Bill Lee

Bill "The Spaceman" Lee, the left handed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox and Montreal Expos, was one of the most colorful players in major league baseball history. With the Red Sox from 1969 through 1978, and with the Montreal Expos from 1979 until he retired in 1982, Lee won 16 or more games four times, including three straight 17 win seasons from 1973 to 1975. He was part of the Red Sox team that played what many believe is the best World Series ever, against the Cincinnatti Reds in 1975. His productivity declined after being injured in a fight at Yankee Stadium in 1976. He won only five games in a short-ended 1976 season, followed by win totals of 9 and 10 games in 1977 and 1978, when the Red Sox came in second against the Yankees, their hated rivals, twice. By '78, his last year with the Red Sox, he was so out of favor with manager Don Zimmer that Zimmer refused to use him as a starter a good deal of the time, giving him but 24 starts that season, when he had averaged 24 starts a year in 1973-5. Zimmer had grown to despise Lee for his eccentricities and free-spirited ways. The enmity between the two erupted into a public feud when Lee criticized Zimmer's handling of the pitching staff, particularly his penchant for demoting veteran starters to the bullpen after a couple of bad starts. With Canadian pitchers Reggie Cleveland and future Hall of Famer Ferguson Jenkins, as well as with Bernie Carbo, one of the heroes of the 1975 World Series, Lee had founded the "Buffalo Head Society". As much a locus for anti-Zimmer sentiment on the team, the facetious organization was dedicated to mirth and meeting at the fabled Eliot Lounge in Kenmore Square to tie a few on. Zimmer so hated the non-conformists he forced the trade of all the members, even though Lee and Cleveland were "Yankee Killers", pitchers known to be tough on the Yankees. (Lee had a 12-5 record against the Yanks, whom he passionately hated for injuring his arm during the '76 fight.) Jenkins was traded to Texas after the 1977 season for pitcher John Poloni, who would never play in another game for the Red Sox or any other team. Jenkins, who was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991, went 18-8 with a 3.08 ERA for the Rangers in 1978, where he was reunited with Cleveland, who had been sold outright to the Rangers after one start in '78. Bernie Carbo was shipped off to the then-hapless Cleveland Indians for cash. The Red Sox were never able to replace him as a pinch hitter. Bob "Beetle" Bailey, whom the Red Sox had picked up from the Reds at the end 1977, batted only .191 as a utility player, taking three pitched strikes during the critical play-off game with the Yankees, in which he appeared as a pinch hitter. Despite being a certified "Yankee killer", Zimmer refused to give The Spaceman a start against the Yankees during a critical four game series around Labor Day 1978. The Red Sox, who had led the American League East with a 63-33 record on July 24th after splitting a double-header with the Minnesota Twins 63-33 (with the Yankees in a resounding third place with a 52-43 record, given up as dead by much of the press, including an obituary for the team in "Time" magazine, had seen their once commanding lead whittled down to just four games, with the hot Yankees in second). On July 24th, Yankees manager Billy Martin resigned and was replaced by Bob Lemon: the Yankees responded by going 35-14 by September 7th, pulling themselves to within four games of the Red Sox, who went 25-24 in the same period. The series between the two bitter rivals began on September 7th, and by the time it was over on September 10th, the Yankees had won all four games. The Yankees won the first and second games by 15-3 and 13-2, respectively, scoring 28 runs to Boston's five. Zimmer had started rookie Jim Wright in Game Two against Yankees rookie Jim Beattie. The third game saw a match up of the teams aces: future Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley (16-6) against eventually 1978 Cy Young Award winner Ron Guidry (20-2). Guidry threw a shutout and the Yankees won 7-0. In game four, Zimmer bypassed Bill Lee and started rookie Bobby Sprowl against eventually 20-game winner Ed Figueroa. Zimmer claimed that Sprowl had "ice water in his veins". The Yankees chased the Ice Water Kid, racking up a 6-0 lead at the end of four innings, and winning the fourth and final game by 7-4. Though the Red Sox would hang on and eventually tie the Yankees in the last game of the season, they lost a one game playoff. In the off-season, the Red Sox traded Bill Lee to Montreal for light-hitting shortstop Stan Papi. The trade was greeted with incredulity, including graffiti on the walls of venerable Fenway Park, asking the rhetorical question "Who is Stan Papi?" For former Red Sox manager Dick Williams (the skipper who had piloted the Sox to the "Impossible Dream" pennant in 1976), Lee won 16 games against 10 losses in 34 starts, making a mockery of Don Zimmer's treatment of him. As Lee said, he was sure he could have beaten the Yankees during the Boston Massacre, but Zimmer had refused to start him. Bill Lee helped pitch the Montreal Expos into their only post-season berth in the team's history, during the strike-truncated 1981 season which saw the first use of the Divisional Series format. Lee pitched two games in relief, winning one game in the National League Division Series in which the Expos bested Phillie, and losing a game against the L.A. Dodgers, who went on to win the N.L. Championship Series and then avenged their two World Series defeats in 1977 and '78 against the Yankees. Bill Lee's last season was in 1982, with Montreal, in which he was cut after appearing in seven games as a reliever. Lee has continued to be a public figure, as irreverent as ever, who is dedicated to the proposition that professional baseball should be fun, not just about the cash. Lee has written three books: "The Wrong Stuff", "Have Glove, Will Travel", and "The Little Red (Sox) Book: A Revisionist Red Sox History". Warren Zevon included the song "Bill Lee" on his 1980 album "Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School", and he was the subject of the 2006 documentary film, "Spaceman in Cuba", about his barnstorming tour to Cuba. Bill Lee lives in Vermont, where he is a farmer and plays semi-pro ball in New England with the "Grey Sox", which is made up of former Red Sox players. Currently, he appears every Monday morning on radio station WROR (Framingham, Mass.) and on the Team 990 radio station in Montreal, Quebec every afternoon during baseball season. He continues to be one of the most popular Red Sox players of all time.