Ron Darling gets sued by Lenny Dykstra for allegedly using racist slurs during the 1986 World Series in a new book.
According to the New York Post, he is suing Darling over the contents of the book, alleging defamation and willful infliction of emotional distress. The plaintiff is described in the case as “a racist, an irreversible stain, and a permanent cloud that will forever diminish Mr. Dykstra,” and as having been “maliciously portrayed” in the book.
“Apparent from the book’s title and content is Darling’s blatant attempt to sell his latest publication through a strategy of sensationalizing and shocking his audience, at the expense of no less than Mr. Dykstra, whom Darling apparently considered an easy target due to his past,” the complaint alleges.
The slugger hurled obscenities at Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd, the starting pitcher for the Red Sox, during game 3 of the World Series, according to Darling, an SNY color commentator, in the book “108 Stitches: Loose Threads, Ripping Yarns, and the Darndest Characters from My Time in the Game.”
According to Darling, Dykstra uttered “every imaginable and unimaginable insult and expletive in his (Boyd’s) direction—flood, racist, hateful, hurtful stuff.” What Dykstra said, in his opinion, was “worse than anything Jackie Robinson might have heard.”
The complaint also names the publishers of Darling, Macmillan Publishing Group, and St. Martin’s Press. The lawsuit fulfills a threat Dykstra made to Darling on Michael Kay’s radio program. Dykstra angrily refuted the charge and vowed to sue him live on the air.
“What did he say? That’s the lowest you can go. They are blatant lies, according to Dykstra. “I’m going to sue Darling, I promise. How can I avoid suing?”
He further says that if he saw Darling in person, he would “drop [Darling] like a red-headed f—— stepchild” and that no one on the 1986 championship Mets team “got along” with him. While Darling continues to support his remarks, he regrets not speaking out against Dykstra’s behavior at the time, in 1986.
“I do say, if you read the entire chapter, it’s really how ashamed I am about my complicity in these kinds of things that happened in those times where that seemed like the right way to compete,” he told ESPN. “How to properly confront the opponent. You could make the bench jockey into anything you desired.”
Dykstra has battled legal issues for the past 12 months. He allegedly assaulted an Uber driver five months prior, and in October, he was charged with narcotics offenses and making threats.