MLB Lenny Randle: The Most Interesting Man in Baseball

welcome once again to mlb network presents rolling stone magazine called in the most interesting man in baseball and we're not talking about bryce harper or mike trout or clayton kershaw or joe madden now the guy we're talking about is a guy you got to go back a bit to get a handle on he was a career 257 hitter he never made an all-star team he had 27 career home runs he never even played in a postseason game in short his baseball card looks pretty unremarkable so who is this guy well his name is lenny randall why in the world did rolling stone once dub him baseball's most interesting man that's what we're here for because you're about to find out the name of the show is lenny randall the most interesting man in baseball is that an appropriate title for this i've had an exciting life i just lived a viva loca i live for the moment people don't remember lenny for his stats he never made an all-star team he wasn't a superstar but he was a character lenny randall gets down on his hands and knees and blows on it like a curler he did say different things he did catch people by surprise he was a fabric of weirdness it's a forecast of my perspiration at the airport weird incidents seem to follow him throughout his career that famous 10-cent beer night where turned into complete madness he was there he's at the plate at shea stadium when the new york city blackout hits everything went absolutely blank i thought it was my last day on earth now that i do think about it who better than lenny randall would be in the middle of that stuff this is a guy who played the ted williams a guy that got in a fist fight with the manager that was him he's made records that are insanely collectible i got ladies from here he's a stand-up comedian ladies and gentlemen when it comes to some crazy antics betty randle was involved in it this is a guy who has been a star in the u.s he's been a star in italy that's a day in baseball's biggest star you see lanny is the best he's got his own shoe and handbag line this is a guy who's lived this is guy who's made the most of you know every opportunity he's ever been given has any other ball player done the things he's done or been at the moments that have happened he is the forest gump baseball that's who lenny randall [Music] is i grew up a mets fan in long island let me tell you sure there was siever and kuzmin strawberry goodin but you know what no one resonated with me more than the ever entertaining lenny randall listen he wasn't the greatest player but there was just something different about lenny i hated pete rose even though he's a great hustler but what i loved about lenny randall to me he was the mets pete rose randall proved to be the go go go man who bunted ran hit fielded and hustled his way into the hearts of all mets fans if he went on kinder's corner after the game or they interview him he'd have this like fur lined jacket he had bling before bling existed he was always entertaining kind of funny he's always funny the big man upstairs put me on hold you know you punched him and said lenny i don't want to hear it right now i'll get back to you moses will you handle this what i remember almost from the beginning is what a nice guy he was that was making me shy lenny was extremely amenable fun to talk to articulate we lead the league in jericho we have a high general and advil consumption he had a vice and uh it was people i got to pick you up you know every time i see you i got a picture you look good man he was one of the best people people i've ever met has an infectious personality you cannot be in a bad mood to be around lenny randall he's better than starbucks coffee how would you describe your personality a little bit of jamie foxx a little bit of robin williams a lot of m.c hammer i would definitely describe lenny randall as a renaissance man renaissance he's very well traveled those cultures and all these different regions i want to play in all the countries you know he's a really intelligent guy and he's another thing about lydia randall is you didn't mess with lydia randall you know he was a 24th degree black belt or something ridiculous although if you met the guy you didn't think you'd ever have the personality even get in a fight why he learned all that that black belt i have no idea who knows he may be cia for all we know so where's the most interesting man in baseball these days i don't know where lenny randall is he could be in the caribbean he could be in southern california it could be in japan i'm having an out-of-body experience i'm not even here i'm hologram right now just like the guy is constantly in motion we tracked him down along the coast of italy an hour south of rome in a sleepy seaside town of natuno where amazingly he's a living legend [Music] why is he there now let him explain i am trying to find the next homegrown roy campanella joe dimaggio mike piazza what you know what really uh what's he have a dual passport or something he doesn't look italian i mean is it randelli lenny could be the first to bring somebody right from italy to the u.s to play major league ball that would be outstanding now who can do that lenny randall could do it this is the settle field and he's only 12. a lot of people still don't know that there's baseball in their way to this day mike piazza pacilla louis nolan ryan lenny randall has lived at least six lives in his 66 years and and i think he's he's he's definitely uh pushing for nine by 40. i've interviewed a lot of people in the sports music and pop culture worlds and lenny randall is one of my absolute favorite people to talk to just so much energy coming out of that guy so many great stories this is kind of baseball's version of the most interesting man in the world [Music] coming up lenny randall's journey to becoming baseball's most interesting man gets off to a dangerous start and some youngsters are coming out on the field we didn't know if we were gonna they would die so the best thing of this right and then the full scale [Music] [Applause] no joking [Music] baseball's most interesting man slash comic slash soul singer slash international scout began his path to italy as a light-hitting infielder drafted by the washington centers in 1970 right away he had enough for being at some of baseball's strangest moments lenny was either a first-hand witness or first-hand participant in some of the more interesting incidents in baseball in the 70s and early 80s he was on the senators during their final night at rfk stadium in 1971. now the losers who are the baseball fans here in the nation's capital faithful followers of the washington senators saw their team play its final game last night before it moves to dallas fort worth they were pissed off they want us to go they really didn't we didn't know we were gonna live or die get a hug because you couldn't read the motion it was a festival of love and hate the love was directed at the departing players the hatred at owner bob short this one is going going it is gone howard has just hit home number 26. sitting there on the bench looking at frank howard hit a ball he never returned to home plate people jumped on the field took over the stadium and some youngsters are coming out on the field they weren't mad at him he wanted to pick him up he was like i don't want to hurt you he's a gentle guy but he's like somebody's gonna get hurt here this will not be a complete game unless they get back one guy had a shovel another guy had a pitchfork they went right to home plate and they just started digging away they took everything they took the bases they dug up home plate they dug up the pitching rubber they took the numbers off the scoreboard in the outfield it wasn't that much security it was maybe five guys on a horse they were going well i'm not getting killed trying to say freaking ball players get me turned into a riot the senators had to forfeit it's a strange way to wind up major league baseball in the nation's capital so when he was there for that he was also managed by a lot of really interesting managers over the course of his career this is a guy who played for ted williams who plays with ted williams 1972 these are the boots that ted works gave everybody look at that hide on that cow nolan would be jealous of these babies ted williams saw a lot of potential in lenny he has exceptional speed williams really appreciated the hustle that lenny brought to the game he called it zineker when you have zener it makes you have more spirit about the game and then just rip the hell out of the ball because i used to dodge bullets when i was in the war i was in korea i was a pilot and you were don't give any pitchers any credit you get yourself out they don't get you out i'm going okay i'm green yes sir yes sir okay right we brought in everything he said maybe the pitchers didn't but the hitters did i remember one time danny mclean flew in on a helicopter and landed in center field how many guys fly to the helicopter coming to practice ted was pissed so he challenged him and got him on the map i'm gonna hit diddy mclean right now with my jacket i'm 46 freaking years old watch this hit hit hit hit hit you go spinning i know every pitch you're throwing in the whole staff and the whole league i made a student of pictures if you hitters listen to me you could own the league we're like okay he's tense we're listening we're in lenny played for ted williams he played for billy martin this is a guy who got on well with two of like the biggest hard asses to ever manage in major league baseball billy gave us some swag he was phenomenal he was a leader when we walked on the field we knew the score of one nothing because billy had all the other managers nervous there was a game nolan ryan's picture for ghost he said to him nolan doesn't like snakes what so billy you put a snake out there he's done he's done for the day we got two rattlesnakes they were fake they put them out on the field first base line third base line and he went up there son of a human start cussing like i said and he goes philly the first three guys are going down i'm the laid-off guy right oh god i don't mind getting hit but i had nothing to do with it [Music] a nolan ryan fastball was nothing compared to the danger lenny randall and the rangers faced on a trip to cleveland 1974. we had had a brawl in texas prior to coming so all the media was like uh billy's martin's bringing his army his troops to cleveland to wipe out cleveland and all we wanted to do was win the game and they wanted to fight at cleveland's municipal stadium with the first meeting of the texas rangers in indians since they're all outside in arlington texas last wednesday night thrown into this volatile situation was perhaps the dumbest promotion in the history of baseball didn't say beer night 90 of the people were bombed they didn't even know their kids they were that it was ridiculous last night in cleveland cheap beer and extreme personal ship on the part of the fans touched off orion you know i pitched the first five and two-thirds innings we had streakers we had a young lady that dropped her bra guys were throwing chairs in the upper deck two dads went out on the field with two of their sons one went to right one with the left pads wound everybody and the security guards were running like carl lewis to try to get him it was total chaos the game proceeded more and more fans poured onto the field between innings with the outnumbered police unable to cope with what first appeared to be a carnival atmosphere led by the inexpensive beer i'm in second base looking at jeff burroughs i turn around he's in right field all of a sudden the guy's grabbing his glove a streaker butt naked going to grab his glove and there was a bra jeff turned around and punched the guy and caught him right in the corner of his eye billy martin picked up a fungal bat and said come on let's go get jeff and then the full-scale lab was on you see a guy running out of you with a bat you i would think you'd run back in the stands the normal mind says danger they wanted the bra they're like okay i don't know if they knew karate or whatever but they were the beer the beer made them think they were all superheroes or something there were guys out there carrying knives out there i saw people have knives out there the only reason i didn't come out is because we had bats i remember my father watching the news going ah these animals these animals lenny randall was was out there there's little silly things that he was part of like that are just it's just mind-blowing [Music] this is the fountain of you fontana de giovanni look at me i'm 19 years old look at this okay i'm not making this stuff up listen to that bill if that doesn't tell you something you're not living la viva loca you could have the best life for your world right here angela tuno [Music] when i really first began to hear a lot about lenny randall was 1977 when he beat up frank lucasy punching out the magic i don't think that ever existed until lenny randall came spring training in 1977 rangers have this prospect bump wheels basically the word was that he was going to take lenny's job lenny randall was a proven player hitting about 265 270 and now they're giving the position to a rookie and i'm not sure lenny just said hey that's enough when he complained about that felt that you know he deserved more respect and lucasian called him a punk in the press lenny didn't appreciate that one thing led to another and he wound up um punching luke's lights out the next thing everybody knew that frank's jaw was broken or his face was busted and he was on the ground and you know lenny was the bad guy you'd never think lenny would do that because lenny was pretty even keel and for him to lose his composure that wasn't lenny randall lucasy wound up taking him to court at the end of that year i'm not that kind of guy and 19 people came to court for me my behalf to show that that's not my character it was an ordeal but it was a lesson to learn lenny was suspended for 30 games by major league baseball and then the rangers shipped them out as soon as they could find a taker which was the new york mets who were so desperate for quality ball players at that time they're just like sure you know send them over my perception just hearing that he was traded here was well this guy's some kind of thug or he's going to be a difficult person to deal with he was just the opposite he was refreshing you know in what had become kind of a dour clubhouse he was actually a breath of fresh air helping lanny adjust to new york was one of the mets coaches you may have heard of him willie mays he said then let me shut your ass down let me tell you right now can you keep going your mouth shut and don't say nothing new york will love you you play like you playing texas you play hard and don't give a rat's ass about what they stand to do you just leave it on the field you leave the field derby every freaking day and that's exactly what lenny did i never see anyone hustle like lenny randall every time len swung a bat ran to the base his hat would come off it was a bad team ultimately but he made them better he had a terrific year in 1977 after he got here lenny had a team best 304 batting average and led the mets in six offensive categories not including best wardrobe this has been the best thing that happened to me in my career he had gone from bad guy to good guy but after all it's lenny randall we're talking about so of course something bizarre is about to happen chase stadium i'm hitting and the lights go out at 9 34 last night it all went black [Music] when i stepped up to the plate everything went absolutely blank and i thought it was my last day on earth i thought god was calling and the lights have just gone off here chased at him i think he actually hit the ball because we were watching the game and all of a sudden flights went out what's going on all i cared about was like is he safe did he undouble like what happened i swung just as the lights went on and i thought i got i thought it was a hit but who knows so i just kept running i went to second they go no it ain't going to count i'm going well what do you mean every well the light went i said well now when they get the lights i'm staying right here i want this hill upstairs at first nobody quite knew what to expect you know we didn't know if this thing was going to go on for 10 minutes or as it turned out overnight for more than 12 hours virtually every facet of urban life here was crippled no electricity meant no refrigeration no air conditioning in many cases no water and of course no light after 45 minutes of waiting we go okay we gotta do something we gotta entertain the crowd so they brought the light of the cars in from center field and they shined the lights of the cars on and they took a phantom infield we you know hit a ground ball a third and turn to double play and scooped it out of the dirt but there was no ball and it was kind of cool we took a perfect infinity no bad throws like laurel and hardy we loosened up the crowd it was hilarious it was fun so lenny is the answer to the trivia question who was at home plate when the lights went out at shea [Music] two years later lenny found himself in the middle of a more somber new york moment when he got a sudden call to join the new york yankees august 3rd 1979. here i am going to the yankees and i'm taking the roster spot of a guy that flies a plane and crashes on his way to see his family in cleveland thurman munson new york yankees catcher thurman munson was killed today in the crash of a small airplane at the akron canton airport in ohio i can't deal with it i'm truly i'm like oh lou pinellas baldwin woolly randall's balling reggie's fallen mickey rivers i mean everybody's like we don't want to play it's an amazing thing to have that experience to be in that role we're comatosed for the next three weeks two big new york sports history moments you had the big blackout and then you had that horrible tragedy third months in who's part of that who has to pick up where you left off mindy randall lenny randall [Music] lenny randall made a career out of being on hand for some of the strangest moments in baseball history but as a seattle mariner lenny took center stage and perhaps the strangest one of all here's a blow-by-blow account of lenny's latest exploit wednesday night in seattle in the kingdome amazonas for the kansas city royals at bat runners on first and second fastball tapped at the plate it'll trickle down the third baseline the mariners are gonna let it roll roll roll roll i'm going okay eat it kick it yell at it so i yelled at it lenny randall gets down on his hands and knees and blows on it like a curler and it goes foul randall puts on quite a show i remember saying oh that's lenny you know that's pretty cool you know i wish i thought of that because that's that's a good move and here comes jim fry out and he's going to protest and randall cannot get down and influence the direction of the baseball i remember as a kid arguing like you could why can't you do that what's the difference if it's wind or if you're blowing it what's what's the difference does it matter i have never seen that before in baseball how often do people still ask you about that but i hear it every day in my life to this day it's like that's one of the things that people remember most about lenny was like he was the guy that tried to blow a ball followed [Music] basement lenny randall is not ready to hang up his spikes but he is working on another perhaps even tougher career as a stand-up comic in 1980 when he played for the cubs and really kind of made the most of the fact that he didn't have to play night games at home uh because because of course there weren't lights in wrigley field at that point so he started hanging out at a lot of the comedy clubs in chicago ladies and gentlemen can you please welcome the third baseman to the chicago cubs [Applause] [Music] he had a side gig downtown doing comedy now who can do that lenny randall could do it so i don't have any hot dogs here tonight you know that's the only reason why dave came in it started in chicago with zaney's that one night i was make people happy you ever watch players get ready to hit sometimes we grab things know he had us going he had us in stitches at times some of them gone right the guy that gets in the last one wins you know you see the hitter goes yeah right and the picture goes shoot [Music] you entertain her entertainers are always at the ballpark so they always invite us to a club or comedy they say do do the mic do just be you just tell those baseball stories because you're funny so it was it was a great little escape the everyday grind of playing balls you should go to greatly field it's a great place to play you know they had those silly little uniforms on those little cubbies or something else and they wearing floods yes i tried so hard to find lenny randall stand up anybody seen my candy bar i can tell you this would not even look it probably didn't do that well however he thinks he killed well we called him one for ten one out of every ten jokes was funny you know when you when you knock him dead and you know when you stink up on the stage are you a good comic okay i'm three for six all right he was one for ten he'll get pissed money seriously i mean i'm j that's a scout report well one out of 10 is better than nine so i'm not trying to be ten pretend i'm only human i don't want to walk on water yet i'm working on it lenny randall comedian okay but lenny randall the soul singer yeah why not in 1981 he started making records with a group called the ball players [Music] lenny's best known song with that he recorded with the ball players is a song called kingdome which was really a tribute to the kingdom [Music] and you're running the first and you you're running the first you're running a second you run a third and i have my family come to the background kingdom kingdom so all of a sudden we're we're performing at the clubs we got to break on down and do the world kingdom kingdom is a goofy song but it's a lot of fun and a lot of energy to it and you could really see that with the right amount of promotion from the team this could have been their super bowl shuffle but never alone it's interesting because lenny randall baseball cards are not particularly collectible what is collectible is the records he made you know hardcore funk collectors will pay like a hundred bucks for a copy of of the ball player's record he sort of made his mark in that world as well [Music] why uh like baseball i think they like the spectacle uh as you remember in history they threw the christians to the lions and the gladiators did all the fighting and they gave them the thumbs up and the down bit here it's the home run you hit a home run hey that's the most beautiful thing since the pope you know lenny randall's insanely colorful life took yet another unorthodox turn when he walked away from the big leagues after 12 seasons and embarked on a career in italy in 1983 welcome to rome everybody i wanted to finally found the youth so i went over there i got younger you take a four-hour siesta at noon think about something pleasant or you go swimming or you just you just chill there's no stress when lenny started playing ball in italy in the early 80s this was pretty much uncharted territory as far as major league ball players were concerned unusual enough that's 60 minutes that's right 60 minutes came to see him play that's italian baseball's biggest star he's lenny randall he became the first genuine big leaguer in italian baseball when he signed a play for netuno [Music] it was just a total revelation i mean he led the league in batting his first year there grendel has been an instant success he's been hitting over 600 since the six-month season began in april [Music] we all became fan of uh lenny randall vance really responded to the sort of energy and flamboyance and charisma that he brought with him to the field you see lanny is the best they treated him as a legend as someone who came from here from another planet or something like that they kept telling me it was exciting i go well this is how we play in america this is every day every day they loved him lenny pretty much became an instant cult hero it has never happened again that someone has become such a cult hero as lenny randall was back in the early 80s [Music] [Applause] it's been over 30 years since lenny last played for natuno but the locals still remember him by his nickname they call me lenny cappuccino randelli celentino cappucino parte puerto porticampo there was an interesting day when a young kid named giovanni he was about 12 13 years old him and five other his friends came over to the screen and they said we saw you in the piazza drinking a cappuccino and you got all happy and you start jumping around come espina [Music] i go so if you go get me one now i hit a wrong run for you four or five guys and they ran to the bar and i went to the thing and i took a sip pitch boom home run and the kids fainted they just fell out everything about natuno seemed right up lenny's out especially the fans who were loud passionate obsessive they called themselves the boys from the bronx and viewed themselves as the yankees of italy originally when i got to the bronx record the opposing player didn't want to ever come to play in the tuna they they feel like they this would be the last day on earth we would see guys actually walk up the field in the third and fourth inning because they just couldn't take it anymore they get into so many fights that the carabinieri the national police are assigned to some games every dog was tipsy very nice there was a guy hitting one time and somebody yelled carnoto cornuto means somebody's fooling around with your lady right now so the guy went it's my brother and he dropped the bat and he went up the stands and beat the guy up the other part said time out he went and beat the guy up and came back and hit and i went oh my god i've never seen that before it was it was like a lupinella moment leonard's very flamboyant he's very big and he brought a lot of life to the game if you go back and look at the attendance records you'll see that they were drawn the highest number of fans when lenny was playing baseball it was religion it was breakfast lunch and dinner lenny randall a career 257 hitter in the majors became a legend in natuno but in this little town in italy another baseball legend once came here to play and that at bat he had that day is still a tale the locals love to tell in 1957 jody it was brought here that was a baseball field neptuno was playing a game against roma photography the players from neptuno asked him to go and show how he swung the bat you know the immigratory carlos and the second strike and god imagine miss it again carlos is going to make jody macho straight out so then dimaggio said wait a minute he went back to the dugout she don't sell a jackass unbuttoned at the the caller yeah i called carlos to send a strike jordan job beat the ball and the ball passed the tree passed the street passed the building i went into the iranian sea hey all the way to the sea that's what they tell which is impossible because the sea is not really closed almare nagosa symbol [Music] from dimaggio to randall it's no coincidence that the people of natuno have a love for baseball the tuno is the place where the sport was first introduced to italy when american soldiers landed here during world war ii on january 22nd 1944 at two o'clock at night the american fifth army landed on the beach that beach which is which is in my background along with the rifle the american has brought the the bat and the glove to play that's most favorite game which is [Music] some of the soldiers who worked at the cemetery decided to use their tools to build the baseball field this is the tuna angio gravesite this is a site for 7 856 soldiers it's sacred this is a sacred ground they all came to save the world and now this is their new home honey what's it like for you to come here [Music] it ain't about us it's not about the mike trouts and the a-rods and the ichiros and the cheaters it's about these guys man there'd be no baseball one for these guys it's a great team 7 800 some guys what a team [Music] it's a saturday in rome and lenny randall baseball's self-proclaimed ambassador to italy is on his way to a ball game 30 years ago would have been a tough ticket to get the natuno team has more history with 17 titles than any team in europe i thought he was joking with me when i played there 10 to 15 000 people 5 000 people was a bad day these days 5 000 people would be a season's worth of attendance the once proud history of baseball in italy has fallen on hard times and when i went to the game in rome i was kind of embarrassed and insulted these are pro players that don't draw listen if you got 24 to 40 players do the math four in a family it should be never under 100 people unless your family don't even want to see you play i got a problem with that so baseball's most interesting man has a new challenge to restore the passion for baseball in italy i want to get it back to where it was when we played and when italy was booming [Music] [Music] viviana if randy render would come again to nettuno and review the team we proclaimed him saint saint lenny randall i think italy impacted lenny as much as lenny impacted italy i think for lenny to come back decades after he was a star in italy it makes perfect sense it's really kind of a homecoming for lenny the neptuno team right now needs money needs sponsorships money sponsorship and of course players however what been to italy italy yeah i want to bring you over and if you're lenny randall why not shoot for the best you guys been to rome no i've never been longer yeah they think you're paisano than me you want to come to rome i would say italy i want to bring you to italy italian [Applause] inviting everybody to come to italy it's just just like come on over come to italy with me off season is it inviting retired major leaguers how to get you over inviting current major leaguers i want to go to italy yeah off-season big league in the office he's simultaneously trying to bring an italian influence into the major leagues at the same time he's trying to grow the italian baseball league and make people take it more seriously it's a great experience you're in i'd like to do an exhibition game i'd like to do a home run derby in a clinic in a camp and show the love of baseball globally lenny's really he's got a vision that he's he's trying to implement the future of baseball in italy is metadata it's going to be fantastic it's going to be wonderful america this is where the troops landed this is where america got saved you got to come here lenny randall is in my personal hall of fame he may not have the stats to be in cooperstown but yeah i think baseball is is much better off for having guys like lenny randall as part of their history it's not normal what i've done and through baseball in my life i want every kid that i meet to live what i've lived and see what i've seen it's beyond staggering i mean lenny randall was there for the last senator's game unbelievable i was there they don't exist anymore played for billy martin ted williams willie mays and the lights have just gone off here they said him that blackout he was up the bat i still see it in my mind ice cream melting on the field blowing the ball that was him that famous ten cent beer knight he was he there different languages he was a singer happy birthday he was a comedian you gotta keep laughing folks you gotta keep that who wears a bird coat lenny randall mighty randall lenny randall who does what lenny randall has done the ball player does that say those words last senator's game in washington awesome no no just just say the word just say last sentence game in washington awesome no you you you say those words last time is the game you're awesome [Applause] and he said okay go oh yeah i'll do that guys

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Id: Liq40V-8prI

Length: 43min 47sec (2627 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 23 2021