He sat home for two straight days, waiting ... waiting ... waiting.
The boy had a dream, after all. From the time he was 7 or 8 years old, the one thing Randall Mario Poffo wanted to do was play baseball. He was the kid who carried his mitt and bat everywhere; who begged his little brother Lanny to get off the couch and come to the back yard for some extra BP; who pinched himself every time his father, Angelo, took the boys to Wrigley Field or Comiskey Park to catch Hank Aaron or Roger Maris or Willie Mays as they came through town.
Was Randy Poffo the greatest athlete Downers Grove (Ill.) North High had ever produced? Probably not. But when it came to determination and drive, well, he was in his own league.
Once, while he was matriculating at Herrick Junior High, a physical education teacher questioned whether any of the students could do 100 sit-ups without stopping. Randy exceeded 1,000. Another time, John Guarnaccia, a longtime childhood friend, spotted the right-handed Randy throwing balls with his left hand.
"Uh, what are you doing?" he asked.
"Well, a coach might want me to pitch," Randy replied. "But I don't wanna burn out my arm. So I'll learn to do it lefty, and I'll save my right for the important things."
Guarnaccia laughed and walked away.
"No exaggeration," he says now. "Randy became fully ambidextrous."
As a junior at Downers Grove North, Poffo batted .500 for the Trojans, leading them to a West Suburban Conference title. The next year, he improved to .525 and Downers Grove North repeated. With the local reputation as a winner, a player with power to all fields and a cannon of an arm from behind the plate, a future in pro ball seemed all but inevitable. A handful of scouts had come to suburban Illinois to watch him play, and while he didn't perform particularly well in their presence (a 102-degree fever rendered him useless), the interest was undeniable.
"We all assumed Randy would be welcomed into professional baseball," says his brother Lanny. "It was more than his dream. It was his destiny."
On June 8, 1971, Randy Poffo -- handsome, polite, clean cut -- sat inside his house at 3909 Venard Road and waited for the phone to ring. At approximately 10 a.m., the Chicago White Sox opened baseball's amateur draft by selecting Danny Goodwin, a catcher out of nearby Peoria Central High. Roughly three hours later, with the 40th pick, the Chicago Cubs took catcher Steve Haug, also from Illinois. One spot later, the Oakland A's tabbed catcher Ron Williamson. Four picks after that, Michael Uremovich, another catcher, went to the Twins. Then Steve Hergenrader to the White Sox. And David Christiansen to the Angels. And Michael Frazier to the Dodgers. And ... and ... by the time two days and 48 rounds had passed a whopping 66 catchers were selected.
None by the name of Randy Poffo.
"That was the darkest of dark times for us," says Lanny. "To describe it simply as sad does the pain no justice. Randy was ignored. Completely ignored. I assure you, he never forgot that feeling. "Never."
*****
Randy Poffo died last Friday.
Before we go on, you should probably be told as much. Randy Poffo, the kid who dreamed of playing baseball, was driving his Jeep Wrangler in Pinellas County, Fla., when, at approximately 9:25 a.m., he suffered a massive heart attack. The Jeep veered over the raised concrete median divider, crossed over several lanes and crashed head-on into a tree.
When police arrived, they found Poffo's wife, Lynn, hurt but stable. Beside her, slumped forward in the driver's seat, was the lifeless body of a thickly built man with a white beard and a familiar face. He was 58. "I believe Randy was already gone when it hit," says Lanny, who wrestled in the WWF under the sobriquet, The Genius. "Which is the better way, I suppose."
If the accident sounds familiar but the name does not, that's probably because Randy Poffo was better known -- actually, universally known -- as Randy (Macho Man) Savage, one of the most accomplished and beloved professional wrestlers of all time. A former champion in both Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation and Ted Turner's World Championship Wrestling, the Macho Man became something of an iconic figure, what with his distinctive "Oooh Yeah!" growl, his bright, flamboyant duds, his outrageous appearances in Slim Jim commercials ("Snap into a Slim Jim!") and his cameo role as Bone Saw McGraw in the movie Spiderman.
Yet to a small handful of people, Macho Man Savage was merely a role, a funny-yet-foreign character that defined but a tiny sliver of a person's life. To them, Randy Poffo was not a wrestler; not a pitchman, not an actor, not a comic book character.
He was a ballplayer.
"That was his love," says Barry Cernoch, a high school teammate. "That's what Randy was all about."
Back in the 1960s, Downers Grove, Ill., was the model of suburban bliss. Located 30 miles west of Chicago, the village served as the perfect outpost for commuters who worked in the Windy City, but didn't desire to live there. It boasted a high-achieving school district, shops and restaurants and a nonexistent crime rate. In other words, it was the ideal place for Angelo and Judy Poffo to start a family. In particular, Angelo -- who was born and raised in Downers Grove -- loved the low-key simplicity of things. By night, he was "the Masked Miser" and "the Carpet Bagger," a loathed villain of professional wrestling whose infamous Italian Neckbreaker move shut down opponents. By day, however, he was merely a (albeit large) suburban dad, a proud graduate of DePaul University who stressed academics above all else.
Randy was born on Nov. 15, 1952, and before long he was walking, talking and breathing all things baseball. Though his preferred team was the Cubs, his two favorite players were Cincinnati's Pete Rose (for the hustle) and Johnny Bench (for his status as the game's elite catcher). In 1962, when her oldest son was 10, Judy Poffo signed Randy up for Downers Grove Little League. He was assigned to a team called, oddly, the Moose, which was sponsored by a local VFW lodge. From the very first day, he was a catcher.
"What was immediately noteworthy was that Randy threw the ball back to the pitcher with more velocity than the pitcher pitched the ball to Randy," says Guarnaccia, his childhood friend. "He was definitely the best player in town for his age. There was no doubt about it."
In order to help Randy (and, later, Lanny) develop, his parents built a winterized batting cage (with a pitching machine) beside the house. A one-time catcher at DePaul, Angelo filled Randy's mind with strategies and ideas: how to call a game, how to block the plate, how to see the field, how to emulate players like Bench and Randy Hundley.
Following his sophomore year at Downers Grove High, Randy was shocked to learn that his parents were planning on uprooting the family for 11 months to Hawaii. Angelo had a lucrative opportunity to wrestle on the big island, as well as in Japan, and he also saw it as a chance for his kids to focus solely on baseball. So in 1968-69, the Poffos lived in a small apartment on Kanekapolei Street in Honolulu, and the boys -- to their delight -- simply missed a year of school. "We were home schooled, where we had to write reports for my mother," says Lanny. "But it was nothing formal."
During the time away, Randy and Lanny played baseball nonstop. There were never-ending games of catch, followed by more never-ending games of catch. Though only 16 at the time, Randy made his semipro debut, starting at catcher for the Gouvea's Sausage Phillies. One of his teammates was John Matias, who, two years later, would play outfield for the White Sox. "That time in Hawaii made Randy a different level player," says Lanny. "It helped us both develop in big ways."
The Poffos returned to Illinois, and Randy spent his final two seasons starring for one of the state's better prep teams. But when the 1971 draft came and went, his heart sank. Sure, he could probably follow his father into the family business. But the goal wasn't to become a professional wrestler. It was to play ball.
Which is why, the day after the Los Angeles Dodgers used the 794th and final pick to take Don Stackpole, a (what else?) catcher from Wildomar, Calif., Angelo Poffo forced his son into the car and drove 283 miles to St. Louis, where the Cardinals were holding a two-day open-call tryout camp. In his first at-bat during hitting drills, Randy laced a line drive into the right-center gap that bounced over the wall for a ground-rule double. When the session ended, he was brought into the executive offices and offered a $500-per-month contract and an invitation to join the organization's rookie league club in Tampa. Of the approximately 300 players in attendance, he was the only one to catch the franchise's eye. "No bonus whatsoever," says Lanny. "Randy signed the same day as Keith Hernandez. He was elated. It wasn't about the money. It was so much bigger than that."