Jon Stewart can't get enough of Cramer

I think Jon Stewart is in love with Jim Cramer.

He's in love with Cramer because Cramer is so over the top that he provides an ungodly amount of easy material.

Like Cramer's connection to former baseball star Lenny "Nails" Dykstra, who filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week.

Once upon a time, as Stewart noted, Dykstra was flying high. He had moved on from running California carwashes to investing in call options (options to buy stocks) and had become something of a star. (See video below)

But that all blew up. When Dykstra, a take-no-prisoners kind of player for the New York Mets and the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1980s and '90s, filed for Chapter 11, he said he had $50,000 in assets and $10 million to $50 million in debts.

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He's got a string of lawsuits pending. His claims that he's only had one bad investment call are challenged. His wife filed for divorce in April, and he's lost the expensive Los Angeles mansion he bought from hockey great Wayne Gretzky in a foreclosure.

It was a bit of a downer for a charming storyline of the former baseball player who discovers he can invest as well as he played. Maybe even better if the mansion, the private jets, the expensive German cars could be believed.

And Dykstra milked it brilliantly, with gushing profiles on "Real Sports" with Bryant Gumbel, CNBC and other media outlets. He was even the subject of a 2008 profile in The New Yorker. 

That helped him sell subscriptions to his investment newsletter for about $400 a year and generate income of nearly $1 million a year.

He was going to launch The Players Club, a lifestyle and financial-advice magazine aimed at professional athletes. It collapsed in part because of fights with publishing companies that claimed he owed them money.

You can read how his claims as an investor may be overstated  here and here. There's quite a good discussion of the Dykstra yarn on Real Clear Markets.

Cramer liked Dykstra and thought his investment strategy of buying deep-in-the-call options was splendid. So, Cramer made Dykstra a columnist on TheStreet.com.

In fact, as Cramer told "Real Sports" in March 2008, he thought Dykstra -- a self-confessed non-reader -- was a genius. "Not only is he sophisticated, he is one of the great ones in this business."

A perfect clip for Jon Stewart to show. And he did.

Cramer's relationship with Dykstra lasted until this spring  when the news of all the lawsuits began piling up.

Then, The Street.com shed itself of Dykstra as quickly as possible.