Lenny Dykstra—the former baseball player famous for sliding headfirst, chewin' terbacky, and picking stocks for Jim Cramer's website—allegedly touted a stock in exchange for money. Might bankrupt former athletes not be the world's foremost financial experts?

Take moment to close your eyes, lean back, and contemplate the fact that Lenny "Nails" Dykstra was—not long ago—a man that was handsomely paid to advise others on the vagaries of Wall Street. You'll probably get a good morning chuckle out of that fact. Now, a new book says that Dykstra—a known publishing deadbeat—was a crook:

Former Forbes bureau chief Randall Lane, in a new book "The Zeroes: My Misadventures in the Decade Wall Street Went Insane," alleges that Dykstra — a former baseball centerfielder with the New York Mets cum Wall Street analyst — agreed to accept payment from a tiny Corona, Calif.-based vending company AVT, Inc. in exchange for touting its shares on a stock-picking newsletter published to premium subscribers on Cramer's Web site TheStreet.com.

Will wealthy internet investors ever trust mumbly racist former ballplayer financial advisers again?

[NYP. Pic via. And here is the excerpt from Randall Lane.]