Diabetes Group Honors Randolph

As awards go, Willie Randolph has won rooms full of bigger, brighter, more recognizable trophies.

But perhaps there is no honor that has touched the Dodger second baseman as deeply as the one he will receive in Los Angeles Monday afternoon, when he will be one of the original inductees into the NutraSweet/Juvenile Diabetes Foundation Hall of Fame.

It may seem as if it’s just another obscure accolade with a long title, unless you have a 10-year-old daughter with a lovely name, Chantre, and a painful illness, juvenile diabetes.

“It’s funny they should do something like that right now,” Randolph said this week in Montreal, when his selection--which came as a surprise to him--was announced. “I just talked to Chantre on the phone back in New Jersey. She’s been having a real hard time, going through normal growth changes with her blood sugar also changing. She was feeling real bad.

“But she was crying because she needed to go to school and run in this relay race. So, we didn’t stop her. And everything turned out fine. But it’s a battle, a constant battle. We just hope they can come up with something to help her in the future.”

Randolph has donated time and money toward his daughter’s cause since her condition was diagnosed as diabetes several years ago. But perhaps his most notable effort has been his smallest--he wears a tiny red JDF pin on a stirrup of his blue baseball sock that has attracted attention nationwide.

“Anytime they get a closeup of it on TV, I get letters,” Randolph said. “I don’t think it’s any big deal to wear it, but every little thing helps.”

This weekend’s trip into Shea Stadium, where the Dodgers are playing the New York Mets, marks the first anniversary of Randolph’s pin. He received it in a most unusual fashion.

“I was standing on the field, and some kid threw it at me,” he recalled. “I thought it was just another unruly fan trying to hit me with something, until I reached down and picked it up.

“When I saw what it was, I said, ‘Oh yeah,’ and waved at the kid who threw it at me. Worn it ever since.”

Randolph is counting on that pin becoming obsolete. He hopes doctors will discover an implant that will allow diabetics to avoid daily injections.

“What my daughter goes through right now is so hard,” he said. “She has to prick her finger four or five times a day to test her blood sugar to see how much insulin she has to take. And then she has to take her injections.”

Randolph added: “What I do is the smallest, easiest part. My daughter is the tough one.”