Ex-baseball star Lenny Dykstra files bankruptcy

Wed Jul 8, 2009 11:49am EDT

NEW YORK, July 8 (Reuters) - Lenny Dykstra, the former star center fielder for the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies Major League Baseball teams, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, court records show.

The 46-year-old has no more than $50,000 of assets and between $10 million and $50 million of liabilities, according to a petition filed Tuesday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Central District of California.

Jonathan Hayes, one of Dykstra's lawyers, had no immediate comment.

Dykstra's filing comes in the wake of some 20 lawsuits he faces tied to his activities as a financial entrepreneur, including The Players Club, a glossy magazine he had helped launch, according to published reports.

The bankruptcy petition shows several banks among Dykstra's largest unsecured creditors, including units of JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) and Bank of America Corp (BAC.N).

Known as "Nails" and "The Dude," Dykstra played for 12 years with the Mets and the Phillies before retiring in 1996 with a lifetime .285 batting average and 81 home runs.

As a Met, he won a World Series ring in 1986, and as a Phillie he was the National League runner-up in the Most Valuable Player voting in 1993. The Phillies lost the World Series that year.

The bankruptcy case is In re Lenny Kyle Dykstra, U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California (San Fernando Valley), No. 09-18409. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)