A Funky Farewell to The Most Interesting Man in Baseball
Lenny Randle, R.I.P.
The first ballgame I ever attended at Wrigley Field was a Houston Astros-Chicago Cubs contest on August 31, 1980.
The Cubs were absolutely abysmal that year, and to no one’s surprise would ultimately finish last in the NL East with a 64-98 record. And yet, on that hot and humid Sunday afternoon, they not only beat the eventual NL West champs but did so in unexpectedly exciting fashion, driving in three runs on five singles in the bottom of the ninth to grasp an 8-7 comeback victory. Afterwards, my family and I walked four miles down Clark Street to our home on the Gold Coast, the residual buzz of the Cubs’ win gently propelling us past such local landmarks as the Century Mall, the “Great Ace” hardware store, 2nd Hand Tunes (which would, a year or two later, become a regular record-shopping stop for me) and the Francis W. Parker School, where I would start high school in just a few days.
That 1980 Cubs roster was primarily comprised of veterans, journeymen, spare parts and cast-offs, with a few stars like Bill Buckner (who led the NL that year with a .324 batting average) and future Hall of Famer Bruce Sutter (who led the NL in saves for the second straight season) sprinkled in to keep it from being a total horror show. Moody slugger Dave “Kong” Kingman, who’d had a monster 1979 season for the Cubs, was limited to 81 games in 1980 due to injuries and missed reaching the 20-homer mark for the first time since 1974; his 18 round-trippers were second on the ‘80 squad to the 23 hit by Jerry Martin, a solid defensive centerfielder whose name was nonetheless not exactly synonymous with “power threat”.
The team’s combined 107 home runs was slightly above average for the National League in 1980, but the Cubs were well below-average in just about every other batting and pitching metric — such as their 93 stolen bases, a pitiful showing in a speed-crazed league where the average that season was 153. And of those 93 bags, shortstop and lead-off hitter Ivan de Jesús swiped nearly half of them.
Fan favorite Rick “Big Daddy” Reuschel quite literally anchored the starting rotation, leading the league with 38 starts while posting an 11-13 record with a 3.40; and aside from Sutter, the Cubs bullpen featured such talented arms as the seemingly indefatigable Dick “Dirt” Tidrow (who finished a league-leading 84 games that year, including that August 31 victory) and youngsters Bill Caudill, Willie Hernández and future Hall of Famer Lee Smith. But for the most part, the Cubs roster was dotted with names like Lynn McGlothen, Mike Tyson, Mike Vail, Larry Biittner and Tim Blackwell — guys I knew well enough from my baseball card collection, but who weren’t anywhere near the sort of major talents who could turn the Cubs’ woeful fortunes around.
Playing third base that day for the Cubs was another guy whose name I knew from my baseball cards: Lenny Randle. At 31 years of age, he’d been in the bigs on and off since 1971, and had hit .300 a couple of times. A switch-hitter with more speed than power, Randle was the kind of hard-hustling super-utility player who — though primarily a second or third baseman — was more than happy to take the field at another position whenever his team needed him to; he was good for filling in as an outfielder maybe 10 times a season, and he’d once even caught six innings for the Texas Rangers during the second game of a June 1975 double-header. (The California Angels stole three bases off of him that day, but he also successfully nailed a would-be stealer from behind the plate.)
Lenny Randle always came to play, and his fiery competitive spirit unfortunately played a role in the incident that, circa 1980, I knew him best for: His 1977 spring training beatdown of Rangers skipper Frank Lucchesi, who had given the team’s starting second baseman job to untested rookie Bump Wills, son of legendary Dodgers speedster Maury. Randle, angry about losing his position, complained to the press that he wasn’t being given a fair shake; Lucchesi referred to Randle as a “punk” in an interview; and a face-to-face attempt to clear the air resulted in Lucchesi spending a week in the hospital with a broken cheekbone, and Randle serving a 30-day MLB suspension and eventually pleading no contest to a misdemeanor battery charge.
(For an in-depth breakdown of the Randle-Lucchesi fight and the legal cases that resulted from it, I highly recommend this fascinating piece by Pam Schwartz from the Fall 2023 edition of Reflections magazine.)
But as I would come to learn, there was so much more to Lenny Randle than this uncharacteristically ugly incident. One of the most colorful players of an already colorful era, Randle seemed to have a knack for finding himself at the center of historic and/or iconic situations. On June 4, 1974, for instance, he was the Rangers’ starting second baseman against the Cleveland Indians during the infamous “Ten Cent Beer Night” promotion at Municipal Stadium. While the copious cups of Stroh’s handed out over the course of the evening certainly had something to do with the fan riot that ended the game, tempers between the two clubs were already heated, dating back to a previous brawl between the two teams in Arlington. Indians hurler Milt Wilcox had set it off by throwing a pitch behind Randle’s back; Randle (who had starred in football as well as baseball at Arizona State) then perfectly bunted the next pitch to the right side of the infield, and laid a linebacker-worthy hit on Wilcox as he tried to field the ball. (You can watch a clip of it here.)
On the evening of July 13, 1977, when lightning strikes caused a massive blackout in New York City, Lenny Randle was standing at the plate for the Mets (who’d picked him up from the Rangers following the Lucchesi incident) right as the Shea Stadium lights went out. Two summers later, after spending much of 1979 in the minors with the AAA teams of the San Francisco Giants and Pittsburgh Pirates, Randle found himself purchased from the Pirates on August 3 by the New York Yankees, who had to quickly fill a roster spot in the wake of Thurman Munson’s shocking fatal plane crash. And then there was the time in May 1981 when Randle, while playing third base for the Seattle Mariners, comically dropped to his knees to blow (or maybe verbally persuade) into foul territory a slow-roller from the bat of Kansas City Royals outfielder Amos Otis.
Some of these stories found their way into my book Big Hair and Plastic Grass, but it was Lenny’s music that eventually led us to cross paths and become friends. In 1982, he and his brother Ron put together a band called Ballplayers, and they recorded and self-released “Kingdome,” a funky salute to the Mariners’ astroturfed home. Though it wasn’t a hit at the time, the single eventually became something of a collector’s item, and it was legitimately funky enough to be included on the 2014 Light in the Attic compilation Wheedle’s Groove: Seattle Funk, Modern Soul And Boogie Volume II 1972-1987. In 1983, he recorded and self-released a full Ballplayers album, Just A Chance, with help from fellow major leaguer Thad Bosley; now extremely rare, the lo-fi LP changes hands among collectors of eighties electro-soul (or “boogie”) for hundreds of dollars.
In late 2014, my friend and colleague Rob Neyer, then an editor at Fox Sports News, asked me to do a weekly column for the FSN site about the intersection of baseball and pop music. I wanted to avoid the more obvious songs like John Fogerty’s “Centerfield” or Terry Cashman’s awful “Talkin’ Baseball,” and focus instead on lesser-known or unfairly forgotten tracks — especially ones where players themselves were involved.
It was a great gig while it lasted, and I had lots of fun with it — I can still hear Ron Cey’s laughter echoing uproariously down my phone line when I cold-called him to talk about his Dr. Demento-approved 1976 novelty single “Third Base Bag”. Tracking down “The Penguin” had been a bit difficult, involving some detective work and a few favors. But Lenny Randle was one of several former major leaguers that I’d become Facebook “friends” with; and though we’d never actually interacted before, I messaged him in February 2015 and asked if we could do an interview about those Ballplayers records.
Given what I know now about Lenny’s flair for relentless self-promotion, it makes me laugh to think of how cautious he initially was about doing that interview. “We’re starting spring training over here in Italy right now,” he told me, once I finally got through to him on the phone. “I’ve got like 15,000 people driving me nuts right now on Twitter, Facebook and the phone. And then you call, and I’m like, ‘Is he weird? Is he fake? Is he a woman? Am I being set up? Is he the IRS?’” he laughed. “Believe me, I have fun with everyone who calls!”
True to form, we had a hilarious conversation that afternoon about his brief recording career — a conversation which led me to pitch an article to Rolling Stone (for whom I was then doing occasional baseball coverage) about Lenny’s adventures as a player and a manager in the Italian Baseball League. That piece, in turn, directly inspired the MLB Network’s documentary Lenny Randle: The Most Interesting Man in Baseball, which is well worth a look if you can find it. (And not just because I’m in it!)
Lenny was indeed a fascinating character. One of nine children born to Isaac and Ethel Randle, Leonard Shenoff Randle was captain of both his baseball and football teams at Centennial High School in Compton, California — a school whose MLB-bound alums also included Roy White, Don Wilson, Reggie Smith, Al Cowens and Mitchell Page. But though several MLB teams offered him contracts straight out of high school, his education-oriented family insisted that he graduate college before embarking on a professional sports career. (Lenny wound up playing second for the NCAA championship-winning 1969 Arizona State baseball team, and was inducted into both the ASU baseball and football halls of fame in 1980.)
Fluent in five languages, Lenny went on to play ball in Italy after his 12-year MLB career was over. He immediately became a cult hero over there, winning the Italian Baseball League batting crown in 1983, his first season with the Nettuno club. Italian fans loved his style, swagger and impish sense of humor, dubbing him “Cappuccino,” in tribute to both the color of his skin and the energy he brought to the field. (Click the video below to see that patented Lenny Randle energy and humor in action for a 1981 Seattle Mariners promotion. Thanks mucho to Maxwell Case for reminding me of it!)
In 2015, when I profiled him for Rolling Stone (you can find the article here, though it’s now behind a paywall), Lenny was back in Nettuno as the co-owner and general manager of his old team, trying to restore the venerable franchise — which he lovingly referred to as “the Italian Yankees” — to their former championship glory, while also promoting Italy as a viable talent pool for Major League Baseball. Of course, he admitted, convincing Italian players that they should shoot for a baseball career in the States was another story entirely.
“We only play two or three games a week over here,” he told me at the time. “The players get tax-free money, they get a free place to stay, transportation is first-class, and they get a five-course meal at lunch and dinner, because eating over here’s a religion! So you’re gonna give up a utopia of life to live in the States, and have drama and have all your money taken away in taxes? You’re treated like a gladiator over here, and then you go to Double A, Triple A, and you can’t get enough meal money to buy two Subway sandwiches or lunch at Hometown Buffet?”
Then in his mid-sixties, Lenny was still hustling in life like he’d done on the base paths. He ran the Lenny Randle Sports Academy, which offered baseball instruction for kids and fantasy camps for adults, designed a fashion line of shoes and handbags, promoted Italian baseball tours, and was even back in the music game, both as a recording artist and as a promoter working with the likes of War and Earth, Wind & Fire. (There was more stuff going on, too — frankly, he had his fingers in so many pies that it was tough to fully keep track of what he was up to.)
And yet, despite him telling me that he rarely slept for more than four hours per night, he always seemed incredibly energetic and ebullient in every interaction I had with him over the next seven years or so. A Facebook message or a voicemail from Lenny Randle was like an explosion of Day-Glo confetti, with new ideas, multi-lingual non-sequiturs and joyful vibes flying in every direction. “Dan the Man, Master Plan!” he’d holler whenever I picked up his call. “I’m blessed, and staying away from stress! How ‘bout you?”
Though ostensibly a goodwill ambassador for Italian baseball, Lenny Randle was really a goodwill ambassador for the concepts of humanity, positivity and hard work; every interview, every video, every conversation with him seemed to carry the sub (or not so sub)text that we were put here to enjoy life and each other, and to make the most of what each day gives us. And he certainly walked it like he talked it.
Despite his many entreaties for me to come and visit him in Italy — which I sadly and stupidly never took him up on — Lenny and I only actually met once in person. The occasion was July 7, 2015, when he generously invited me to join him, his lovely (and patient) wife Linda and a bunch of other 70s-era MLB alums (including Cleon Jones, Derrel Thomas, Jim Merritt and Don Buford) in a luxury box at Chavez Ravine for a Dodgers game. The game — a 7-2 blowout to the Philadelphia Phillies — was deeply dull, but I had a blast just hanging out and hearing everyone shoot the shit. I really wish I had taped the stories, or at least written them down from memory immediately afterwards; but I was about two weeks from moving to Chicago from L.A., and my eye wasn’t sufficiently “on the ball” at the time. Plus, even though Lenny introduced me repeatedly to everyone that night as “Dan Epstein from Rolling Stone,” it was nice to not have my journalist hat on for a change.
As we were saying our goodbyes after the final out, Lenny and Linda asked me how I was getting home. I told them I was walking — I’d hoofed the mile or so through Elysian Park to Dodger Stadium from my house on the edge of Echo Park, and planned on taking the same route home. “Oh, we can’t have that!” he insisted, and the next thing I knew, I was being chauffeured home by Lenny and his wife. I’ve attended hundreds of games at Dodger Stadium over the years, but that night was the only time I got a lift home from the ballpark courtesy of someone in my baseball card collection.
We stayed in regular touch for many years after that, and Lenny shared the generosity of his spirit with me on numerous occasions. My move to Chicago didn't turn out as well as I’d hoped, and neither did my move from there to Greensboro, NC; I was often pretty depressed and frustrated in these years about where I was in life. But whenever Mr. “Too Blessed to Be Stressed” picked up on the fact that I was struggling, he would do his best to boost my morale, whether by sending me some funny memes, inviting me to be a guest on his podcast, or brainstorming various promotional schemes that we could partner together on. Most of these latter ideas were pretty hare-brained — like the Super Bowl party in Vegas where he was going to perform standup comedy, and which we were somehow going to get Rolling Stone to host — and I was never sure if even he took them seriously. But they always made me laugh, and I was always deeply touched that he would take the time out of his life and busy schedule to try and cheer me up.
In contrast to those darker days in Chicago and Greensboro, 2024 was one of the best and most fulfilling years of my life, both personally and professionally. In addition to taking a dream trip to Scotland with my wonderful girlfriend and adopting a wonderful cat, I co-authored Now You're One of Us: The Incredible Story of Redd Kross and Portables: A Visual & Historical Exploration of 222 Portable Turntables, did a ton of fun and satisfying freelance writing for a number of different outlets, co-hosted 11 episodes of the CROSSED CHANNELS podcast with my friend and colleague Tony Fletcher, and boosted my JTL readership by some 900 subscribers. (If you’re one of them, thank you!) Out of 366 days in 2024, I probably woke up smiling on at least 350 of them.
Still, even the best years have a way of taking their toll, and I was incredibly saddened to learn on New Year’s Eve that Lenny Randle had passed away at the age of 75. It’s not like he got cheated, per se — he crammed about 300 years of living into his time here on Earth, after all — but I definitely feel like the rest of us did. Because the Lenny Randle I had the pleasure and honor to become friends with was an irrepressible force for joy and positivity; and now more than ever, this world needs more people like him, not fewer.
Groove on, Lenny. You were a lot of fun to watch as a ballplayer, but you were even more fun to get to know as a person. Thank you for shining your brilliant and inspiring light for all of us to see. You and the Kingdome are both gone now, but you’ll always be remembered…
Fantastic piece, Dan! THIS is the content I’m here for!!
An incredible piece of writing, based on an incredible relationship. I'm glad to have come across it, at the same time that I'm deeply sorry for your loss.