Lenny Randle Slugs Manager After Losing Job (3/28/1977)

By Patrick Mondout

Long before Golden State Warrior and noted thug Latrell Sprewell nearly choked his coach to death, there was Lenny "Don't Call Me a Punk!" Randle vs. his manager, Frank Lucchesi.

Randle, who had slumped to .224 the previous season after hitting .302 and .276 his first two full seasons, was not at all happy to see that fellow Arizona State alum and rookie Bump Wills had passed him up on the depth chart before spring training even began. (Wills, who was Maury Wills' son, was also was on the cover of Sports Illustrated that week.)

On March 25, Lenny Randle nearly walked out of team's Pompano Beach spring training facility after seeing Wills name in the starting lineup. Teammates Bert Blyleven, Gaylord Perry, and Mike Hargrove talked Randle into staying, but Lucchesi suggested that he wished Randle had left and added, "I'm getting sick and tired of guys making $80,000 a year and moaning and groaning about their jobs."

Lucchesi then endeared himself to Lenny by adding, "I'm sick and tired of these punks saying play me or trade me. Let 'em go find a job... What's his beef? Wills playing second? Well, that my prerogative as a manager."

Randle (left) and Lucchesi in happier times. Photo by Lou Saurich/©BaseballChronology.com.

Lucchesi added, "Maybe this is what this club needs. Maybe it needs tension. Maybe it needs for Frank Lucchesi to blow his top every once in a while."

If Lucchesi, who already had a plate inserted in his head following a earlier skull injury, thought his words would invigorate his team, he was sadly mistaken. He did, however, create tension. Randle later claimed he had asked his old-school manager to stop calling him a punk.

The inevitable confrontation happened on the morning March 28th. Bert Blyleven later said that Randle suggested there might be a showdown between the two that morning. "He asked me what would happen if he hit somebody. I told him if he hit a player he would probably be suspended and if he hit the manager he would probably never play again."

Randle confronted his manager at the batting cage and the two began talking. According to Randle, Lucchessi asked "What do you got to say, punk?" With that, Randle punched Lucchesi at least three times in the face before being held back by Rangers shortstop Bert Campaneris. "Lenny stepped back and hit Frank and hit him two or three times as he was going down and then hit him while he was on the ground," said club spokesman Burt Hawkins.

Rangers outfielder Ken Henderson then had to be restrained from going after Randle. (Ironically, Henderson and Randle would wind up teammates with the Mets for the first few weeks of the 1978 season.)

"All I wanted to do was talk to him," Randle said. "I never thought it would come to this but I guess these things happen in life sometimes."

Lucchesi was sent to the hospital with a broken cheekbone. When asked about the confrontation, Lucchesi said, "I never said today that he was a punk. That's a lie. Absolutely not." He went on to characterize the incident as "a sneak attack - worse than Pearl Harbor."

Randle was suspended indefinitely by irate Rangers owner Brad Corbett, who called the incident (in words almost as hyperbolic as Lucchesi's), "the worst thing I've ever heard." Corbett also singled out his GM and executive vice president for talking him out of getting rid of Randle after the incident a few days earlier.

Corbett say he "would like to suspend him for a year." The player's association would not have allowed that and Corbett tasked his GM with finding a team to trade him to.

Randle paid a $23,407 fine and began serving a 30-day suspension. He apologized to Lucchesi and his teammates in a statement and said he hoped the fine would go to his former manager. Lucchesi's response showed that "punk" was almost certainly still in his managerial vocabulary: "He could apologize from the Golden Gate Bridge with the fog rolling in and I would't accept it."

Randle never played another game for Texas and was shipped to the Mets on April 26th for a player to be named (on May 20th, that player was named: Rick Auerbach).

Aftermath

Randle, who had starred at Arizona State in both football and baseball and had been the 10th selection of the secondary phase of the 1970 draft, hit .304 for the Mets after the trade, but it was his last really good season and he was out of major league baseball following the 1982 season he spent with Seattle. He never could shake the label of a hothead who had once broken his manager's cheekbone, which is unfortunate as it was the only blemish on an otherwise average career. He later played in the Senior Baseball Association. 

Frank Lucchesi's questionable motivational methods were no more effective with the other 24 Rangers and he was fired on June 22nd. Eddie Stanky took over as the Rangers manager that day - and then resigned the very next! Coach Connie Ryan managed the team until the 28th when Billy Hunter became the 4th Ranger manager in a week and the last one of 1977.

If only the Rangers had stuck with the docile Billy Martin.