media aside to get at another bottle of champagne? Provoked or provoking, he seems to be love and hate personified--the way he is, perhaps, being the way he thinks he has always had to be.

As a youngster growing up in Garden Grove, for instance, Dykstra and friends would sneak into empty Anaheim Stadium, where he would practice diving into the outfield fences. At Garden Grove High, he would challenge the pitching machine, moving up on it until he was within 40 feet, 30 feet, 20 feet.

Dan Drake, his baseball coach there, reflected and said: “Lenny dominated our team by the time he was a sophomore. He was short then, maybe 5-8 or so, and people were always telling him he was too short to do this, too short to do that. What that did was light a fire, turn him on. And I think he’s still that way. I think he’s still trying to prove he can play with the big guys.”

Said Nick Leyva, the Philadelphia manager: “I used to hate the little . . . when I was coaching in St. Louis, but now I love him.

“I mean, I grew up in Los Angeles watching Maury Wills, and I worked with guys like Lou Brock and Vince Coleman when I was with the Cardinals, but I don’t think I’ve ever been around a better leadoff hitter than Lenny.

“He’s made us a better team, and not just because he’s imitating Rogers Hornsby. He does everything a leadoff hitter should.”

A .268 career hitter, Dykstra led the National League through Monday in hits and on-base percentage. He batted .429 during a 23-game hitting streak that ended June 11.

In addition, he was fifth in runs, sixth in walks and third in multi-hit games, and had stolen nine of 10 bases.

“Lenny seems to have had a feeling for most of the season that he can do anything he wants with the pitch,” Philadelphia batting coach Denis Menke said. “The old-timers used to say that they hoped to see the ball well three days in a row. Lenny has broken that record all to hell.

“He’s oozing confidence to the extent that he reminds me of Pete Rose. The tougher the situation, the more he likes it. He thrives on pressure.”

Said Lee Thomas, the Philadelphia general manager: “His intensity is such that he looks at every pitch like it’s the last pitch he is ever going to see. If he keeps doing what he’s doing, taking his walks and not trying to pull the ball, he should be a .300-plus hitter for the rest of his career. He’s also as good a center fielder as there is in the league at going and catching the ball.”

Only eight players have batted .400 or better in this century--and none since Ted Williams in 1941. Dykstra became the first since Rod Carew in 1983 to still be at that level at the end of May, but he believes the world will have ended if he is hitting .400 at the end of the season.

“If guys like Rod Carew and George Brett and Wade Boggs and Tony Gwynn can’t do it, it can’t be done,” he said. “The pitching is too good, the defense is too good, the schedule is too tough.

“Every year, fewer guys hit .300. You come up for your last at-bat in a 9-1 game, and a fresh relief pitcher throws three straight forkballs. Give me a break.”

Dykstra got just that on June 18, 1989, when he and McDowell were traded by the Mets for Juan Samuel. It was a chance to play regularly, a chance to learn he wasn’t ready to play regularly. Dykstra hit .179 in his final 196 at-bats with the Phillies last year.

A teammate, Tom Herr, went on a Philadelphia radio show and said Dykstra had given up on the season, that he had developed bad work habits platooning in New York and that he liked to pound the pavement too much after games.

There was also speculation that his competitiveness wouldn’t allow him to play for a losing team, and he wanted to be traded to the Angels or Dodgers, both of whom displayed interest during the winter and spring.

Thomas said: “I had several talks with Lenny and told him that I thought he was what we needed, that he could be a marquee player with us, but that if he wanted to be traded, I’d accommodate him. He said that he had no desire to be traded, that he liked the club and the guys, and that we hadn’t seen the real Lenny Dykstra. I told him, ‘I sure as hell hope not.’ ”

Working with free weights over the winter and taking what he calls “good vitamins,” Dykstra added 30 pounds to his 165.

“I wore down last season because I wasn’t in the proper condition. It didn’t have anything to do with pounding the pavement,” Dykstra said.

“My stats had gone down for three straight seasons. I didn’t need anyone to tell me how important this year was. I worked hard to build up my strength, but I’ve already lost 15 of those pounds in just two months.”

Dykstra’s intensity suffered some during five years of platooning in New York. There were times, he said, when his work habits and frame of mind weren’t at the level they should have been.

Now, while .400 may be improbable, Dykstra believes he is a .300 hitter with the capability to sustain his league lead.

“Deep down, I always knew I could play every day,” he said. “That’s why after the ’87 season I started going to (Met General Manager) Frank Cashen and (former manager) Davey Johnson, telling them, ‘I can do things you people don’t think I can do. I can hit left-handers. I can play every day. Get me out of here.’

“It’s funny now, but I talked to about five or six of the Mets when we played them recently, and they all said I’m the guy they needed.

“Too bad. That’s their problem. I’m glad to get out. They obviously made a stupid decision, and now they’re paying for it.

“I mean, look at the type players they’ve gotten rid of the last few years. Sometimes you have to recognize everything that comes with a player, not just the numbers.”

Said Joe McIlvaine, the Met vice president in charge of baseball operations: “Lenny is having a great year, and I give him credit, but I can remember all the times Davey Johnson told me Lenny was never going to be an everyday player, how he would never hit more than .240 and how he couldn’t hit lefties.

“Davey was asking us just about every month over two years, ‘Can’t you get rid of him? Did you get rid of him yet?’ We finally made the trade the manager wanted, and it didn’t work out. No one’s to blame. Those are things that happen.”

The Mets might have made a mistake, but many believe it is Dykstra who is now making one by failing to consider the dangers of chewing tobacco. He goes through four pouches a day and changes brands if he hasn’t had a hit after three at-bats.

“It’s part of me, it’s baseball,” he said. “I mean, it helps me relax. Carew used to chew, too, and I read in his book that he felt it kept his cheek tight and his eye from twitching so that he could see the ball better.

“Who can argue with him? I loved to watch him hit.”

Times change. Carew might now say the same about Dykstra.