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.

9/11/2010 Odds & Ends - Housekeeping Edition

"Spaceman" notches another pro win; Gorgen heads to D-Backs.

The oldest pitcher to win a pro game.
Photo courtesy of Goldpanners.com

Hey folks, we've got some actual news this week. And I'm backing that up with some info on where this blog is headed. Basically, it's time for some "fall cleaning" around here and I want your input, so see below!

- So oldschool Goldpanner Bill "Spaceman" Lee won his outing for the indy Brockton Rox this past week and has apparently become, at 63 years of age, the oldest player to win a professional baseball game. It took him only -- wait for it -- 63 pitches in 5 1/3 innings to pick up the victory, and he did not walk a man. Here's one little article on the event.

- In some pro prospect news, former Anchorage Bucs reliever Matt Gorgen has been sent packing to the Arizona Diamondbacks organization. He was a "player to be named later" in the Chad Qualls trade, and was leading the class-A Southern League in saves this year with 22. Matt was previously with Tampa Bay.

- Considering that it's the off-season and things have slowed down a bit, and we've got some time to figure things out before the next season, I'd like to open up the floor to any suggestions or comments about how to improve 49thStateHardball.com. Tell me what you like, tell me what you don't like. Tell me something you'd like to see that I don't do. Tell me something that I do do, that you don't want to see. It can be about the content of the site, the layout, a specific type of article, whatever. One specific idea I've been toying with since, well, the beginning of this site has been moving from a classic blog format to something more like a news-style website as far as the layout and organization is concerned, so any comments in that department would be much appreciated!

8/28/10 Odds & Ends

Bill Lee will make another pro appearance,
this time with the Brockton Rox.
Photo courtesy of Goldpanners.com

Another Saturday and another Odds & Ends post dished up for you. Things have been quiet around ABL land. Of course all the teams are transitioning from the flurry of the season and back into off-season mode (recruiting, improvements/maintenance to stadiums, etc.) without having much time to make any notable advances on those fronts. It's been kind of a slower week around here, I made my trip back to school for the winter and arrived two days late, so I've either been on the road or had my nose in a book all week. Anyway, there's not much this week, but here are a few quick shots:

- Here's a good one for PannerFans (or fans of the greatest pitcher ever, in my opinion): Bill "Spaceman" Lee (Panners, 1966-97) has signed with the independent Brockton Rox and will pitch one game on September 5th for the team. Of course, Lee is always pitching somewhere, whether it's in a New England adult league or barnstorming from Fairbanks to Havana with whatever bunch of guys he can round up, so I guess this shouldn't come as any huge surprise. But for a day anyway, the Spaceman will be a pro again.

- If you don't read the Peninsula Clarion often, you should check out this week's Clarion Calls. Jeff Helminiak has a couple tidbits on the Oilers, including an update on Jorge Marban's budding career with the Rangers organization (he's been promoted to Spokane of the Northwest League).

8/7/2010 Odds & Ends

Hey guys, with the season over and the off-season so young, it seems like there's not very many odds, nor many ends this week. So I'll make this quick. Check out the three blurbs below and then stay tuned in for the Oilers game coming up today.

- UPDATE: I'll just throw this in here since it kind of fits. I've had a bit of a family tragedy and I might need to take a couple of "personal days" from blogging. I'm not saying I definitely won't post, but I might not do so with my usual vigor and if I have to leave town for a few it won't be the first thing on my mind. Just to let you know that any interruption will be short-term and not to worry.

- Here's an article on my all-time favorite Goldpanner and one of my top players in general, Bill "Spaceman" Lee, from a fantastic blog called The Golden Sombrero. The article is basically about how Lee did and said all kinds of wacky things, although it neglects to mention how he came up to Alaska to play for this team called the Goldpanners back when that was still kind of a crazy thing to do. Anyway, thumbs up on the article and the blog, you should check it out.

- For those of you who are interested in how the season league leaders list shook out, check out the stats on the Glacier Pilots' website. They've got season league leaders in all categories. Some really interesting stuff on there...look at all the Miners on the batting average category. I didn't think I'd see anyone challenge Drew Heid's batting title last year, but Brett Schwartz has pulled it off, hitting over .400 for the season.