Legend of the Last Frontier: Bill "Spaceman" Lee

In the mid 60's, the Goldpanners launched a personality into orbit that still hasn't landed.

Photo courtesy of Goldpanners.com

I won't dance around the issue here. Bill Lee is quite possibly my favorite baseball player of all time, and was so before I even knew that he was a Goldpanner. You might have got a hint of that since I'm always keeping tabs on him in the Odds & Ends section, but anyway, I'm not entirely sure why that is. Maybe it's because he's in his 60's and he's still making appearances on mounds (amateur and pro) from Fairbanks, Alaska to Santiago de Cuba. Maybe it's because he took the eephus pitch, made it even more ridiculous than it already was, and named it the "Leephus". Maybe it's because he smoked copious amounts of dope and didn't care what anyone thought about it. He's just one of those guys that's so larger-than-life, you either love him or you hate him.

Of course, that's not to say that he wasn't (or should I say, isn't) a good pitcher. With a career 3.62 ERA and 119 wins to 90 losses at the major league level, he definitely wasn't bad. With the Goldpanners in '66 he posted a 1.35 ERA with 58 strikeouts in 60.1 IP, mostly in relief; in '67 he 7-4 with a 2.25 ERA and 83K's in 84 innings as a starter. But he was known as much for his free spirit as for his success on the mound.

Lee didn't have very good velocity on his fastball, so instead of trying to throw hard, he tried to throw really slow. That's where the "Leephus" comes in. For those of you who don't know, the Eephus pitch (or, in this case, the Leephus) is essentially the change-up from hell. The pitch was invented by Rip Sewell back in the 40's, is typically thrown about 50 miles per hour and is basically just lobbed up to the plate with a nice "rainbow" throw. This pitch was surprisingly successful, but it cost Lee and the Red Sox the 1975 World Series when he gave up a two-run homer off the pitch in game seven.

You have to give him credit, though. It takes a lot of guts to throw a pitch like the Leephus with game seven of the series on the line. But that's not out of character for a guy nicknamed "The Spaceman". Though could most certainly afford a car, he jogged to the ballpark every day and has appeared in High Times magazine more than once. He was the kind of player that the media loved (in a slowing-down-to-watch-a-bloody-highway-accident sort of way) and management hated, since he wasn't afraid to use the press to take the coaches and front office down a peg or two. His career ended on a fitting note when he was cut loose by the Expos after a one-day strike to protest the release of Rodney Scott.

Today Lee plays for amateur teams that tour the world. In 2003, Lee joined a barnstorming team on a goodwill tour of Cuba. This trip, documented in the film "Spaceman: A Baseball Odyssey"  which was shown on the MLB Network not long ago, follows the team and Lee as he takes on teams of everyday Cubans, wanders around through the countryside trying to find ballparks and avoid being mauled by livestock, and shares many of his interesting philosophies on life along the way. Of course, in 2008 he made his return to the Goldpanners and threw 6 innings in the Midnight Sun Game. When not playing ball all over the world, he spends his retirement with his wife in Vermont, where they run a small company which manufactures highly reputable baseball bats, made from trees allegedly watered by the urine of Ted Williams.

After having written all this, I guess the reason why I think so highly of Lee is that he was basically one giant middle finger to the establishment, and yet somehow managed to last 14 seasons before getting blackballed from affiliated professional baseball. In today's world where athletes are supposed to be role models (read: always obedient, politically correct, and never show any inkling of thinking for themselves), could you imagine what would happen to a 21st century Bill Lee? But maybe that's what we need, a new Spaceman or maybe even a good dozen Spacemen to come in and rock the boat a little bit and remind us that this is a game, and a game played by humans -- not automatons. So keep your eyes on the next crop of Goldpanners, because they launched one man into space...and you never know who the next one could be...