Randy Moffitt, a veteran MLB relief pitcher and the sibling of tennis icon Billie Jean King, passed away in his native Long Beach, California, on Thursday, as reported by the Associated Press. He had reached the age of 76.
Reports suggest that the cause of death was a prolonged period of sickness.
Following his collegiate baseball career at Cal State Long Beach, Moffitt was selected as the 18th overall pick by the San Francisco Giants during the main phase of the 1970 MLB Draft. It only took him a couple of years before he debuted in MLB, and he went on to play for 10 seasons with the Giants, achieving 83 saves and a 3.68 ERA. Moffitt’s consistent performance over 459 games for the Giants led to his induction into their Wall of Fame in 2008.
His career faced a significant setback in 1979 after he allegedly contracted an unusual and potentially fatal intestinal parasite, which caused frequent feelings of sickness and a weight loss of approximately 25 pounds.
This parasitic infection affected Moffitt throughout the conclusion of his Giants tenure in 1981, a period during which he recorded a 7.00 ERA across three seasons. Nevertheless, he recovered sufficiently to complete his career with two respectable seasons, one in 1982 with the Houston Astros and another in 1983 with the Toronto Blue Jays.
In a recent Instagram post this year, King, a pivotal personality in both tennis and women’s sports in general, characterized herself and Moffitt as “competitive youngsters, from the very beginning.”
That familial contest eventually added another element to the Giants-Dodgers rivalry when King acquired a partial ownership stake in the Dodgers in 2018.
According to the AP, Moffitt is survived by two daughters — Miranda Harrah and her spouse, Rusty, and Alysha Gosse and her spouse, James — as well as four grandchildren.
