Happy birthday wish puts this dude in melancholy mood

While going through boxes in the garage recently, I found an old cassette tape — one supposes there aren’t any other kind. It was white, with red letters. “A Happy Baseball Birthday.” Under the two little reels were bolder red letters that said: LENNY DYKSTRA.

I hadn’t listened to Nails wish a happy birthday since 1992 or ’93, when I must have bought that tape (for some reason), and another bearing a birthday greeting from Tony Gwynn.

I think I got them at Spencer’s in the mall, and that they were on sale with posters of Murphy Brown and some lava lamps. I gave my friend Big Daddy the Tony Gwynn tape, probably because they didn’t have a tape of Rick Reuschel wishing you a happy birthday.

Judging from the fine print on my Nevada driver’s license, this seemed like an ideal day to listen to that Lenny Dykstra tape.

Actually, I would have listened to it the day I found it in the box in the garage, had I owned a cassette player. It has taken me this long to find one; my pal Ernie had one in a drawer in his upstairs office. It was in a bag with Patsy Cline’s greatest hits.

I know of only one other person who owns a copy of “A Happy Baseball Birthday — LENNY DYKSTRA.” She goes by “Chick-Phil-A” on Facebook. If the profile picture actually is her, she looks like Tina Fey.

In 2010, Chick-Phil-A wrote a blog about “A Happy Baseball Birthday — LENNY DYKSTRA.” At the top was a photo of the cassette still in the blister pack. She said she had received it on her 15th birthday and never opened it, because it seemed like a collector’s item. How could it not be?

“So I don’t even know what advice Lenny has for the birthday girl or guy — I’m hoping it’s not stock tips for multimillionaires,” she wrote. Good one, Chick-Phil-A.

She said Lenny D. once was her favorite Phillie. She must have received her tape before Nails went to prison for two years after pleading guilty to bankruptcy fraud, concealment of assets and money laundering, and before his housekeeper alleged Nails would force her to perform oral sex on him on Saturdays.

So this is for Chick-Phil-A, and for anybody else who bought the Lenny Dykstra birthday greeting cassette instead of the Murphy Brown poster or the lava lamp.

The tape lasts all of 1 minute, 33 seconds. It was recorded around the batting cage. You can hear batting cage chatter, and cracks of the bat — probably Von Hayes or Dickie Thon working on going to the opposite field or something — when Lenny begins to talk/read from a script:

“Hey, my friend. Happy birthday. This is Lenny Dykstra. Just look at you — the center of attention with your family, with your friends, all the people that love you most ... wow, dude, you’re one lucky individual. You yourself made that happen. Just by being you.”

I think Nails improvised that dude part. I had read something written by somebody he owed money to that he called everybody “dude.”

“You’ve been a true and loyal friend. You have your family, and all the love they give you. Even in school, you’re trying your hardest to do the best you possibly can.”

That has to be an assumption on Nails’ part, because what would Nails know about school?

“Birthdays were always a fun day for me. I remember getting ready for my eighth birthday, getting ready to start Little League. I always wanted a new leather glove. And on that day, my parents brought in a brand new leather glove for me. I’ll never forget that glove. I still have it; I still have it as a souvenir. The first year I had that glove, I never let it out of my sight. I slept with it, kept it in my bed. I took it to school. And I did that for the next few years. So that was one of the best birthday presents I ever had.”

This is where I have to believe Nails is telling a tiny fib. I believe if he still had that glove, he would have sold it at auction to pay off a creditor.

“In fact, I think it was the last game of my first year in Little League. I’ll never forget this. There was this powerhouse slugger on the other team: Brooks Leskin. That sucker goes and wallops the ball. I mean, he creamed it. And like you see on TV, I went back and back and back ... the sun was in my eyes ... I just reached up blind. And I made the catch!”

At this point, Nails’ voice is rising — he’s getting caught up in the memory of robbing young Brooks Leskin of extra bases. You can almost see chewing tobacco hanging from his lip.

“The point is, whatever your parents give you, it’s always good luck. So happy birthday again. You can captain my team anytime.”

In retrospect, it didn’t go so well for Nails after baseball, and now Tony Gwynn is gone, and now I’m another year older — old enough to be a pitching coach. As I write this, I’m feeling melancholy. I’m also wondering how it turned out for Brooks Leskin.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.