Bloop Hits: Lenny Randle Gets Down

The casual baseball fan primarily remembers Lenny Randle today for one of three reasons: a) He’s the guy who blew a slow roller off the bat of Amos Otis into foul territory during a game in May 1981; b) He was standing at the plate when the New York City blackout suddenly darkened Shea Stadium in the summer of ’77; or c) He once sent Rangers manager Frank Lucchesi to the hospital with a vicious (and quite uncharacteristic) spring training beatdown.

There’s far more to Randle’s story than those bullet points, of course. A first-round pick out of Arizona State, where he played second base for the 1969 Sun Devils baseball squad that went 56-11 on their way to winning the College World Series, Randle — who turns 66 on Thursday — made it to the majors in 1971, and hustled hard through twelve seasons with the Senators, Rangers, Mets, Yankees, Cubs and Mariners. After being released by the Mariners in 1982, Randle took his bat and glove to Italy, where he won a batting crown, set several Serie A1 league records, and became a cult hero among Italian baseball fans, who dubbed him “Cappuccino.”

Today, Randle is also something of a cult hero among a smaller but equally passionate group of fans: those who dig endlessly through record bins in search of obscure funk and R&B gems from the early 1980s. In the waning days of his MLB career, Randle cut several funky tracks — some with the help of Mariners teammate Thad Bosley — that have become quite collectable. “Kingdome,” Randle’s cowbell-driven salute to the original home of the M’s, was recently included on "Wheedle’s Groove Volume II," a killer compilation of Seattle funk tracks from the 70s and 80s released by Light In the Attic Records.

“I grew up in a musical family,” says Randle. “Music was always very important to us. We thought the Randle 5 was gonna be the Jackson 5, Part II!” Though Randle’s baseball career understandably took precedence over his youthful dreams of musical stardom, he says that making music remained a valuable outlet for him throughout his playing days. “We used to have a lot of fun with that,” he recalls. “Thad and I, we didn’t do all the crazy off-the-field stuff that some of the guys did. You have a lot of down-time during the season, but we just used it to do music, dance, and eat good, and that was it. We were focused! We had to get a ten-year career in,” he laughs.

“Kingdome” was inspired by Randle’s friendship with David Finnegan, a young Mariners fan who had cerebral palsy. “He’d come to the games all the time with his dad,” remembers Randle. “He had trouble speaking, but he was always saying ‘Yay, Mariners!’ This kid needed a voice synthesizer to help him talk better, but it cost five thousand dollars to buy one. So I told him I’d make a record and give him the proceeds from it.”

Recorded shortly before the 1981 baseball strike, “Kingdome” — which features Randle on vocals and cowbell, his brother Ron on most of the other instruments, his 10 year-old niece Rashawna and M’s teammates Larry Andersen, Bryan Clark, Al Cowens, Julio Cruz and Dick Drago on backing vocals — was intended as a high-energy party starter for Mariners fans, in the grand tradition of such sure-fire stadium anthems as Queen’s “We Will Rock You.” And really, who wouldn’t get pumped up by lyrics like, “Now check out the turf/That’s Astroturf!”?

Kingdome:

“I’m a Ballplayer,” the song’s equally funky flip side, is a slyly humorous ode to the sort of swinging that takes place off the field following the game. “I’m a ballplayer/And I like singles,” Randle reveals. “I’m a ballplayer/And I like to mingle.” The jam closes with our hero informing a baseball Annie that the game will be over by eleven, before coyly adding, “I have to get my rest!” “Our life back then was like, 11 p.m. to 2 a.m.,” he explains. “We knew we had to get eight or nine hours of sleep — so if you were gonna meet up with a girl, it had to be in that window!”

I’m a Ballplayer: 

Credited to Lenny Randle and Ball Players featuring Rashawna, the “Kingdome” single sold well enough to get Finnegan his voice synthesizer, and attracted enough buzz to convince Randle and his brother to go back into the studio. This time, though, it was with Thad Bosley — who would later go on to record two albums of his own, 1987’s "No Greater Love" and 1990’s "Who Can Change the World" — in tow. “He’s a very talented guy,” says Randle of his former teammate. “He plays keyboards, he sings, and he does a little bit of flute. He’s like my Brian McKnight!”

Bosley and the Randles recorded enough tracks to fill out a full-length Ball Players album called "Just a Chance," which included “Kingdome” and “I’m a Ballplayer,” and which was released in a limited pressing on Randle’s own Randle Enterprises label in 1983. The highly sought-after release typically fetches $150 or more these days, if you can even find it; a single containing “American Worker” and the album’s title track, which was released around the same time, is significantly easier on the wallet. Four of the album’s tracks, including “American Worker” and “Universal Language,” were reissued on a vinyl EP in 2009 by the Peoples Potential Unlimited label. Hopefully, the Light in the Attic folks will reissue the entire"Just a Chance" album some day, if only so the world can know if the song “Mr. Rogers ‘Get Down’” is actually as good as its promising title.

Though Randle looks back fondly on the Ball Players tracks, he remains a little disappointed about the way the Mariners organization reacted to “Kingdome.” Instead of viewing the song as a useful marketing tool, he says, “the ownership thought it was a distraction. Every city [the Mariners] played in, somebody would also want to book a show for the band, or put us on the news. So the front office was like, ‘Well, what are you doing? Is it baseball or music?’ It pissed them off, because they were worried about our concentration. This is before Shaq and Deon, OK? It was before 'Super Bowl Shuffle.' Athletes making music wasn’t a normal thing back then.”

Randle, who now makes his home in Nettuno, Italy, is much savvier about cross-marketing baseball and music than his former employers ever were. As the GM and co-owner of the Nettuno Baseball Club, he regularly holds “Battle of the Bands” promotions at Nettuno’s Stadio Steno Borghese; he also books “Baseball and Boogie” tours around the world featuring classic funk bands like War, and oversees the Lenny Randle’s Sports Academy, which offers a variety of international baseball tours, clinics and fantasy camps. And, somehow, Randle still finds time for his own music; he recently shot a video for a song of his called “Another Touch,” inspired by life on the Roman coast. He also says he may taking part in a US summer tour featuring a collective of 80s-era Seattle funk and jazz musicians.

But even if he doesn’t bring his music back to Seattle this summer, the Mariners should seriously consider adding “Kingdome” to the Safeco Field playlist. Sure, the team plays in a much nicer stadium now, one with real grass and a retractable roof. But with the M’s coming in to 2015 looking like serious contenders in the AL West, some cowbell-driven funk from the team’s past might be the final touch that’s needed to put the present squad over the top.