Lenny Randle, who the obits describe (not without reason) as “the most interesting man in baseball”. He was 75. NYT. Baseball Reference.
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Randle’s Rangers tenure ended when he punched manager Frank Lucchesi on March 28, 1977. Randle had lost his second base job to Bump Wills during spring training and asked to be traded if he wasn’t going to play regularly. Lucchesi told media he was tired of “$80,000‐a‐year punks” complaining.
Randle punched Lucchesi three times before a spring training game against Minnesota, and the manager suffered a triple fracture of his right cheekbone and needed plastic surgery. Randle said he approached Lucchesi along the third‐base line to talk to him and Lucchesi told him: “What do you got to say, punk?”
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Texas suspended Randle for 30 days, fined him $10,000 and withheld $13,407.90 of his $80,000 salary.
Randle issued a public apology. He was charged with felony aggravated battery, pleaded no contest to misdemeanor battery and was fined $1,050. In 1978, he settled a lawsuit filed by Lucchesi.
Mr. Randle does, of course, show up in Seasons in Hell. Mike Shropshire I think makes a good point about the Randle/Lucchesi incident: Mr. Lucchesi apparently did not understand that “punk” had a very specific and highly offensive connotation at that time (3b). I’m not saying I condone it, but I sort of understand it…