Darling stands by Dykstra allegations; Boyd 'hurt'

Ron Darling said Tuesday on ESPN Radio that he stands by his account that former New York Mets teammate Lenny Dykstra shouted racial slurs at Boston Red Sox pitcher Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd before Dykstra's first at-bat in Game 3 of the 1986 World Series.

Darling made his comments on ESPN Radio's Golic & Wingo show after Dykstra threatened to sue him over his allegations in an appearance on 98.7 ESPN New York's Michael Kay Show on Monday. Former Mets teammates Dwight Gooden and Kevin Mitchell also said on the Michael Kay Show that they never heard Dykstra direct the slurs at Boyd.

Former teammate Darryl Strawberry also said told the Michael Kay Show that Dykstra never said what is alleged by Darling.

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

He said he has received text messages from other members of the 1986 Mets who said "they have my back."

In his new book, "108 Stitches: Loose Threads, Ripping Yarns, and the Darndest Characters from My Time in the Game," which was released Tuesday, Darling writes that Dykstra was "shouting every imaginable and unimaginable insult and expletive in his [Boyd's] direction -- foul, racist, hateful, hurtful stuff" when he was in the on-deck circle before leading off the game.

Dykstra homered in the at-bat after the alleged slurs, which Darling writes were "worse than anything Jackie Robinson might have heard."

Boyd, who appeared onCarlin, Maggie & Bart on WFAN in New York later Tuesday, said he didn't know anything about the alleged incident, but he did say that he believes Darling's account that it happened.

"I don't even know," Boyd said. "I'm warming up for a ballgame. I'm preparing to try to go out and get the New York Mets out, one at a time, and that's all that's on my mind."

Asked later if he remembered seeing any gestures coming from the Mets' dugout, Boyd said no.

"I didn't see anything like that, nor was I looking for anything like that," Boyd told WFAN. "This is all new to me. ... Nothing rattled me because I didn't know it was going on. It was just, I left a slider out over the plate and he happened to be a strong little man, and he hit it out of the ballpark.

"I'm kind of disturbed about [the allegations]. I'm also kind of hurt about it because I have been around Lenny and I played ball with Lenny in Japan, and he didn't seem to come off as that type of a person. ... The person I saw, I liked. The person that I talked to, I liked. So I'm quite disturbed about it."

On the Michael Kay Show, Dykstra strongly denied Darling's statements and threatened legal action.

"I'm going to sue him and the publisher," Dykstra said in the interview. "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."

Dykstra said Darling crossed the line by putting his account in print, and Dykstra threatened to "drop him like a red-headed f---ing stepchild" if he sees him.

Darling, now a Mets analyst for SNY, said Tuesday that he heard about Dykstra's threats.

"Those are uncomfortable. No one wants to be threatened," Darling said. "I don't think at this point I would say anything to Lenny Dykstra, not a thing after these threats."

Darling said there's "no chance that I misremembered it," despite Gooden and Mitchell saying Monday that they couldn't verify the account.

"I do say, if you read the entire chapter, it's really how ashamed about my complicitness in these kind of things that happened in those times where that seemed like the right way to compete," Darling said. "The right way to get on the opposition. The bench jockey could be anything that you wanted it to be."

Said Boyd:"I don't want anything bad to come out of this for Lenny; I don't want anything bad to come out of this for Ronnie. The truth is it is what it is."