Former Red Sox closer Radatz dies after fall

The cause of death is believed to be accidental, Kominsky said. He said the offices of the state medical examiner and Bristol County district attorney were investigating.

Mr. Radatz spent the last two years as pitching coach for the Lynn-based North Shore Spirit, an independent minor league team, and he was planning to return this spring, according to Spirit manager John Kennedy, the former Red Sox infielder, even though Mr. Radatz's considerable girth -- his weight approached 400 pounds -- made trips to the mound a rarity.

Mr. Radatz missed the Red Sox fantasy camp in Florida last month after undergoing surgery on a leg earlier this winter.

''Just above his ankles and below both knees his legs were all discolored," Kennedy said last night. ''I was concerned he might lose a leg. It would be purple and dark purple and one time I saw him it was almost black."

''He was a good guy, a lot of laughs."

Born in Detroit on April 2, 1937, Richard Raymond Radatz was a baseball and basketball star at Michigan State before signing with the Red Sox in 1960.

He was still in the minor leagues when he developed a sore arm and begged his manager at the time, Johnny Pesky, not to send him to the bullpen. But it was as a relief pitcher that Mr. Radatz made it to the big leagues in 1962, and in the span of the next five seasons, he was the biggest star on a series of bad Sox teams. His trademark gesture of thrusting his fists into the air as he made his way off the mound, victorious, was as familiar to one generation of Sox fans as Nomar Garciaparra's toe-tapping would become for a more recent generation.

''He was the best," said former Sox teammate Bill Monbouquette, reached last night by phone in Lakeland, Fla., where he is a minor league pitching coach for the Detroit Tigers. ''How would I say the best? When you compare him to other guys, they couldn't do what he did. Three innings one day, maybe four the next, one the next day, and three more the next.

''Relievers today throw one inning. Dick almost never pitched just an inning."