William Francis Lee III (born
December 28,
1946), (nicknamed "
Spaceman"), is an
American athlete and retired
Major League Baseball pitcher. He played for the
Boston Red Sox from - and the
Montreal Expos from -. On November 7, , Lee was inducted into the Red Sox Hall of Fame as the team's record-holder for most games pitched by a left-hander (321) and the third-highest win total (94) by a Red Sox
southpaw.
In addition to his baseball success, Lee is known for his adherence to
counterculture behavior, his antics both on and off the
field, and his use of the Leephus pitch, a personalized variation of the
eephus pitch.
Lee has written four books:
The Wrong Stuff;
Have Glove, Will Travel;
The Little Red (Sox) Book: A Revisionist Red Sox History; and
Baseball Eccentrics: the Most Entertaining, Outrageous, and Unforgettable Characters in the Game. In , the
documentary film featured Lee.
Early life
Although Lee was born in
Burbank, California, he was raised in
Canoga Park and later in
San Rafael.. He was born into a family with a number of former professional
baseball players. His grandfather William Lee was an
infielder for the
Hollywood Stars of the
Pacific Coast League and his aunt Annabelle Lee was a pitcher in the
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. She was the first to throw a no-hitter and a perfect game in the AAGPBL. He graduated from
Terra Linda High School in . Lee says he led a very cherished childhood. By the age of four, he learned how to hunt and fish and was surrounded by professional ballplayers in the family. All he did throughout his childhood was hunt, fish and play ball.
Lee attended the
University of Southern California from 1964- where he played for
Rod Dedeaux. Lee was drafted by the Boston Red Sox in the 22nd round of the
1968 Major League Baseball Draft.
Bill's cousin is Brett Erlich, writer/host/producer of
The Rotten Tomatoes Show and
InfoMania on
Current TV.
Major league career
Rather than rely on the use of a
fastball, Lee developed as a finesse pitcher. He is quoted in Ken Burns'
Baseball documentary as stating that he made his living on the inner and outer inch of the plate and lets the batter take the middle. He threw a variety of off-speed pitches, including a variation of the
Eephus pitch. The Leephus pitch or Space Ball, the names for Lee's take on the eephus pitch, follows a high arcing
trajectory and is very
slow.
Lee was used almost exclusively as a
relief pitcher during the first four years of his career. During that period, Lee appeared in 125 games, started just nine of them, and compiled a 19-11 record.
In , Lee was used primarily as a
starting pitcher. He started 33 of the 38 games in which he appeared and went 17-11 with a 2.95
Earned Run Average. He was rewarded for his strong performance with a nomination to the
American League All-Star team. He followed 1973 with two more 17-win seasons.
Lee started two games in the
1975 World Series against the
Cincinnati Reds. His first start came in Game 2 of the series. Lee let up just one run in eight innings; however, the Reds scored two runs off of
Dick Drago in the top of the ninth inning and subsequently won the game 3-2.
In Game 7, Lee shut out the Reds for five innings and the Red Sox took a 3-0 lead. After getting the Reds'
Tony Perez out twice with an Eephus pitch, sixth inning, the Reds' Perez hit an Eephus pitch over the
Green Monster, the left field wall at
Fenway Park, for a two-run
home run. Shortly thereafter, Lee left with a blister.
The Red Sox lost the game by a score of 4-3, and the 1975 World Series four games to three.
Later Red Sox career
Lee
separated his left shoulder during a brawl that occurred between the Red Sox and the
New York Yankees on May 20, 1976, after Yankee
Lou Piniella ran over Red Sox catcher
Carlton Fisk in a play at
home plate. Lee initially blamed the injury on Yankee
third baseman Graig Nettles. However, after he had a chance to see the fight on
video tape, Lee apologized to Nettles. Subsequently, he blamed Yankee
manager Billy Martin for encouraging the Yankees players to be confrontational.
During an interview with Tom Caron after his Red Sox Hall of Fame induction, Lee revealed he carries Nettles's baseball card in his wallet, explaining, "I keep this in here so that Nettles's face is always up against the back of my ass no matter where I go."
During the
1978 season, Lee and Red Sox manager
Don Zimmer engaged in an ongoing public feud over the handling of the pitching staff. Lee's countercultural beliefs (detailed below) and free spirit also clashed with Zimmer's old-school, conservative personality. Lee and a few other of the more free-spirited Red Sox formed what they called "The Buffalo Heads" as a response to what they considered the overbearing nature of Zimmer (whom Lee nicknamed "the Designated Gerbil"). Zimmer retaliated during the season by relegating Lee to the bullpen and convincing management to trade away some of the other "Buffalo Heads", such as Hall of Famer
Fergie Jenkins and
Bernie Carbo. And though, as a starting pitcher, Lee had owned a 12-5 career record against the New York Yankees, Zimmer refused to start him against the Yankees during a crucial late-season series. Although they had led their rivals by more than 14 games in mid-July, the Red Sox lost the division to the Yankees by one game.
Montreal Expos
Lee was traded at the end of the year to the
Montreal Expos for
Stan Papi, a utility infielder. Referring to the previous season's collapse, Lee bid farewell to Boston by saying, "Who wants to be with a team that will go down in history alongside the ‘64 Phillies and the ‘67 Arabs?" Lee pitched well for the Expos in 1979, winning 16 games -- while his former team, the Red Sox, slumped, mostly for lack of starting pitching. Lee's career ended in 1982, when he was released by the Expos after staging a one-game walkout as a protest over
Montreal's decision to release second baseman and friend
Rodney Scott.
Reputation and controversy
Lee's personality earned him popularity as well as the nickname "Spaceman". His intelligence, articulate conversational style, humorous voice, and outspoken manner meant his views were frequently recorded in the press. He spoke in defense of
Maoist China (once visiting, only to lampoon it endlessly), population control,
Greenpeace, school busing in Boston and anything else that happened to cross his mind. He berated an umpire for a controversial call in the 1975 World Series, threatening to bite off his ear and encouraging the American people to write letters demanding the game be replayed. He ate health food and practiced
yoga. He claimed his
marijuana use made him impervious to bus fumes while jogging to work at Fenway Park. He sang
Warren Zevon songs at times, and in an act of mutual admiration, Zevon recorded a song entitled "Bill Lee" on his album
Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School. In a college town like
Boston, his views were shared by many youths, and they quickly became Lee's biggest fans.
Despite his views on off-the-field matters, Lee was respected by fellow players, who believed his cajoling of the press took pressure off the team, and his attitude on the field was pure business. He was intensely competitive, and worked quickly, which always endears a pitcher to his teammates.
But Lee would often speak out on matters concerning the team and was not afraid to criticize management, causing him to be dropped from both the Red Sox and the Expos.
Lee countered his offbeat politics with a strong sense of the game. He is an avowed purist and traditionalist, speaking out against the
designated hitter,
AstroTurf and
polyester uniforms, while conversely extolling the virtues of day games and Sunday
doubleheaders.
Post-professional career
After the Expos released Lee, he played for a number of
semi-professional teams. This included his time playing for and managing in the short-lived Senior League in
Florida, largely composed of retired major leaguers. In 1988, he ran for
President of the United States on the
Canadian Political Rhinoceros Party ticket, but failed to appear on the ballot in any state. His slogan for the election was "
No guns. No butter. Both can kill."
He splits his time between the house he grew up in that he rents from his estranged brother in Terra Linda, California, and his farm in
Craftsbury, Vermont (located roughly half-way between Boston and Montreal) and played baseball around
New England with the "
Grey Sox", a very short-lived semi-pro team composed of former Red Sox players. In addition, Lee appears every Monday on the Loren and Wally morning show at
WROR from roughly 7:45am to 7:55am (
EST) and with
Mitch Melnick on the
Team 990 in
Montreal every afternoon during baseball season. In October, 2007, he appeared in the
High Times magazine and was interviewed by the marijuana-focused publication. He prides himself on saying he lives his life in a series of "small untruths", and in getting meals, trips and other stuff for free.
Specifically in 2007, Lee has played former major league players
Dennis 'Oil Can' Boyd,
Marquis Grissom,
Delino DeShields and
Ken Ryan on the Oil Can Boyd's Traveling All-Stars. The team was assembled by Boyd to "promote the heritage of the great
Negro League style of baseball and the tradition of barnstorming", as well as to "serve as an inspiration to young
African-American baseball players as the number of African-American players in Major League baseball continues to decline".
On June 21/22, 2008, Lee, at the age of 61, pitched six-plus innings for the Alaska Goldpanners in their 10-6 win over the Southern California Running Birds in Fairbanks, Alaska. It was during the annual "Midnight Sun" ball game played at night on or about the Summer Solstice, when it never really gets dark.
Lee is also a regular member of former pro player coaches at the annual the Red Sox Fan Fantasy Camp that takes place at the Red Sox Player Development Complex and City of Palms Park the first week of February every year.
Lee is currently partnered up in a bat manufacturing company called the Old Tyme Bat Company. The ash and maple for the bats is farmed from land he owns near his home in northern Vermont.
Spaceman: A Baseball Odyssey
In 2003, filmmakers
Brett Rapkin and
Josh Dixon joined Lee on a barnstorming trip to
Cuba. During this trip, Rapkin and Dixon gathered footage for the documentary film "Spaceman: A Baseball Odyssey." The film premiered at the 2006 SILVERDOCS AFI/
Discovery Channel Documentary Festival and later achieved high ratings on the
New England Sports Network. It currently distributed across
North America by Hart Sharp Video.
Books
He is the author of four books. Two written with Richard Lally, and two with Jim Prime:
- Lee, Bill and Dick Lally (1984). The wrong stuff, New York: Viking Press. ISBN 0670767247
- Lee, Bill and Jim Prime (2003). The Little Red (Sox) Book: A Revisionist Red Sox History, Chicago: Triumph Books. ISBN 1572435275
- Lee, Bill and Richard Lally (2005). Have glove, will travel: adventures of a baseball vagabond, New York: Crown Publishers. ISBN 1400054079
- Lee, Bill and Jim Prime (2007). Baseball eccentrics: the most entertaining, outrageous, and unforgettable characters in the game, Chicago: Triumph Books. ISBN 157243953X
See also
