A Day from Hell at the Office: Lenny Randle’s Attack on Frank Lucchesi Created Wounds That Never Healed

Lenny Randle (SABR-Rucker Archive)

 

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO YOU?

Reality check: Playing professional baseball is a job. It requires supreme skill, demanding hours, cultural fit, and a balancing act to win approval from demanding, unpredictable bosses who control when you play, even if you’ll be traded. The pressure can become overwhelming.

When you feel the walls closing in at your job have you ever considered letting some rage fly? Maybe even escalating things physically with a higher authority or a subordinate? What would be your breaking point? What would happen if you crossed it?

Texas Rangers manager Frank Lucchesi and utility player Lenny Randle once had a heated dispute over who would be the team’s starting second baseman. Violence, litigation, and acrimony followed.

A LONG CLIMB

Frank Lucchesi paid heavy dues. Born just before the Depression into the consummate Italian-American neighborhood of San Francisco’s North Beach, he was raised by his mother after his father died when Frank was only one. He worked at produce markets at 5:00 AM before reporting to high school at 9:00. Baseball skills were likewise honed the hard way: Speed and guile advanced his 5’8” stocky frame toward a career. During 13 years as a player buried in the minors, offseason delivery and bartending gigs supplemented scant baseball earnings. Brain surgery removed a blood clot suffered from being hit on the head by a line drive. “I started as a player in Triple-A and went backward,” he once quipped.1

Luck arrived in 1956 when the Philadelphia Phillies hired Lucchesi to manage in their farm system, which he did for 14 seasons. He earned a colorful, fiery reputation with a track record of fines and suspensions. He won six pennants and was a five-time manager of the year. In 1970, fate smiled again when he was promoted to manage the Phillies, to the delight of the city’s Italian-American population. No awards were forthcoming. The rebuilding 63-win team improved to 73-88 in his first year, then retreated. A 26-50 start in 1972 led to his dismissal.

Lucchesi managed Triple-A Oklahoma City in 1973 before becoming third base coach for the Rangers’ volatile manager, Billy Martin. Martin guided the team to second place in the AL West. The following year, though, brought regression and conflict with owner Brad Corbett and general manager Dan O’Brien. After 95 games, Martin was fired. Lucchesi took over, despite Martin’s warning not to take the job.

GLUE GUY

Lenny Randle was raised in the 1950S and 1960s in the then middle-class Black Compton neighborhood south of Los Angeles. His longshoreman father and seamstress mother taught their eight children to value education, which Randle achieved as an All-American baseball player at Arizona State, where he earned a BS. Drafted by the Washington Senators in 1970, the 5’10”, 175-pound first-round pick straddled the minors and majors before flowering under Martin in 1974, batting .302 and stealing 26 bases as a switch-hitting, multi-position glue guy integral to the team’s success. He credited his dedication and sacrifice to Martin and former manager Ted Williams. “Those guys played baseball as if it was war. Each game brought the intensity of combat. … It was about the team and winning the game.”2

Randle repeated another strong campaign at second and wherever-else-you-need-me, even catcher, in 1975. He aided managerial flexibility, was rarely injured, and was the team’s fourth-best player in WAR over the two seasons.3 Low key and friendly, he became one of the most popular Rangers and was rewarded with a two-year, $80,000/year contract.

Martin’s departure, though, meant the loss of Randle’s ideal boss. His contributions over 142 games during the 1976 season—primarily but not exclusively at second—delivered .224/.286/273, a negative WAR, shaky fielding, and an unproductive stolen base success rate.4 The Rangers experienced another losing campaign. Despite versatility at seven positions, Randle’s role was precarious.

 

Frank Lucchesi (SABR-Rucker Archive)

 

A NEW EMPLOYEE ARRIVES

A phenom waited in the wings: Bump Wills, son of legendary shortstop and base-stealing king Maury Wills of the 1960s Los Angeles Dodgers.5 Like Randle, Wills was a switch-hitting infielder who starred at Arizona State. Unlike Randle, he zoomed through the minors and was tabbed during the winter by Corbett, Lucchesi, and media prognosticators as the club’s 1977 second baseman, confirmed by a Sports Illustrated cover story touting him among baseball’s exciting rookie crop.

Upon arrival to camp in Pompano Beach, Florida, Randle expressed anxiety. “No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more turning the other cheek. I’m not going to hold it in anymore. If they don’t want to play me, I’ll ask to be traded. I’m not going to be a bench warmer or a cheerleader.”6

Lucchesi played Wills twice as often as Randle, eventually officially naming him the starter. With all-star Toby Harrah at third and free agent Bert Campaneris at shortstop, Randle had no infield position to regularly play. “I am the Phantom Ranger. … If I wanted to be a reserve, I’d have joined the National Guard. … Too bad I’m not Jackie Robinson’s nephew, maybe I’d get more respect around here,” he icily observed.7 Lucchesi salved the wound, praising Randle’s work ethic and admitting he should have said Wills could earn the spot rather than appointing him prematurely based solely on scouting reports. Nonetheless, the die was cast.

“PUNK”

On March 24, Randle arrived at Municipal Park before an exhibition game against the Kansas City Royals and packed up his gear, ready to confront Lucchesi and leave camp to potentially force a trade. Teammates Bert Blyleven, Gaylord Perry, and Mike Hargrove intervened, successfully convincing him to stay and to avoid Lucchesi.

Sportswriters smelled a story. After a 5-3 loss, they informed Lucchesi about Randle’s intended departure. Little salve was applied. “If Lenny Randle, or any other player for that matter, wants to come in with his bags packed and tell me he’s leaving, then I reach over and shake his hand, ask him what time his plane leaves and wish him luck,” he offered. “There’s no way that Frank Lucchesi is going to kiss anybody’s ass or ask them to stay in camp,” he colorfully emphasized.8 Then a headline quotation: “I’m sick and tired of some punks making $80,000 a year moaning and groaning about their situation.”9

Lucchesi did not apologize for these intemperate remarks but privately told team officials he wished he had used a different word than “punk.” The next day, O’Brien met with Randle to talk him off the ledge. The following day, Randle met privately with Lucchesi, maintaining he’d been lied to and wanted out. According to Randle, he asked what Lucchesi meant by “punk”—considered an insult in Black vernacular that implied homosexuality. Lucchesi replied it had not been meant in a derogatory manner. Some press accounts indicated Randle joked with players and the media about the term and didn’t seem upset about it. Yet, on March 27, Randle warned, allegedly while smiling, “I’m a volcano ready to erupt.”10

FLURRY

Lucchesi arrived in street clothes during batting practice at Orlando’s Tinker Field before the Rangers March 28 preseason game against the Minnesota Twins. As he talked with a scout near the grandstand, Randle approached to start a conversation. Per Randle, Lucchesi said, “What do you want to talk to me about, punk?”11 Lucchesi later claimed to have never said “punk” but rather, responding to Randle’s beef over not being given a fair shake, indicated they should move near the visitor’s dugout along the third base line to talk. Their conversation lasted a minute, tops, with no outward indication of trouble. Until …

Whack! Randle swung, landing a right-hand punch solidly under Lucchesi’s right eye. Then a left hit the right cheekbone. Lucchesi landed on his right hip while lifting his left arm to block further blows.12 The 28-year-old Randle hovered over his 50-year-old manager, swinging wildly, landing body shots. Most players were 10 yards away with their backs turned. Campaneris arrived belatedly to break things up. Lucchesi was bleeding, in pain. Randle backed off, screaming an obscenity at anyone and no one. Outfielder Ken Henderson had to be restrained from attacking him. As other players and personnel swarmed, Randle grabbed a bat from the rack, trotted to third, dropped it, then ran to the outfield to do wind sprints. O’Brien escorted him off the field and suspended him later that day, pending an investigation.

Lucchesi’s right eye turned black and blue, and blood trickled from his mouth. An equipment manager drove him to nearby Mercy Hospital, where he was diagnosed with a right-cheekbone triple fracture, cerebral concussion, lip laceration, back pain, a damaged rib, and dental injuries.13

Meanwhile, observers assessed the ferocious event. One reporter wrote the five-second flurry of Randle’s punches, “hung there suspended in time, like slow motion or instant replay or the old newsreel films of the Hindenburg breaking apart in the dark Jersey skies.”14

“All I wanted to do was talk. … I hate that this had to happen, but I guess he took my passiveness for granted. All a man wants is respect. It was just impulsive. I’m not Judas and he’s not Jesus Christ,” Randle theorized.15 He insisted “punk” provoked the attack and apologized to O’Brien, who remained unsatisfied.

Harrah, who dined with Randle later that evening, believed Randle’s apology was sincere. But his support had limitations. “All of us on the club agreed that you don’t hit an older person like that.”16

Blyleven’s recollection pointed toward premeditation. He claimed Randle asked him that morning what would happen if he hit someone. “I told him if he hit a player, he would be suspended and if he hit the manager, he’d probably never play again,” he replied. “Lenny said he told Frank to protect himself and then he went at it. … He told me that when he goes to bed at night now he won’t have any trouble sleeping. He feels he did the right thing.”17

As for Lucchesi, he later insisted that he was “Sunday sucker punched” by “a sneak attack-worse than Pearl Harbor.”18 He claimed he was staring at the ground, hands in his hip pockets, when he was attacked. Randle clapped back that Lucchesi couldn’t talk without using his hands.

Ode to irony: Post-attack accounts revealed Lucchesi had selected Randle to start the game.

SURGERY, FINGER-POINTING, SUSPENSION

While coach Connie Ryan managed the team, Lucchesi underwent cheekbone surgery and facial plastic surgery. Recovery was slow and painful during five days of hospitalization. Blackness persisted around his right eye. Sleep proved difficult because of the facial surgery and back and chest pain.

Randle flew to Phoenix to meet with his agent, attorney, and MLB Players Association counsel Dick Moss. “I’m a religious person. I’ve never done anything like this before. … I am a very proud and sensitive person, and felt I was being lied to,” he explained to a reporter.19 He wired an apology to Lucchesi and his teammates, which Lucchesi refused to accept: “My only wish is that I was 10 years younger so I could handle this situation myself.”20 Some of Lucchesi’s San Francisco and Philadelphia Italian-American friends also charitably volunteered to assist with the handling.

The Rangers ramped up damage control. Corbett expressed his displeasure to executive vice president Eddie Robinson and O’Brien. “I told them that I wanted to get rid of Randle. I knew there was a boiling point. I think we made a terrible mistake.”21 On April 4 in Arlington, Dallas reporters “Blackie” Sherrod and Alan Stone, and players Tom Grieve, Dave May, Sandy Alomar, and Blyleven testified at a private investigative hearing. Neither Lucchesi nor Randle appeared. Findings were to be forwarded to a three-man arbitration panel on April 8 charged to evaluate a grievance Randle filed regarding his suspension. On April 5, the Rangers suspended Randle for 30 days, retroactive to March 28, and fined him $10,000—then a record for baseball—and $13,407.90 in lost wages.22

Efforts to trade Randle faltered before the season’s start on April 7, a 10-inning victory against the Orioles in Baltimore. Lucchesi was back managing the team. Wills drove in the winning run and would produce at a .287/.361/.410 clip, finishing third in Rookie of the Year balloting.23

Hours before the game, Randle dropped his appeal and accepted his fine. He also offered to have Lucchesi receive the $10,000 owed to the Rangers. “He could apologize from the Golden Gate Bridge with the fog rolling in and I wouldn’t accept it,” Lucchesi snarled back.24

HELLO NEW YORK, GOODBYE TEXAS

On April 26, just before his suspension expired, Randle was traded to the New York Mets for $50,000 and a player to be named later.25 The Mets quickly signed him to a five-year, $85,000/year deal with annual increases eventually escalating to over $100,000/per year. “The Lord gives a second chance, so should we. … He lost his head once, and I don’t think it will ever happen again,” Mets chairman of the board Donald Grant predicted.26 Randle proved Grant correct that season, behaving like a model citizen, excelling at third, and posting .304/.383/.404 and the team’s highest WAR. “I think they liked my bat, my glove, my legs, and the fact that I get my uniform dirty. I’d be perfect for a Tide commercial,” he joked.27

Later that day, Randle surrendered to police on an aggravated battery charge brought in Orange County, Florida, carrying a potential 15-year prison term and/or $10,000 fine. In July, the charge was reduced to misdemeanor battery since Lucchesi had suffered no permanent damage. Incarceration was waived. Randle pleaded no contest and received the maximum $1,050 fine, provided he covered Lucchesi’s medical expenses. “You should change your profession to boxing and get in the ring and give your opponent an equal opportunity,” Circuit Judge Maurice Paul scolded. “Not only organized baseball but organized sports has suffered as a result of your action.”28

Lucchesi’s role also suffered. The Rangers started 31-31, after which, facilitated by a clash with Robinson, he was fired, a move he attributed partly to Randle’s attack. Managerial musical chairs led to the dysfunctional shuffling of two managers within a week before coach Billy Hunter piloted the club to a surprising 94-68 finish.29

TRIAL

Disappointed with Randle’s minimal punishment, Lucchesi filed a civil suit in state circuit court in Orlando, seeking approximately $200,000 in compensation and to make an example of Randle to support baseball’s integrity and prevent future similar attacks.30 “I’m not a bitter guy, but he’s been on easy street ever since,” he complained.31

Five days before the case began on December 5, 1978, Randle fired attorney E. Thom Rumberger. Randle regarded the case as a civil rights matter and feared being tried by a Southern judge and jury. Rumberger disagreed, considering it a matter of provoked alleged assault and battery. As trial commenced, Judge Bernard Muszynski denied Randle’s delay request to obtain new counsel. A jury of three men, three women—all White and middle-aged—was selected from a pool of 21 while Randle watched two potential Black jurors get stricken by Lucchesi’s attorneys. A 15-minute recess was called. A desperate situation certainly called for a relief specialist. Randle’s wife, Jackie, saved the day, acting upon a last-minute referral to cross the street to request J. Cheney Mason.32 Mason was in his first decade of practice that would eventually make him an unconventional but renowned criminal defense attorney. He did not regularly wear a suit, so he learned case details from Jackie while driving home to don one. Once at the courthouse, he hurried into court, 10 minutes late, with co-counsel Donald Lykkebak and Randle, who carried a cardboard box of papers and files.

Cheney arrived as treating plastic surgeon Dr. Richard Nazareth testified about Lucchesi’s injuries. Shortly thereafter, a Rangers team dentist described damage to Lucchesi’s teeth.

Sherrod later confirmed “punk” was an uncomplimentary term directed at Randle but was unaware of its homosexual implications. Recalling Lucchesi’s provocative March 24 remarks, he correctly mentioned Lucchesi had also said, “I don’t blame Lenny. He just wants to play”—sentiments ignored in most news coverage.33 He agreed Randle was a peaceful and law-abiding individual who had never previously lost his temper.

For the defense, Blyleven repeated his previous accounts implying premeditation although admitted there was pre-fight questioning around camp whether Randle was being treated fairly. Harrah added that being called a “punk” disturbed Randle, and that teammates maliciously ribbed him for it. Grieve countered that the ribbing was lighthearted, designed to relieve building tension.

Lucchesi testified for two hours. He swore that “punk” meant “wise guy” and did not refer to Randle. He denied racial tension with Randle and explained away his comments as occurring the day he returned some players to the minors. “Here’s a bunch of kids making five, six thousand a year and they’d stay and play in the big league for nothing,” which is why he said he was tired of “$80,000 punks who say play me or trade me. Give me $80,000 a year for the next 10 years, I’ll sit on the bench and keep my mouth shut.”34

Randle’s legal team portrayed Lucchesi as racist, noting the club’s decline from 13 Black players to four during his tenure. They claimed Lucchesi was “famous for antics, hysterics, and being an aggressive and hot-tempered man,” and called former Rangers third baseman Roy Howell to testify that on May 7 the recuperating Lucchesi had been ejected for his participation in a Royals-Rangers brawl.35

Randle took the stand for an hour to give an itemized accounting of his assets and liabilities, and how his mounting legal bills had hampered his ability to monetarily assist his siblings. He was supported by a Who’s Who of baseball stars, including St. Louis Cardinals legendary speedster Lou Brock and recently retired home run king Henry Aaron. Brock explained “punk” meant “queer, sissy, unfit” with a homosexual connotation.36 Lucchesi’s reputation was “an explosive type of personality,” he added.37 Aaron offered advice but did not take the stand. Martin was also present, scheduled to testify.

Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson appeared, too, determined to ensure Randle received fair legal treatment in the nationally publicized case. Mason warned Jackson about excessive interference. “I’m not a racist. We’re doing a great job and we’re going to win this goddamn case. But if you go out there … in downtown Orlando and start parading and stuff, I’m gonna lose.”38 Oh, what chutzpah for a newly-minted attorney to request a prominent civil rights leader to relinquish his First Amendment right! But trial is theater, with roaming, sensitive jurors always on the alert. Perhaps sensing that, Jackson supported Randle with court attendance, not public demonstrations amidst camera-toting spectators.39

During trial, Mason received a telephone request to meet baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn and two associates at a nearby hotel. He warily agreed. The encounter proved aggressively canine: “One of these giants, alongside him is another giant, they’re there protecting [Kuhn] against me. I looked at them and they were not friendly, they were not welcoming, they were not anything. I just looked at one guy and I said, you know, I don’t know what your job is, but it is clear to every one of you all that you can beat me up, easily. But here’s one thing, I will fucking leave bite marks on you.”40 Kuhn tried to convince Mason to have Randle pay damages to avoid further negative publicity. Mason told Kuhn to pay them and exited.

Lucchesi received a phone request, too, from an unidentified caller who threatened his family and suggested he drop the suit. Before the trial’s fourth day began on December 8, a $20,000 settlement was reached in Muszynski’s chambers: significantly less than Lucchesi’s desired outcome due to Randle’s effective counsel and, perhaps, the telephone warning. The Court forbade discussion of the terms. Martin, who partially blamed Lucchesi for his dismissal from the Rangers, reportedly contributed $10,000 while Randle’s mother-in-law offered to pay the rest.

Lucchesi and Randle, shedding tears, read prepared statements admitting their legal ordeal had been trying. “I want you to know I don’t wish him bad luck in the future. I’m sorry it happened, for his family and mine. I only hope something like this never happens again in baseball,” Lucchesi said.41 “Now we can return to the game we’ve dedicated our lives to,” Randle responded. “I think this proves people of all colors and from all walks of life can settle their differences.” He turned to Lucchesi, offering, “I guess there is nothing to do now but shake hands so I can go hide my tears and you can hide yours.”42 They did and shared a quick embrace.

AN AWKWARD REUNION

In 1992, Lucchesi and Randle met at an Old-Timers Game at Comiskey Park before a Rangers game against the Chicago White Sox. They shook hands, exchanged pleasantries, and kneeled next to each other for a team photo. During the game, Randle hit a triple, slid, and hugged Lucchesi as he was coaching third. “I guess if [Soviet Prime Minister Mikhail] Gorbachev can come to America and make peace, we can too,” Randle reckoned.43

Lucchesi paused the happy ending. “I’m a forgiving person, a second-chance kind of guy. If he were insane, or on drugs or drunk or something, I can understand. But not when it was premeditated. I’m not vindictive. I’d forgive anybody, but this … this was too hard on my family.”44 His son, in attendance, concurred, vividly recalling the day at age 12 when he learned of the assault upon arriving home and seeing O’Brien’s wife and another woman comforting his weeping mother.

EXITING THE STAGE

Randle’s 1977 Mets success proved fleeting. He was released the following year, then bounced around with the Yankees, Cubs, and Mariners. He became the first American to play in Italy and later joined the Senior Professional Baseball Association. He mastered five languages, conducted a baseball academy, practiced yoga and karate, and dabbled in comedy and hip-hop. Rolling Stone named him baseball’s version of “The Most Interesting Man in the World” and the MLB Network produced a television special calling him the “Forrest Gump of Baseball.”45 Boundless energy and survival on little sleep earned him the nickname “Cappuccino.” “After I die there will be plenty of time to sleep,” he reasoned.46 That time arrived in December 2024.

Lucchesi filled various minor and major league roles managing and scouting, and even briefly returned to coach the Rangers in 1979-80. He retired from baseball in 1989 and, except for the 1992 encounter, refrained from publicly obsessing about the 1977 event. He died in 2019.

SCORECARD

The Lucchesi-Randle conflict was a tragic sequence of bad decisions by both parties, occurring during a rapidly changing baseball landscape. Race and free agency underpinned the dispute. Even if the evidence supporting Lucchesi’s racism was not as definitive as Randle’s legal team argued, certainly cultural understanding was lacking over how his words would be perceived by a Black man. This awareness deficit, cutting both ways between the races, still exists. Free agency-induced salaries do, too. But free agency was in its infancy in the mid-1970s, quickly propelling compensation, including Randle’s, to previously unknown heights. An average $44,676 salary in 1975 jumped to $76,066 in 1977—a 70% increase that dwarfed Lucchesi’s own earnings history. By March 28, 1977, Randle and Lucchesi—two proud warrior-types who succeeded through challenging journeys—did not share similarities across shifting monetary trajectories, let alone ones across static age and racial lines. It took Lucchesi a lifetime and a top-level managerial position to land a $70,000 salary, which plummeted to $30,000 when he became a coach. Randle’s utility role at age 28 rewarded $80,000, with significant boosts to come.47

How would you react if your employer failed to adequately inform you of your job status and then dismissively insulted your reputation to the press? How would you feel if someone pummeled you at work only to be transferred to another company and given a raise, an extended contract, and public acclaim?

“You hope such a thing will happen to you only once in a lifetime and I wouldn’t want to be scarred by it,” Randle once reflected.48 Yet neither he nor Lucchesi ever completely escaped the horrible experience they shared during one simultaneously brief but ever-lingering moment. How could they? How would you?

DAN VANDEMORTEL became a Giants fan in upstate New York and moved to San Francisco to follow the team more closely. He has written extensively on Northern Ireland political and legal affairs. His coverage of baseball cultural-related topics has appeared in The National Pastime, the California Daily Journal, and other publications. His article “White Circles Drawn in Crayon” (featured in McFarland Historic Ballparks 05: The Polo Grounds, 2019) won the 2020 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award. Feedback is welcome at giants1971@yahoo.com.

 

Acknowledgments

Appreciation is extended to Ken Manyin for his affection for baseball history and helpful editorial suggestions.

 

Notes

1. “Time-for-All Plan Paying Off for Lucchesi,” The Sporting News, August 28, 1971.

2. Charlie Grassl, “Lenny Randle,” Society for American Baseball Research Bio Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/lenny-randle/. Randle’s father, a World War II veteran, was also influential.

3. Wins Above Replacement (WAR) measures a player’s value in all phases of the game, calculating how many more wins he’s worth than a replacement-level player at his position (e.g., a minor league replacement or fill-in free agent).

4. Randle’s 30 stolen bases were valuable by 1977 standards. Using a modern statistical lens, his 57% success rate over 1971-76 was harmful and would earn a managerial STOP sign in most circumstances.

5. While playing for the Triple-A Spokane Indians in 1973, Randle credited a mid-season talk with Maury Wills for his blossoming base-stealing success.

6. T.R. Sullivan, “Boys of Arlington: Lenny Randle vs. Frank Lucchesi—Jeff Wilson’s Texas Rangers Today,” Rangers Today, June 27, 2024, https://rangerstoday.com/boys-of-arlington-lenny-randle-vs-frank-lucchesi/.

7. Randy Galloway, “Randle Frustration Explodes in Fistic Fury,” The Sporting News, April 16, 1977.

8. Sullivan.

9. Galloway.

10. Sullivan.

11. Galloway.

12. Sullivan. Press accounts vary regarding the sequence of punches and how many were thrown before Lucchesi fell. This version seems the most reliable.

13. Press accounts disagree whether his ribs were bruised or broken.

14. Sullivan.

15. “Manager Hospitalized by Player’s Punches,” The New York Times, March 29, 1977.

16. Milton Richman, “Leonard Randle Gets New Lease on Life,” Los Angeles Sentinel, May 5, 1977.

17. “Randle Leaves Rangers Camp,” Chicago Defender, March 30, 1977.

18. Galloway; “Hunt Randle for Aggravated Battery,” Chicago Defender, April 26, 1977.

19. Sullivan.

20. Sullivan.

21. “Manager Hospitalized by Player’s Punches.”

22. Jonathan Fraser Leight, A Cultural History of Baseball (Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc.) 2005, 330. The Rangers relied on Major League Uniform Baseball Contract terms requiring a player maintain the highest standards of personal conduct and good sportsmanship.

23. Wills played six years for the Rangers and Chicago Cubs, then signed a four-year contract to play for the Japan Pacific League’s Hankyu Braves. Stress from balancing baseball and family made him consistently ill. After playing 78 games in 1984, he was bought out of his contract and returned home. He took a few years off from baseball and never played professionally again.

24. “Lucchesi Unreceptive To Randle Apology,” The New York Times, April 8, 1977.

25. The player to be named later was utility infielder Rick Auerbach, a player below Randle’s value who was subsequently sold to the Reds.

26. Sullivan.

27. Kent Hannon, “One Mindless Moment,” Sports Illustrated, June 6, 1977. The news media also enjoyed the story, frequently concocting all sorts of fight-related puns and references to their headlines. Jack Lang, “Mets Add Randle For Um-m-m Punch,” The Sporting News, May 14, 1977.

28. Pam Schwartz, “Major League Drama at Tinker Field,” Reflections from Central Florida, Fall 2023, https://www.thehistorycenter.org/major-league-drama-at-tinker-field/.

29. University of Southern Alabama baseball coach Eddie Stanky succeeded Lucchesi. He managed one game before deciding to return to his family and job in Mobile. Ryan took over while Corbett attempted to convince Stanky to return, and Robinson and O’Brien sought out recently retired Twins slugger Harmon Killebrew for the position. A week later, management handed the keys to Hunter. This insanity coupled with voluminous dog-chasing-its-tail trades and free agent signings during Corbett’s five-year ownership reign gave proof to longtime baseball executive and compulsive trader Frank Lane’s observation: “Having Corbett run a baseball team is like giving a three-year-old a handful of razors.” Donald Dewey and Nicholas Acocella, Total Ballclubs (Toronto: Sport Media Publishing, Inc.) 2005, 599.

30. Unconfirmed reports suggested Los Angeles Dodgers and Boston Red Sox managers Tommy Lasorda and Don Zimmer, respectively, encouraged Lucchesi to sue.

31. “Lucchesi’s Still After Randle,” Chicago Defender, September 22, 1977.

32. Randle met Jackie Coor, a former airline stewardess from Detroit, while on a Rangers charter in 1973.

33. “Fight Helped Take Pressure Off Randle,” Boca Raton News, December 7, 1978.

34. “Lucchesi Tells in Court Of ‘Punk’ Remark Context,” The New York Times, December 8, 1978.

35. A bench-clearing flare-up of heated words, but no fists, was ignited on April 27 at Royals Stadium when Lucchesi allegedly ordered Blyleven to deliberately hit catcher Darrell Porter with a pitch. Bad vibes returned in Arlington as Porter taunted Wills after tagging him out and knocking him to the ground on a rundown play along the third base line. A battle royal commenced. The game was delayed 20 minutes, with 12 consecutive televised minutes of “nothing but good ol’ street fighting action,” as graded by The Sporting News. Police entered the field to restore order. Lucchesi and coach Pat Corrales were ejected, along with three Rangers players and two Royals. Randy Galloway, “Horton Proving a Ranger Bearcat With Bat and Fists,” The Sporting News, May 28, 1977.

36. “Attorneys Call Lucchesi ‘Hot Tempered Man,’“ Rushville Republican, December 8, 1978.

37. “Len Randle, Ex-Manager Settle Suit,” Afro-American, December 16, 1978.

38. Schwartz.

39. Perhaps Jackson likewise sensed that Florida’s 1978 population demographics of 85% White, 14% Black, and less than 1% “other” did not make for fertile ground for demonstrations on Randle’s behalf.

40. Schwartz.

41. Sullivan.

42. Sullivan.

43. Jim Reeves, “Scar in Rangers’ Past Resurfaces at Old-Timers Game,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, May 4, 1992.

44. Reeves.

45. This label referred to the innocent, childlike movie character, played by Tom Hanks, who is exposed to, influences, and is controlled by life’s circumstances. Indeed, Randle seemingly appeared everywhere. He played in two games in 1971 that ended in forfeit, including the Senators last game in Washington when fans, angry over the team’s move to Texas, stormed the field. In 1974, he played in the infamous Ten Cent Beer Night game in Cleveland when drunken fans invaded the field, leading to a forfeited game. He was at bat with the Mets in 1977 when the lights in New York City and Shea Stadium went out. In 1979, he joined the New York Yankees, taking the roster spot of catcher Thurman Munson after his tragic death in a plane crash. And he comically blew a baseball across the third base foul line during a game at the Kingdome while playing for the Mariners in 1981.

46. Grassl.

47. Bob Lindley, “Lucchesi Wounded Again—This Time By The Legal System,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, December 10, 1978.

48. “Lenny Randle Cleans Up His Old Image,” Chicago Defender, March 18, 1978.