Lenny Randle, a versatile major league ballplayer whose career was defined by unusual events — he once blew a ground ball into foul territory, battered his manager on another occasion and was at bat for the Mets when the power went out in New York City — died on Sunday at his home in Murrieta, Calif. He was 75.
His wife, Linda Randle, confirmed the death but did not cite a specific cause.
Randle was playing third base for the Seattle Mariners on May 27, 1981, at the Kingdome in Seattle, when Amos Otis of the Kansas City Royals tapped a ground ball that trickled toward third. As it continued to roll in fair territory, on artificial turf, Randle dropped to his hands and knees and blew on the ball, huffing and puffing until it veered foul. The home plate umpire, Larry McCoy, called it a foul ball.
But Jim Frey, the Royals’ manager, lodged a protest with the umpires, and McCoy reversed his call, sending Otis to first base.
Randle insisted that he had only been talking to the ball.
“I said, ‘Please go foul, go foul,’” he said afterward. “I did not blow on it. I just used the power of suggestion.”
By then, Randle was near the end of a peripatetic career, which had begun in 1971 with the Washington Senators. (He remained with the team when it moved to Texas, becoming the Texas Rangers.) He also played for the Mets and the Yankees as well as the Chicago Cubs. He was known for his speed and reliability, whether playing at second base, third base, shortstop or center field. A switch-hitter, he had a career batting average of .257, with 27 home runs and 322 runs batted in.
He had his best season in 1977, with the Mets, with a batting average of .304, five home runs, 27 runs batted in and 33 stolen bases. But in baseball lore those statistics were, in more ways than one, overshadowed by the great New York City blackout that year.
On July 13, the Mets were trailing the Cubs, 2-1, in the bottom of the sixth inning at Shea Stadium when Randle came to the plate. The Cubs pitcher Ray Burris went into his windup when, suddenly, as if a giant switch had been flicked off, the lights went out.
“I thought, ‘God, I’m gone,’” Randle told The New York Times. “I thought for sure He was calling me. I thought it was my last at-bat.”
Ten years later, he told Newsday: “I couldn’t figure out whether he threw the ball or not, so I just swung. Then I didn’t know whether I hit the ball or not, so I took off.” When he pulled into second base, he added, the Cubs’ Manny Trillo “was waiting for me to hug and kiss him.”
In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine called Randle baseball’s version of the “most interesting man in the world.” Several months later, the MLB Network premiered the documentary “Lenny Randle: The Most Interesting Man in Baseball.”
Leonard Schenoff Randle was born on Feb. 12, 1949, in Long Beach, Calif., and grew up in nearby Compton. His father, Isaac, was a longshoreman, and his mother, Ethel Lee (Smith) Randle, worked in the garment industry.
After playing baseball and football at Centennial High School in Compton, Randle went to Arizona State University, where he was part of the Sun Devils’ 1969 N.C.A.A. championship. He also played varsity football. He was chosen 10th overall, by the Senators, in the secondary phase of the Major League Baseball draft in 1970. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1973.
Randle continued to be in the middle of bizarre doings. In 1974, he was at bat for the Rangers when the Cleveland Indians’ pitcher Milt Wilcox threw the ball behind him, nearly striking Randle. Then, after laying down a drag bunt along the first base line, Randle retaliated, deliberately running off the base path to knock Wilcox down, sparking a brawl.
And during spring training with the Rangers in 1977, Randle lost the starting second base job to Bump Wills and became so upset that he punched the team’s manager, Frank Lucchesi, three times, causing a triple fracture to his right cheekbone and other injuries.
“I never thought it would come to this,” Randle said afterward. “I’m just not that kind of person.”
He was suspended for 30 days and fined $10,000 by the league. In court he pleaded no contest to misdemeanor battery, was fined $1,050 and settled a civil lawsuit filed by Lucchesi. Randle was then traded to the Mets a month into the 1977 season.
The Mets were entering an especially dismal phase in their history: They would win 64 games that year and finish in last place in the National League East. But Randle excelled that year. On July 9, when the Mets played the Montreal Expos, he had hits in 13 of his last 14 games and was batting .310.
During one game he made two diving catches, one saving a run. Then, in the bottom of the 17th inning, he crashed a two-run home run off Will McEnaney into the left field bullpen at Shea to win the game.
After struggling in 1978, Randle was released by the Mets during spring training the next year. He played in the minor leagues in the San Francisco Giants’ and Pittsburgh Pirates’ systems before the Yankees acquired him on Aug. 3, 1979, the day after Thurman Munson, their All-Star catcher, died in the crash of an airplane he was piloting.
Randle played sparingly for the Yankees but had a strong season for the Cubs in 1980. He finished his M.L.B. career with Seattle in 1982.
In addition to his wife, whom he had met in elementary school when she was Linda Bradley, Mr. Randle is survived by their sons Bradley, Kumasi and Ahmad; three grandchildren; four sisters, Becky Osborne, Ruthie Downs, Barbara Edney and Theresa Price; and two brothers, Ronald Randle and Clyde Williams.
Randle continued playing baseball for several years in the Italian Baseball League, or Serie A1. He was the first former major leaguer to play professionally in Italy and led the league in batting with a .477 average in 1983 playing for the Nettuno team, which he later managed. Fans nicknamed him “Cappuccino” for his “hard-hustling play, charismatic swagger and impish sense of humor,” according to Rolling Stone.
He also ran a baseball academy and conducted instructional clinics, spoke five languages, performed stand-up comedy and recorded music with his band, Ballplayers.
“He was like the wind that can never be harnessed,” Ms. Randle said in an interview. “He was never upset, mad or mean, and always had something positive to give to you.”