Ex-teammates Ron Darling and Lenny Dykstra in War of Words Over Racial Slur Allegations

Darling claims Dykstra hurled racial slurs during the '86 World Series when they were on the Mets.

Lenny Dykstra at the 1986 Mets 30th Anniversary Reunion. (Photo by Adrian Edwards/WireImage)
Lenny Dykstra at the 1986 Mets 30th Anniversary Reunion. (Photo by Adrian Edwards/WireImage)
WireImage

A pair of former New York Mets teammates are engaged in a war of words over some racial slurs which were allegedly shouted at a member of the Boston Red Sox during the 1986 World Series.

According to ex-Met Ron Darling, his then-teammate Lenny Dykstra shouted slurs at Red Sox pitcher Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd during Game 3 of the World Series in ’86.

In his new book, 108 Stitches: Loose Threads, Ripping Yarns, and the Darndest Characters from My Time in the Game, Darling claims Dykstra was yelling “every imaginable and unimaginable insult and expletive” in Boyd’s direction and called the tirade “foul, racist, hateful, hurtful stuff.”

After hearing of the claim, Dykstra called it a “flat-out lie” and that he planned to take Darling to court.

“When you start bringing up this kind of stuff, this is crossing the line. I’m going to sue him and the publisher,” Dykstra said, according to The New York Post. “I wrote a book myself. I had 30 lawyers calling me fact-checking everything. There is not one person to back this up, because you know why, it’s not true. It’s all a lie.”

But, when given an opportunity to backtrack about what he’d written in the book, Darling declined despite other members of the team, Dwight Gooden and Kevin Mitchell, saying they never head Dykstra slur Boyd.

“I heard what I heard and I put it in the book for a reason,” Darling said Tuesday.

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