Rick had gone to "every God-forsaken place on Earth, all because I just loved playing so much. It was kind of a rocky road," Lancellotti wrote. "I didn't choose the highway. I went by the back roads. I played for seventeen years and only got about ninety days in the big leagues. But you learn a lot doing it that way."

Richard Anthony Lancellotti (born July 5, 1956 in Providence, RI) is a former first baseman-outfielder in Major League Baseball who played for the San Diego Padres (1982), San Francisco Giants (1986) and Boston Red Sox (1990).

Rick was a slugger who won three home run crowns in the minors, one in Japan and one in the Senior Professional Baseball Association. A .252 hitter in the minors, he smacked 348 home runs in his professional career (not counting winter ball), set a minor league record with 276 home runs, but but only two in the major leagues. He topped 100 RBI three times in the minor leagues. A combination of low OBPs and defensive question marks prevented him from getting many chances in The Show. Rick played in the United States, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Italy and Japan.

In 1979, Lancellotti was named the Eastern League most valuable player after he led the league with 41 home runs and 107 runs batted in while playing for the Buffalo Bisons, the Double-A affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates. On August 5, 1980, Lancellotti, along with Luis Salazar, was traded to the San Diego Padres for a player to be named later and Kurt Bevacqua. The Padres later sent Mark Lee to Pittsburgh to complete the trade. He made his Major League debut with the San Diego Padres in 1982, appearing in 17 games.

Lancellotti’s joy at being in the majors soon turned to despair when, playing left field in a September 8 game in Cincinnati, he injured his shoulder running into a fence on a ball hit over his head by Ron Oester. San Diego was leading 4-1 in the sixth with two runners on and two out. Despite running into the fence, Rick made a run-saving catch.

That injury, for all intents and purposes, ended his season, in part because of an ensuing confrontation provoked by manager Williams. Dick Williams managed through intimidation. He wanted Rick to report to him at 2 p.m. the next day for treatment. Rick was 15 minutes late because of highway construction. As he told it, a heated conversation provoked by Williams ended with Williams telling Lancellotti that he would never play for him again.

He spent 1992, his 16th and final year as a player, in the Italian Baseball League, playing with the city of Parma Angels. The schedule was to his liking: three days of practice, two game days, and two days off. He hit .315 in 36 games, with seven home runs and 37 RBIs. After that, at the age of 36, he retired as a player.

In 1995 he told The Sporting News "the union doesn't care about minor league guys…guys are trying to make a living down here. Why couldn't they cut 1 percent off the major league salaries and distribute it to minor leaguers?….How many swimming pools do you need?"

He and his family (his wife, Debra, the daughter of Jim Ludtka, a minor leaguer in the 1950s, and two children settled in Clarence, New York, a suburb of Buffalo. He was a prominent figure in baseball in the Buffalo area, where he operated sporting goods stores. In 1993 he began the Buffalo School of Baseball in Cheektowaga, New York and for a period he was an assistant coach of the baseball team at Erie Community College.

Rick gained induction into the Buffalo Baseball Hall of Fame in August 1995. His daughter, Katie Lancellotti, played NCAA Division I softball at Canisius College from 2009 to 2012.

(excerpted from Baseball Almanac, BR Bullpen, Centerfield Maz, SABR & Wikipedia)