The Wall

People Who Died - January, 2025

This month started slowly and, unfortunately for some who you will read about, it took off. Not like December, which saw a lot of people exiting before the ball dropped in Times Square, but not what I would call a quiet month. Looking forward to pitchers and catchers reporting for service (hopefully with Alonso still at first for the Mets) so we will appropriately start off with baseball.

When Baseball resumes in 2025, its soundtrack will be diminished and a lot less funny due to the loss this month of Bob Uecker, who died at 90. While no one would mistake him for a Hall of Fame player, he was a Hall of Fame announcer (He was awarded the Ford C. Frick award by the Hall of Fame) for the Milwaukee Brewers for 54 years, second in longevity to the current Kansas City Royals broadcaster, Denny Matthews. His last broadcast was game three of the 2024 Wildcard series between the Brewers and the Mets. His charm and self-deprecation made him a nationally revered sportscaster and late night television staple. He appeared on the Johnny Carson Show nearly 100 times and hosted Saturday Night Live in 1984. Miller Lite chose him as its spokesman where he became known for his tag line, “Oh, I must be in the front row.” In fact, in the commercial, where he sits down in the lower deck of a ballgame. When an usher comes over to remove him he announces, “Oh, I must be in the front row.” Actually, the usher escorts him to the nosebleed seats with few other spectators, where he sits and effervescently says to another spectator, “good seats, eh buddy?” The Brewers have a section in the stadium today where for a buck you can get in and sit in the “Uecker” seats. They put a statue of him (the second at the stadium), sitting in one of the seats.

Uecker did play baseball. He was born in Milwaukee and, as a catcher, was signed to play in their minor league system. His career was what a doctor would call unremarkable. He played for several teams, including the Brewers, Cardinals, Phillies and Braves. He batted the Mendoza line of .200 for his career, with 14 home runs. Although known as a good defensive catcher, in 1967, playing in only 59 games, he led the league in passed balls. This was undoubtedly due to his catching Phil Niekro’s knuckle ball, which he encouraged him to throw all the time. Uecker was later quoted as saying that the best way to catch a knuckle ball was to “wait until it stops rolling and pick it up.” He characterized his ability to play as long as he did in such a mediocre way, as “a triumph of human spirit.” All that said, he did hit home runs off of two Hall of Famer’s, Gaylord Perry and Sandy Koufax, and won a World Series with the Cardinals in 1964. Although he didn’t play in the Series, he did pick up a tuba that the marching band left hanging around and went into the outfield with it to shag fly balls. He didn’t catch any balls, but the team fined him $260 for the dents to the instrument where baseballs glanced off of it. He parlayed his ball career, with wit and charm into the broadcast booth. In addition to his Brewers announcing, he did national games for ABC. On Monday Night Baseball, with Howard Cosell, and Al Michaels (talk about odd-man-out?) Uecker corrected a clearly wrong, and ever unctuous Cosell, who shot back that Eucker didn’t have to be so truculent about it, then asking Uecker if he even knew what truculent meant. Without skipping a beat, Uecker responded, of course, if I borrowed a truck from you, it would be the truck-you-lent. In addition to his sports broadcasting career (did I mention he emceed some WWE events), he had a regular role in the sitcom “Mr. Belvedere,” which ran from 1985 to 1990, and was cast as a sportscaster for the then Cleveland Indians, in the movie “Major League” where he largely ad-libbed his lines and delivered another great tag line. When the pitcher, Ricky “Wild Thing” Vaughn (Charlie Sheen), throws a pitch nowhere near the plate, Eucker’s character calls it “juuust a bit outside,” following it with, “tried the corner and missed.” In talking about his demise, well before it occurred, he referenced the statue of himself in the Milwaukee stands saying that “I think when I finally go, I want to go like that, seated and above ground.” Who could blame him.

Soul Man, Sam Moore, who with his partner Dave Prater, were the R&B giants Sam & Dave, died at 89. Sam & Dave sang the monster hits, “Hold On, I’m Comin,” “I Thank You,” and “Soul Man,” and were such dynamic performers, that the most dynamic performer of all, Otis Redding, refused to appear on the same bill with them, lest they outshine him, although they did tour Europe together in 67. Some lesser known tunes, “When Something Is Wrong with My Baby,” and “I can’t Stand Up for Falling Down,” were covered by folks like Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville, and Elvis Costello. Mr. Moore was the son of a teacher (his mom), and an itinerant womanizer. Early on, he followed in his father’s footsteps apparently sleeping with three of his teachers and fathered a child when he was 16. In Sam Cook fashion, while still in school he was shot in the leg by the husband of a woman with whom he was sleeping. He did a stint in jail for procuring prostitutes, but all the time sang like a bird, in church and in doo-wop groups. He and Dave Prater met at the King of Hearts club in Miami and decided to team up. They signed a record deal with Roulette records but didn’t go far. Back at the King of Hearts, Ahmet Ertegun, Jerry Wexler, and Tom Dowd saw them and signed them to a contract. Rather than record them on Atlantic, they “loaned” them to Stax Records, which was distributed by Atlantic, so they could work with the great innovators of soul music. With songs written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter, and backed by Booker T. and the MG’s, and the Memphis Horns, Sam & Dave hit their stride. Known as Double Dynamite, they recorded music and put on shows that were high energy. While Sam & Dave were on a streak, they were not especially close, and ultimately the touring and drugs, tore them apart. Dave Prater replaced Moore with Sam Daniels and tried to keep the Sam & Dave moniker, only to be sued by Moore who was relatively successful in protecting the name. The duo had to use The New Sam & Dave Revue which still stung Sam who started an organization called Artists and Others Against Imposters, which, if it still exists, would be near and dear to my heart. Sam & Dave were voted into the R&R Hall of Fame (Dave, who died in a car accident in 1988, posthumously), and their rendition of “Soul Man,” received a Grammy for best R&B performance. Moore recorded an album in 1971 produced by King Curtiss with Aretha Franklin on piano that for some reason was not released until 2002. When finally it was released, “Plenty Good Lovin’” was critically acclaimed. Moore once sued the Obama campaign for using “Hold On I’m Comin,” and sang for Trump’s first inauguration, much to the chagrin of many. “Comin’ to ya, on a dusty road.”

The last living member of The Band (and also the last to join the outfit), Garth Hudson, has danced his last waltz at 87. A multi-instrumentalist, he was probably the person most responsible for creating the sound of The Band. He largely played the organ but while nearly every rock organist played the Hammond B3 (paired with a Leslie), he played a Lowrey. In fact, after rebuffing a few offers to play with the Hawks, the predecessor-name of the Band (because they backed the singer Ronnie Hawkins), he agreed to join in return for a Lowrey organ and a pay of $10.00 more than the other band members, explained away as a fee for teaching them music, to justify to his parents that he was a” teacher,” and not a rock ‘n roller. The Hawks split from Mr. Hawkins and were on their own for a bit before they became Bob Dylan’s backup band when he electrified, much to the initial horror of many of his fans. As an aside, Barry Goldberg, a keyboard player who backed Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival, when he first went electric, and who wrote a tune with Gram Parsons for a Flying Burrito Brothers album, died this month at 83. When Dylan got in a terrible motorcycle accident and was laid up, the band members were living in a pink house in Saugerties, New York, where they rehearsed and wrote the music for the album that would become “Music from Big Pink,” which really put them on the map. During that time, Dylan would also come over to the house and his and Garth’s work together was the genesis for Dylan’s “Basement Tapes.” The song “Chest Fever” from the “Big Pink,” album, when played live, was greatly expanded allowing Hudson to strut his keyboard stuff. After a few albums, The Band called it quits, permitting Martin Scorsese to film their last show at the Winterland Ballroom on Thanksgiving, 1976, and make “The Last Waltz,” which some say is the best documentary concert film ever made. After The Band, and even during it, Hudson was an in-demand session player performing on records by Emmylou Harris, Van Morrison, Tom Petty, Leonard Cohen, and a host of others. Like many a rock star, he didn’t handle his money well and filed for bankruptcy on three occasions. You would have thought the memorabilia industry alone would have floated him, but The Band was a bit more niche, than say, Kiss. “Take a load off Fanny. Take a load for free.”

If your last name is Osmond, you want your first name to be Donny or Marie. Wayne Osmond, who died this month at 79, didn’t get the right first name but he did have a lot of talent and could play numerous instruments, including the bagpipes. He is in the Tito Jackson club. He played several instruments on Osmond’s records, often arranged their vocals, occasionally wrote a tune (“And You Love Me), and was referred to by Forbes Magazine a “criminally overlooked shredder. All things considered, that ain’t bad. Not exactly a shredder like EVH, who I mention if only to keep him alive for Calcagni, but formidable. Oh, and he married Ms. Utah.

Peter Yarrow, the partner of Paul and Mary, and the writer of “Puff the Magic Dragon,” and “If I had a Hammer,” died this month at 86. It may seem odd looking back, but Peter, Paul & Mary hit the top of the Billboard charts a dozen times. The John Denver cover of “Leavin’ On A Jet Plane,” made it to number one. Yarrow grew up in Manhattan and attended Cornell. After college he got enmeshed in the Greenwich Village folks scene and a gig at the Newport Folk Festival led to his meeting its promoter, Albert Grossman, who put him together with Mary Travers. Travers enlisted her friend Paul Stookey and puff, you had a folksy supergroup. They signed a record deal and put out “Lemon Tree,” which hit the Billboard top 40. “Lemon Tree” was followed by many others and they were off to the races, as they say. “If I had a Hammer,” which he co-wrote with Lee Hays of the Weavers, won two Grammy’s and launched the group’s album into the top twenty where it stayed for two years, selling over 2 million copies. Their next album featured “Puff,” which Mr. Yarrow swore was not about drugs, as many suspected. Rather it was based on a poem a friend of his had written when he was 19. They also covered Dylan’s “Blowin’ In the Wind,” which was hugely successful. In 1970, soon after their biggest hit, “Leavin’ On a Jet Plane” was released, the group announced they were going their separate ways. One of the reasons for that was probably the fact that Yarrow had been accused of some hanky panky with a 14 year old, for which he eventually served three months in jail and received a pardon from President Jimmy Carter, a fan of the group. The trio eventually reunited for shows but the pall over the improper dalliance continued to hang over Mr. Yarrow. Ms. Travers died in 2009, while Mr. Stookey continued to occasionally perform with Mr. Yarrow, referring to him as the brothers he never had (yes he used the plural – not one of my many typos). Mr. Yarrow continued to write songs including “Torn Between Two Lovers,” which became a hit for Mary MacGregor. I suspect that Mr. Yarrow is somewhere frolicking in the autumn mist.

The Village Voice, the paper of choice when I was a kid for finding out where good music could be heard, as well as a place for off the wall personal advertising (the on-line dating of its time), suffered huge blows this month. In case your wondering, it is still in existence, albeit only on-line. As I said, when I was a kid, the Voice was where you could find out everything you needed to know about the music scene and who was playing where, making it a must-read part of my youth. I occasionally drifted into the paper itself but the club adverts and the back page wackiness were basically it for me. Oh, and Jules Feiffer’s cartoons, but I’m getting ahead of myself. First, they lost their long-time publisher, David Schneiderman at 77. Starting with his hiring as Editor-In-Chief in 1978, he had a 28 year tenure with the paper becoming its publisher and eventually its Chief Executive Officer. His hiring was against the wishes of the left-leaning staff, who threatened not to work for him, an empty threat since they wanted to get paid and really had nowhere to go, it being as far to the left as papers went, and WBAI didn’t have any openings at the time. Left as it was, it was also, like many things in our country, white and male. Mr. Schneiderman set about to change that even before the era of DEI departments. When was that? The voice was largely dependent on classified advertisements for revenue and when Craigslist burst on the scene, much of its revenue was lost to the internet. Schneidermann managed the shifting marketplace as well as the sales and mergers of the paper along the way, leaving before it shifted fully to an online format.

Days after the loss of Mr. Schneiderman, Jules Feiffer, the famed political cartoonist died, at 95. Although first known for his cartoons, Feiffer also wrote novels, plays and screenplays as well a children’s books. He first wandered into the offices of the Village Voice in 1956 agreeing to publish his cartoons for free. He has said that it wasn’t until 1956 that the Voice paid him. The pieces, however, were syndicated in over 100 other publications so he wasn’t actually eating cat food. Over the years, his work was in such publications as The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and even Playboy. According to his New York Times obit, he cultivated his anger and distrust of authority, an overriding theme of his work, from his stint in the army into which he was drafted in 1951. The two main characters in his cartoon work were a female ballet dancer who was mistreated by men and women, yet kept getting up and dancing, and a New York everyman, who Mr. Feiffer dubbed Bernard Mergendeiler, an urban liberal, not unlike himself and his friends. Eventually, Mr. Feiffer branched out to Broadway and then to Hollywood where he wrote the screenplay for Robert Altman’s “Popeye,” and Mike Nichol’s “Carnal Knowledge.” Yet for me, it was his cartoons which define him. He won a Pulitzer prize for his cartoons in 1986. Moreover, in my mind, he was instrumental in bringing along others like Doonsbury’s Gary Trudeau. In one of his many quotes, he said, “I told the doctor I was overtired, anxiety ridden, compulsively active, constantly depressed, with recurring fits of paranoia. Turns out I’m normal.” Aren’t we all.

The slightly eccentric, Avant Garde, filmmaker, and sometimes television director, who Mel Brooks once referred to as “Jimmy Stewart from Mars,” David Lynch, has died at 78. Writing about these film guys is always tough for me because on the one hand, they have made a mark in our consciousness, but on the other, I have to write like I know something about this genre which I really have little appetite for. This is not to say that ignorance of something has ever stopped me before. “Often wrong, never in doubt,” is how my boss used to put it. Back to Lynch, an art student, then artist, he started experimenting with film loops and then short films. I should note that while at art school in Boston, he was roommates with Peter Wolfe, who later helped form the J. Geils Band, an area I would much prefer writing about. He was also an Eagle Scout, although he claimed to have joined the Boy Scouts “so I could quit and put it behind me.” I did the same, but I think I only had two merit badges when I resigned. With a grant from the AFI Conservatory in LA, Lynch made “Eraserhead,” which was lauded by the “Rocky Horror Picture Show,”/ “Pink Flamingos,” crowd and gave those fringe, midnight movie houses, something to show other than those two films and perhaps “Reefer Madness.” After “Eraserhead,” Mel Brooks, who had optioned the rights to the “Elephant Man,” asked Lynch to direct it and the movie got great reviews. He followed that up with the Dino DeLaurentis film “Dune,” which was sort of a “Heaven’s Gate” of its time. “Dune,” was followed by another DeLaurentis funded project, “Blue Velvet, which perhaps I should have seen after reading that it had a 20 minute sex scene in it. Not for nothing, I could direct a film with a 20 minute sex scene that would be a hit. Porn sells and sells bigtime. Other movies followed but all had the eccentric, David Lynch style, which garnered its own sort of acclaim. Moving to television, Lynch created “Twin Peaks” with Mark Frost of “Hill Street Blues” fame, centered around a small Washington (state) town where a popular high school student’s body washes up on the shore of a lake. Sounds like a real side-splitter. The show garnered eight Emmy awards and, like his movies, a huge cult following. After a lot of other projects I won’t bore you with, Lynch directed “Mulholland Drive,” which originally started as an ABC made-for-television movie. Taking a surrealistic look at Hollywood’s dark side, it starred Naomi Watts, Justin Theroux, and Laura Harring and was not only financially successful, but garnered Mr. Lynch a Best Director Award at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. I could blather on here about things I know nothing about, but I’ll end here with the note that Lynch was an important filmmaker adding to the creative discourse of a genre that evades me.

One of the things I excel at is eating. Nearly anything. Good food, bad food and especially cheap food. Not overly high-brow, I have not eaten in some of the best restaurants (let’s exclude Le Bernardin, Gramercy Tavern, Keens and a few others), among them Lutece. The chef and owner of Lutece, and perhaps one of the first celebrity chefs, even though he eschewed that world, Andre Soltner, simmered his last sauce this month at 92. He started at Lutece in 1961 and stayed there for some 33 years, ultimately owning the joint and living in an apartment over the restaurant. When the restaurant first opened it struggled with mediocre reviews. Craig Clairborne of the New York Times gave it only one star. For Soltner, the problem was the lack of good, available ingredients. He started demanding better ingredients, bringing items from France and negotiating with farmers to grow what he needed. The reputation grew. Gael Greene, then the restaurant critic for the New Yorker, wrote in 2008 that Lutece was the most influential restaurant in 40 years, noting that it “set the gold-standard for what a French restaurant should be in America.” Soltner sold the restaurant to Ark restaurants in 1994 which ran it until it closed for good in 2004. He was awarded the Legion d’honneur by the French government as well as the Officier de Merite Nationale (sorry I don’t know how to include the fancy accent marks). He was also awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the James Beard Foundation. An avid skier, he often skied Hunter Mountain on Sundays. Probably should have opened an Aspen branch of Lutece

Going under the assumption that it was his cross to bear, Arthur Blessitt, who died this month at 84, carried his cross literally around the world. Now I am not a religious guy so keep that in mind as you read this. Back in the 60’s Blessitt, a Southern Baptist preacher, saw what he believed to be the erosion of religious morals in the young, hippie types, and started preaching in bars, clubs, and concert halls that would let him in. Not having an impact, on Christmas day in 1969, he embarked on a cross country trip carrying a 110 pound cross that was six feet wide and 12 feet long. Perhaps realizing this was not going to be easy, he added wheels to the thing which, in my mind is cheating. I mean the original guy didn’t have that option. If he was in a grave, he probably would have been spinning. In any event, wheels and all, he made it from Los Angeles to Washington D.C. in six months. Along the way, he traded his sandals for hiking boots, for which I forgive him due to the length of the journey. Back in LA, Blessitt claims that, on orders from Jesus, he would carry the cross around the world. Now at this point, if I was dealing with Jesus, I might have tried to talk him out of this notion of worldwide cross carrying. Blessitt apparently just went along. There were logistical hurdles to overcome since shipping a cross is no easy task. Thus, Blessitt compromised another alteration was made, opting for a 42 pound version on two parts that could be shipped. That done, he proceeded to embark on a journey that, according to his website, was “over 43,340 miles in 324 countries, island groups and territories. 86 million steps and over 19 billion pounds of total weight carried.” This weight number apparently discounts the wheels. His wife, whom he married in 1963 after a six week courtship, drove a support vehicle with necessary supplies, in 294 countries. They divorced in 1990, which is presumably why she didn’t make the full 324. As you might imagine, he faced a lot of jeers and outright hostility. In Assisi, Italy, a place that might seem sympathetic to a guy carrying a cross, someone stole it. I guess he had to start locking it up at night, although he could have just slept on it. Alright enough of my cynicism. He believed in what he did to the point he would devote pretty much his entire life carrying the cross, and preaching the word of God. Good for him that he found something he believed in so much he would devote his every day to it for over 40 years. I have never been that motivated by anything.

We lost Marianne Faithful at 78. Now not being a Rolling Stones fan, she did not have a big impact on me. I remember her most for “Broken English,” which actually was recorded later in her career. She is said to have been Mick Jagger’s muse, or Jagger and Keith Richards muse. She was apparently somebody’s muse. Of musedom, she said that while it was a great honor, it was “a hard job.” It is claimed that “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” was composed about her, and that she influenced “Wild Horses,” and “Got the Blues,” which were on the “Sticky Fingers” album. She also gave Jagger a book by the Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov, which led to “Sympathy for the Devil,” and she co-wrote “Sister Morphine,” although she didn’t get co-writing credit on the Stones album. She did get it on the album she put out, but I’d go with who the publishing company was paying but couldn’t find that info. She was first discovered by Andrew Loog Oldham and recorded “As Tears Go By,” a Jagger/Richards composition a year before the Stones did it. She had a string of hits, had a very public affair with Jagger that the tabloid press ate up like Krispy Kreme’s at a police station, made some movies, and descended into drug abuse. She was homeless for a time but made a comeback with “Broken English,” a record that featured what I felt was her haunting voice. She was famously photographed outside Keith Richard’s house wrapped only in a fur rug when the police raided it and found drugs. Jagger and Richards were charged, but Faithful escaped being arrested. Career-wise she made about 20 albums and a number of films (She was nominated for best actress in the European Film Awards for her lead role in the French film “Irena Palm”), as well as publishing three different memoirs. She was awarded the Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, one of France’s highest cultural honors. “I sit and watch as tears go by.”

Like most people, once every four years I watch figure skating. That is, unless it is a really slow sports weekend and that is all that is on ESPN. I don’t know what it is, though, but I remember the commentators. Scott Hamilton, the current favorites Tara Lapinski and Johnny Weir, but the grandfather of them all was Dick Button who died this month at 95. A two-time Olympic gold medal winner in figure skating, it was Button that taught the American audience about double and triple axels, which most of us mistook for truck talk (actually, the axel was named for its inventor, Axel Paulson), and lutzes, which many of us are still unsure about. In fact, when Button began commentating on the Olympics, the American audience, as well as the Olympic commentators other than him, didn’t really understand the nuances of the sport and until he came along, it didn’t get much coverage. He changed that, educated America and provided very candid comments about the skaters, good and bad. Once viewing a skater’s program, he stated: “whatever that was supposed to be, it wasn’t.” He had the credentials to be honest and where needed, critical. He was the first American to win a gold medal in figure skating and the first skater to pull off a successful double axe. Which seems almost amateur today. An Englewood, New Jersey native, he didn’t even learn to skate until he was 11. I think now they start them at three. He really had a lot of firsts as a skater but also attended Harvard Law School, and although he didn’t practice law, after he turned pro, he started some successful business ventures one of which produced skating shows for television. Roone Arlidge, who had seen Button Skate, hired him to comment on figure skating when ABC started Wild World of Sports, a favorite show of mine as a kid. Who can forget “The thrill of victory and the Agony of defeat,” with that poor skier tumbling before us every week. Anyway, Button became the voice of skating for nearly 60 years and even today, the new skating commentary phenom, Johnny Weir, who is often over the top, but always entertaining, points to Button as his mentor. The thing about figure skating is that even the best of the best fall at critical moments. Of that Button has said: “there is a popular fallacy that falling down is the mark of a poor skater. But the truth is that when one stops falling, he has probably stopped improving.” Keep falling.

I started with baseball and will end with it. The Mets, like the Village Voice, took some hits, and I don’t mean that in the good way. Jeff Torborg, who managed the team in 1992, and a bit in 93, died at 83. Born in Plainfield, New Jersey, and raised in Wesfield, he caught at Westfield High and at Rutgers before being drafted by the Los Angeles, Dodgers. Not a great hitter, he was brought up as the third string catcher. He caught Sandy Koufax’ perfect game on September 5, 1965, probably one of the best pitched games ever. Torborg called every pitch and said that Koufax rarely waived him off. Five years later, still with the Dodgers, he caught Bill Singer’s no-hitter. Traded to the California Angels in 71, on May 15, 1971, he caught Nolan Ryan’s first of seven no-hitters, making him only the 18^th catcher to catch three no-hitters. The record is four held by Jason Varitek and Carlos Ruiz. After his playing career, he managed the Chicago White Sox and then moved over to the Mets in 1992. It was a talented team with the likes of Doc Gooden, Brett Saberhagen, Eddie Murray, Bobbie Bonilla, and Vince Coleman, but Torborg could do nothing with them. In fact, his message of family values and Mr. nice guy was the wrong message for this team of athletes. Torborg wanted wives to go along on road trips which was antithetical to the locker room mentality of the team, who viewed road trips as the ability to carouse and do what rock musicians usually do when they are on tour. When Torborg mandated a road trip to St. Louis and Chicago as one where wives were invited to come along, the day the team left, someone wrote on the locker room wall: “SIX DAYS OF HELL,” according to Bob Klapisch and John Harper in their book “The Worst Team Money Could Buy.” Says something about the sanctity of sports marriages. Anyway, all of his lack of carousing led to a lousy season and Torborg was fired early into the following season when things were not looking up. Torborg went back to sports broadcasting where, on FOX, he was the color commentator along with Vin Scully for three World Series. Having a ring-side seat for a Koufax perfect game, Ryan’s first no hitter, and yet another, and then to sit next to the greatest sports broadcaster for three World Series is as good as it gets for a guy from New Jersey, or anywhere else, for that matter.

The Mets also lost Lenny Randle at 75. Rolling Stone Magazine said that he was a viable candidate for baseball’s version of “the most interesting man in the world.” When he was with the Texas Rangers, the pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, threw a pitch that went behind his back. On the next pinch he laid down a bunt and headed for first. Seeing the pitcher trying to field the ball close to the first base line, he slightly changed course and mowed over the pitcher, continuing on to first, where he was tackled by the first baseman. He was called out and a bench-clearing brawl ensued. Three years later, in 1977, he lost his second base starting position to a first year phenom. He approached the manager, Frank Lucchesi, and wound up punching him three times, breaking his jaw and sending him to the hospital for a week. Randle was suspended for 30 days, pled no contest to an assault charge, and settled a civil suit with Lucchesi for $20,000. Then he was traded to, of all places, the Mets. Randle was at bat on July 13, 1977, when the lights went out in Shea, and pretty much everywhere else in New York. While playing third base for the Seattle Mariners on May 27, 1981, against the Kansas City Royals, Amos Otis hit a slow roller up the third base line that seemed to be staying fair. Randle got down on his hands and knees blowing on the ball which rolled over the chalk line into foul territory. The Royals objected and Otis was awarded first base. Randle claimed he was just talking to the ball, telling it to go foul. Perhaps he should have told it to carry a cross around the world. He might have had better luck. After playing in the bigs, he played ball in Italy, apparently with no major occurrences. He ended his baseball career playing with the St Petersburg Pelicans of the Senior Professional Baseball Association. With a band, Lenny Randle and the Ballplayers, he recorded a record, Kingdome,

, proving that he was lucky not to quit his day job.

Sticking with baseball, Bob Veale, the hard throwing pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates, died at 89. In 1964 through 66, his first three years in the league, he struck out 755 batters. He was a two time All-Star and had a fastball that the Pirates announcer, Bob Prince, referred to as a “radio ball,” because you could hear it, but not see it. Veale wore glasses and like many a hard thrower, had a tendency to be wild. In one game, he was having trouble with one of his lenses falling out of the frame, so he just took his glasses off altogether. Seeing this, the batter, Lou Brock of the Cardinals, refused to step in the batter’s box even after being ordered to do so by the ump. The standoff ended when the Pittsburgh pitching coach delivered an old pair of specs to the pitcher. According to his New York Times obit, it was a good thing since Veale later admitted that without his glasses, he saw six people.

Finally, the New Jersey Pretrial Services Agency, and really all of the agencies involved with New Jersey federal judiciary, lost Annette Gautier this month. She was always smiling. We all should try and emulate her.

That’s a wrap for January. Now we head into the month of the year I detest most ardently. Thank God it’s the shortest. Stay warm.