"Kids don't learn the fundamentals of baseball at the games anymore." -- Bill Lee
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. On August 16, 2010, Lee signed a contract to play with the Brockton Rox of the Can-Am League at age 63.
In addition to his baseball experience, 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 co-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 Spaceman in Cuba featured Lee.
"I think about the cosmic snowball theory. A few million years from now the sun will burn out and lose its gravitational pull. The earth will turn into a giant snowball and be hurled through space. When that happens it won't matter if I get this guy out.""I would change policy, bring back natural grass and nickel beer. Baseball is the belly-button of our society. Straighten out baseball, and you straighten out the rest of the world.""I'm mad at Hank Aaron for deciding to play one more season. I threw him his last home run and thought I'd be remembered forever. Now, I'll have to throw him another.""Most of the managers are lifetime .220 hitters. For years pitchers have been getting these managers out 75% of the time and that's why they don't like us.""People are too hung up on winning. I can get off on a really good helmet throw.""That was real baseball. We weren't playing for money. They gave us Mickey Mouse watches that ran backwards.""The more self-centered and egotistical a guy is, the better ballplayer he's going to be.""The only rule I got is if you slide, get up.""The other day they asked me about mandatory drug testing. I said I believed in drug testing a long time ago. All through the sixties I tested everything.""When cerebral processes enter into sports, you start screwing up. It's like the Constitution, which says separate church and state. You have to separate mind and body.""You have two hemispheres in your brain - a left and a right side. The left side controls the right side of your body and right controls the left half. It's a fact. Therefore, left-handers are the only people in their right minds.""You should enter a ballpark the way you enter a church."
Lee was born in Burbank, California into a family of former semi- and 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. He attended the University of Southern California from 1964- where he played for Rod Dedeaux, and was drafted by the Boston Red Sox in the 22nd round of the 1968 Major League Baseball Draft.
Lacking a good fastball, Lee developed 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, starting in nine, and compiled a 19-11 record. In , he 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, and was named to the American League All-Star team. He followed 1973 with two more 17-win seasons.
He started two games in the 1975 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. His first start came in Game 2 of the series which the Reds won 3-2. In Game 7, Lee shut out the Reds for five innings and the Red Sox took a 3-0 lead. Lee left with a blister. and 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
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 attitude and lack of respect for authority clashed with Zimmer's old-school, conservative personality. Lee and a few other of the more anti-authority Red Sox formed what they called "The Buffalo Heads" as a response to the manager. Zimmer retaliated during the season by relegating Lee to the bullpen and convincing management to trade away some of them, including Hall of Famer Fergie Jenkins and Bernie Carbo.
Montreal Expos
Lee was traded at the end of 1978 to the Montreal Expos for Stan Papi, a utility infielder. Letting his temper show, Lee bade 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 won 16 games for the Expos in 1979, while being named The Sporting News National League Left Hander of the Year (Over Philadelphia's Steve Carlton); his professional 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.
Lee's personality earned him popularity as well as the nickname "Spaceman". His outspoken manner and outrageous comments were frequently recorded in the press, much to the horror of his parents. He spoke in defense of Maoist China, population control, Greenpeace, and school busing in Boston, among other things. 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 claimed his marijuana use made him impervious to bus fumes while jogging to work at Fenway Park.
Lee often spoke out on matters concerning the team and was not afraid to criticize management, leading to him being dropped from both the Red Sox and the Expos.
After the Expos released Lee, he played for semi-professional teams, including the single-season Senior League in Florida, largely composed of retired major leaguers.
In 2007, Lee joined former major league players Dennis 'Oil Can' Boyd, Marquis Grissom, Delino DeShields and Ken Ryan on the Oil Can Boyd's Traveling All-Stars. In June 2008, Lee pitched for the Alaska Goldpanners during the annual "Midnight Sun" ball game played at night during the Summer Solstice.
On September 5, 2010, Lee pitched innings for the Brockton Rox, picking up the win. The win made him the oldest pitcher to appear in or to win a professional baseball game.
Bill has 4 children from 2 previous marriages. He lives with his third wife in Vermont, where he occasionally plays baseball, softball and whiffle ball. In October, 2007, he appeared in High Times, the cult marijuana magazine.
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 on the New England Sports Network. It is currently distributed across North America by Hart Sharp Video.
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
