Born in 1954 to Minnie and Randy Randolph, sharecroppers from Holly Hill, South Carolina, Willie came into the world smack in the middle of what came to be known as the Second Great Migration, and shortly after his birth, the Randolphs joined the ranks of millions of Black families leaving the rural South in favor of the urban North and West around the middle of the century.
Ironically, while the New York City high school ranks failed to produce any genuine big leaguers out of those first seven drafts, Randolph was the second City-bred star that the Pirates plucked out of Brooklyn in 1972, having already selected John Candelaria - born just eight months earlier and playing miles away at LaSalle High School - in the second round.
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