After serving two years with the Navy installing telephone lines on Saipan and Guam, Frank Rando returned to the baseball diamond.

He had played in the Red Sox minor league system before serving in the Navy at the end of World War II. As a star outfielder in the Boston Park League upon returning home, he caught the eye of Northeastern University head baseball coach Herb Gallagher.

Mr. Rando, a former multisport captain at Roslindale High School, soon went on to a Hall of Fame career with the Huskies.

He played football, hockey, and baseball at Northeastern, hitting a team-high .371 in 1949, and was named freshman hockey and baseball coach when he was no longer eligible to play, because of his two seasons of professional baseball.

“Frank’s devotion to Northeastern was unparalleled, and you couldn’t help but smile when you were in his company,’’ said Jack Grinold, the university’s associate athletic director emeritus.

Mr. Rando, a longtime petroleum sales executive who was presented with Northeastern’s Outstanding Alumni Award, died of congestive heart failure July 10 in his Dedham home. He was 89.

He formerly was president of the Northeastern Varsity Club and Alumni Association, was a founder of the Friends of NU Baseball, and was a Park League Hall of Fame inductee. In Dedham, Mr. Rando was a founder of the youth hockey program and a Little League coach.

As Northeastern’s cleanup hitter during the 1949 baseball season, he hit a grand slam and belted two doubles with the bases loaded in an 11-10 victory over Colby College.

“He was a damned good, street-smart athlete with a great sense of humor and we nicknamed him Beppo,’’ said George Makris, Mr. Rando’s college baseball and hockey teammate and a fellow Northeastern hall of famer. “I admired his honesty and his integrity.’’

Makris, a lifelong friend, recalled attending the wedding of one of Mr. Rando’s daughters, and said that on the way to the reception, “Frank, who loved building and gardening, noticed a wheelbarrow for sale. So dressed in his tuxedo, he got out of the car and made sure he could buy it the next day.’’

Mr. Rando also remained close to Gallagher and to the late John “Tinker’’ Connelly, a Huskies teammate who became a legendary baseball coach at Northeastern. He and Connelly attended Park League games and were loyal Northeastern football fans who stayed until the final gun.

At home, Mr. Rando took pride in the accomplishments of his children and grandchildren, many of whom played high school and college sports. His son, Joseph of Dedham, and son-in-law Kevin Hampe both starred at Dedham High and in college.

Hampe, who was a hockey and baseball captain at Harvard University, said he and Mr. Rando shared Beanpot tournament tickets and a good-natured rivalry when Northeastern played Harvard.

Mr. Rando taught his son to skate on Turtle Pond at the Stony Brook Reservation “by making me hold on to a milk crate,’’ said Joe, who was a four-year defenseman at the University of New Hampshire and had a tryout with the Bruins in 1977.

“Dad made sure his youth hockey and baseball players had equal playing time, which gave all of us confidence in our abilities, and he was always positive, never raising his voice,’’ Joe added. “As a coach, I followed his example.’’

Mr. Rando bought the goaltenders equipment, which he would clean and store and hand down to other players from season to season, his son said.

In his youth, Mr. Rando organized the Neponset Coyotes, a neighborhood baseball team for which he kept meticulous records. In his high school yearbook, he listed his ambition as Major League Baseball.

He hit .506 as a Roslindale High senior in 1943. While playing at Healy Field in Roslindale that year, he impressed a Pittsburgh Pirates scout and was invited to try out while Pittsburgh was in town to play the Boston Braves.

Mr. Rando later recalled to his family that during the tryout at Braves Field, “I shagged a few balls and hit some out of the park,’’ and that Pirates manager Frankie Frisch told the scout to sign him.

Mr. Rando boarded a train at South Station carrying a veal cutlet sandwich wrapped in brown paper. According to family lore, when the conductor asked him where he was going he replied, “To the big leagues.’’

His destination was Hornell, N.Y., for his pro debut with the Hornell Maples of the Class D Pennsylvania-Ohio-New York League. The following season, the Red Sox signed Mr. Rando and assigned him to Boston’s Class D Middletown affiliate in the Ohio State League.

During the 1944 season he hit .268 with 12 doubles, seven triples, four homers, and 47 RBIs in 113 games, along with notching 16 stolen bases and 91 runs, but Mr. Rando put baseball on hold to join the Navy.

He married Ruby Ann Peck in 1950 and graduated from Northeastern the next year. They moved to Dedham in 1955. A hairdresser and home day care provider, Mrs. Rando died in 1996.

Mr. Rando, who also had a home in West Yarmouth, had socialized over the years with former Neponset Coyotes teammate Roger Finnell and his wife, Norma. After Roger died, Mr. Rando and Norma became close companions, spending summer months at her cottage in New Brunswick and winters in Fort Lauderdale.

Mr. Rando began his sales career with Bonded Oil and then moved to Northeast Petroleum and Casey Petroleum, retiring at age 76.

“He went to work with a jacket and tie every day, and he always wore a hat,’’ his daughter Diana Hampe of Dedham said in a eulogy. “Many of his customers became friends because my father was interested in their stories and their families.’’

In addition to Joe and Diana, Mr. Rando leaves his daughters Joanne Crisp and Lois McManus, both of Dedham, and Linda of Osprey, Fla.; his brother, Robert of Stoneham; nine grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

A service was held and burial was in St. Michael’s Cemetery in Roslindale, close to the field where he had played with his boyhood friends.

Among Mr. Rando’s cherished mementos were the glove he wore as a minor league player, his Neponset Coyotes notebook, and the 1944 Middletown Red Sox schedule.

Mr. Rando “lived life to the fullest and he set the bar high,’’ Diana said in her eulogy. She also mentioned her father’s life lessons, which included “whatever you do, you have to be the best at it’’ and “stretch a double into a triple — except after ­pasta.’’

Marvin Pave can be reached at marvin.pave@rcn.com.