From the start, Randy Bass has been one of the secret heroes of the franchise. Fate Norris credited the former Hanshin Tigers' star with improving the performance of several Moline minor leaguers, including Derrek Lee, now with Florida, whose father and uncle also starred as Japanese gaijin. Under Bass's tutelage, young Green hitters have thrived, particularly at mastering the strike zone, though Bass admits to discouragement about the performance of 1999 draftees Pablo Ozuna and Aaron Rowand. "It was like I was talking Japanese to those guys. They don't get the idea of controlled aggression." They never learned, and both players were gone from the organization soon enough.
As a player, Bass never shone in the States. He hit .333 with 37 HRs and 143 RBI for the great Denver Bears team of 1980, when he was already 26 years old and heading for career-minor-leaguer status. He got only 325 major league at bats for 5 clubs over 6 years, but rejuvenated his career in Japan with the Hanshin Tigers, whom he joined in 1983. He won the Japanese Triple Crown in 1985, hitting .350-54-134. He won the Triple Crown again in 1986, setting an all-time mark for batting at .389 and becoming the best gaijin hitter in Japanese history, an offensive and marketing force that overcame the deep xenophobia of Nippon. His playing career ended in June, 1988, when he was released by the Tigers for failing to leave the Oklahoma bedside of his hospitalized son.
Bass became the manger of the sophomore Seattle Timbers in 1993, after the Japanese owners of the team (a consortium headed by Nintendo) dismissed Rolf Samuels and after the mysterious Flor Sleumas disappeared without a trace. Much was expected of Bass, perhaps too much, for while hitters advanced under his watch, the team never performed well overall, and after a disappointing first year in Moline, Bass was fired. The new club skipper, Joe Morgan, reassigned Bass to the minor leagues where, as minor-league hitting coach, the burly Bass has continued to earn the praise of both Morgan and the scouting and player development office, headed for many years by the late Fate Norris. It was Norris who observed that whatever his limitations as a field manager, Bass "does know a thing or two about how to swing the bat and about when not to."