Back in the day Griff and I collected a lot of sports memorabilia: all kinds of baseball and basketball cards, also various framed, autographed and otherwise notable balls, mini-balls, gloves, mini-gloves, pictures, plaques, and jerseys.  Some were bought with saved up allowance, others were gifts, and some we got waiting in long lines at public appearances by athletes in malls and sporting goods stores.  When we lived in the Woodlands (1994-96) there was a badass little memorabilia/comic store in the mall called Igor’s Dugout where we used to hang out with the owners while our parents shopped.  Usually we’d leave with a pack or two, but sometimes we just pestered them for hours about their opinions on the latest Beckett listings and other dumb stuff that concerns prepubescent sports memorabilia collectors.

We probably get it from our dad, who still has his personally signed Brooks Robinson glossy and the Colt 45s jersey he got as a kid.  He loves telling us about all the great cards he used to have, which at some point all got mistakenly thrown out in an old shoe box.  Griff and my dad recently started ordering unopened boxes of old baseball cards off the internet and tearing them open pack by pack, but I’ve had neither the funds nor the inclination to do so myself.  However, my interest in sports memorabilia hasn’t totally waned and this week at the original Gas Pipe in Dallas I saw something I couldn’t live without: a copy of the July 1980 issue of High Times magazine featuring Bill “Spaceman” Lee on the cover.  As a devoted High Times reader and devout Spaceman believer, this was special.  It was a treat just to hold in my hands and I had to have it.  Even totally broke, the ten dollar price tag seemed like a bargain.

I said in my earlier Spaceman homage that Bill Lee was the only major athlete I knew of to appear on the cover of High Times while playing.  I’m happy to report that this is no longer true.   Tim “Light my fire” Lincecum was included on the January 2012 issue of High Times as one of the “92 cannabis celebrities appear[ing] at a fantasy pot party” (Congratulations to Westley Cramer, who won a trip to the 2012 Cannabis Cup for correctly naming 89 of the 92 cannabis celebs).  Lincecum also made it into the same issue’s “Pots Greatest Hits” where he was named the “Top Baseball Stoner” of the present.  He shared this distinguished honor with Bill Lee, who High Times named the “Top Baseball Stoner” of the past and is undoubtedly the top baseball stoner of all time.  Sure Freak has stacked far more accolades (2 Cy Youngs and a ring) and cash ($23 million in 2010) than Spaceman ever did, but from a stoned baseball fan’s perspective, none of that really compares to Bill Lee calling out then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn about MLB players blazing the herb, on the cover no less.   Lee was blackballed by the league within two seasons of this article’s printing over thirty years ago, and it is impossible to conceive Big Time Timmy Jim blasting Bud Selig on the cover of High Times in 2012.  It just couldn’t happen.  Even in an age when many athletes spew tweets by the million, nobody who makes their paycheck playing sports gets to be this candid.

While this certainly gives value to the magazine as a relic of a bygone era, it is Lee’s own words that are truly priceless.  As Ken Kelley, who conducted the original interview, says in his introduction, “Lee is nothing if not imminently quotable,” and much of the Spaceman’s wisdom rings true, maybe truer, three decades later.  Lee was unhappy with how the article came out, telling the Boston Globe that summer, “Kelly is a jerk. He tried to exploit me, make a buck off me. I always try to deal straight with people. Then you run into a situation where they only use what they want to use. They don’t give the complete answer, or everything you had to say about a subject. There’s never any clarification.” Here Lee appears to be a victim of his own naivety, and to this stoned baseball fan, the whole interview is a gem. For copyright reasons I don’t think we can run the entire thing; instead here are some of the highlights, so to speak, from my new favorite piece of sports memorabilia.

First question:

“High Times: So let’s begin with a discussion of drugs.

Lee:  Whatever’s cool.”

This is just what every journalist wants to hear when starting an interview, and gives the reader a pretty good idea where things are headed.  Lee then explains how exactly he ended up getting fined $250 for his admission of using marijuana while playing for the Boston Red Sox.

Then there is this sequence, which begins with the question on the cover:

“High Times: What would happen if Bowie Kuhn levied a $250 fine against every player in baseball who smoked dope?

Lee:  He’d be a rich man.

High Times: So it’s safe to assume that lots of ballplayers smoke it?

Lee: Who doesn’t? Smoking’s a way to let you down slowly from a ballgame… It makes people better in the way they act towards society.  Everybody’s nicer.  It’s hard to be mean when you’re stoned.  It’s made players a lot less alcoholic.”

I wonder how Spaceman felt about the Red Sox this year.

Maybe the Dodgers should team up with some of LA’s dispensaries for a new form of crowd control.  Roving blunt vendors at Dodger Stadium? Sign me up.

Lee shares his thoughts on other drugs as well.

On cocaine: “Some ballplayers grind it up with Cheerios for breakfast.  Gotta keep it up on the up and up though – as long as he can do his job, and it’s an ally of his instead of an adversary, it sure beats coffee.”

On mushrooms: “I like them because they cause a periodical cleaning out of the system.  Roto-Rooter type of thing. They do that for me… mushrooms are kind of like a psychedelic enema.  I think probably High Times readers do the same thing.”

Well I know at least one of them who does.

On other drugs:

“High Times: Let’s talk for a moment about the drugs that are sanctioned – indeed, virtually mandatory – in organized sports, such as novocaine, cortisone, the steroids –

Lee:  It’s all rotgut.  Your kidneys produce enough cortisone.  As far as the management is concerned, the short-term goals outweigh the long-term ones.  Novocaine and steroids, especially.  It’s ironic that Bowie Kuhn gets upset about pot when, every day, ballplayers are being shot up with drugs that actually destroy players’ system.”

He goes on to claim that baseball management encourages players to use steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.  While this may have seemed outlandish when it was published, looking back it reads as an ominous warning for what would come in MLB over the next twenty years.

“High Times: What else, in your opinion, are the most harmful drugs in America?

Lee:  All are bad if you don’t neutralize them with another one.”

Classic.

A great metaphor: “Some people clean the laundry; some people do the laundry.  Doing the laundry means not really understanding the concepts that are involved.”

And to finish it off, Bill Lee on the big picture:

“High Times: So, in summation, what’s the meaning of life?

Lee:  Play to win and always adhere to the law of averages.  The strange may occur.  But just because things may happen and the sun comes up and gravity pulls on you and you age, resist age and stay healthy and go easy into the future.  And keep laughing, and be kind to people on the way up because you’re gonna see them again on the way down.  Actually, I don’t know what nuthin’ means.  English is not my trump card.  That’s why I get quoted a lot, like Casey Stengel.  I walk the tightrope between two worlds.  Between the oral and the doing, which I think are contradictory worlds.

High Times: How do you resolve the contradiction?

Lee:  Do ‘em both.  There’s a time and place for everything.  And keep your mouth shut at all times.”

As a hippie ski bum working on a master’s degree in creative writing, I feel like I sometimes walk that same tightrope.  And as a stoned baseball fan, I’d like to give a huge thank you to Spaceman and High Times for inspiring me to keep fighting the good fight.

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What’s in a name? A great many syllables, if you’re Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish. But while the former journeyman pitcher’s title is impressively weird, it has many rivals – most of them old-timey – for the goofiest name in professional baseball history.

I’ve compiled a brief, unordered list of those names. Who is the funniest? And whom, as I quickly scoured over a century of data, did I unjustly overlook?

Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish, 1944-64 – Indians/Phillies/Cubs/Reds/Dodgers/White Sox

McLish’s father played for keeps. He wasn’t allowed to name his other seven children, so he made Cal’s name count – a title reminiscent of everyone’s favorite fictional U.S. President, Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho.

Tony Suck, 1883-84 – Augusta Browns

Tony may have the most amazing name of all – not just because it would suck to be named Suck, but because that surname aptly described the catcher’s lack of baseball prowess. Take a gander at the eye-popping stat line from his two year career:  205AB, .151BA, .205 OBP,.161 SLG, .864 FP.

Luckily for Tony, he probably wasn’t ever razzed about his name. An old, but still insightful piece at Futility Infielder points out that the use of “suck” as derogatory slang didn’t enter into American lexicon until 1971.

Skeeter Barnes 1983-1994 – Reds, Expos, Cardinals, Tigers

From the window to the wall, Skeeter rarely hit a longball. He had just 14 in his career.

Rusty Kuntz, 1979-85 – White Six, Tigers, Twins

With a name that sounds risky to Google image, Kuntz retired with just a .650 OPS and 5 home runs in his seven seasons as a backup outfielder.  

Dick Pole, 1973-78 – Red Sox, Mariners

Calling him Richard would be too formal.

Urban Shocker, 1916-28 – Browns, Yankees

If Shocker were still around, perhaps he would pursue a hip-hop career in his native Cleveland.

Razor Shines, 1983-87 – Expos, first base coach for the Mets 2009-2010

Shines didn’t get much playing time, but with a sweet name like that, does it matter?

Stubby Clapp, 2001 – Cardinals

Clapp’s given name is Richard, which prompts the question: why didn’t Dick ever stick as his nickname? It would have excellently complimented his last name.

Pussy Tebeau, 1895 – Cleveland Spiders

Charles Alston “Pussy” Tebeau’s career was short and sweet: He went 3-6 with two walks, one RBI, and one stolen base in two old-timey games. But he led the league in the percentage of sentences he ended with “See.”

Johnny Dickshot, 1936-45 – White Sox/Pirates/Giants

His full name was John Oscar Dickshot, but his teammates called him “Ugly.”

A nice tidbit from his obituary:

Upon retirement, Mr. Dickshot opened a tavern in Waukegan, called the Dugout, which he ran for the next 20 years. His granddaughter, Michelle McDermott, said he would often call his wife at home from the bar, demanding that she look in his encyclopedia to settle a dispute over baseball trivia.

A made-up tidbit:

His batting song was Bon Jovi’s Shot through the Heart.

Butts Wagner, 1898 – Senators, Bridegrooms (Brooklyn)

Albert “Butts” Wagner wasn’t quite as successful as his younger brother, Honus, but his name inspired at least one Sir Mix-a-lot hit.

Also of note from his Wikipedia page: “Wagner is depicted as a eccentric inventor during a boy’s long dream sequence in the book The Mystery of the Wagner Whacker. Wagner invents an automatic bat machine, and the boy helps defend him from organized crime figures who want to steal the invention.”

That’s supposedly fiction, but it sounds like a true story from old-timey times to me.

Boob Fowler, 1923-26 – Reds/Red Sox

Hehe…Boob.

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A former teammate at Grinnell College, Jim is currently working towards a Masters in journalism at the University of Iowa and is assistant editor at IowaWatch.org.  Be sure to check out Jim’s work at Iowa Environmental Focus, and also his blog, How To Train A Watchdog: (Mis)Adventures in Non-Profit Journalism. Unfortunately, none of these sites have anything to do with America’s pastime.

Fun Fact: Rather than wearing batting gloves, Alou admitted that he used to piss on his hands to make them tougher.

Fun Fact: At just 16-years of age, a scrawny Vladimir Guerrero showed up for a pro tryout in the Dominican Republic, arriving on the back of a motorcycle and with two different sized spikes.  In the larger of the two, Vlad stuffed a sock with the hopes of an improved fit.  It was that same day that the Montreal Expos offered Vlad his first professional contract.

As painful as our first discussion was regarding the Reds/Phillies series, we managed to work in plenty of quality baseball talk today:

-Full reaction and heartbreak of Game 2 last night between the Phillies and Reds

-Braves & Giants breakdown

-Preview of today’s ALDS games

-Guest appearances by Delino DeShields, Mark Prior, Brad Fulmer and Matt Holliday’s groin.

One of my favorite things about baseball is the array of characters that have played the game over time.  In a sport where refined technique is as valued as raw athleticism, there is much more opportunity for people outside of the typical “jock” to excel.  Anyone with an oversized pituitary gland can dunk a basketball or run and make a leaping catch, but it takes more than just physical skills to understand the mechanics of effectively swinging a bat at something moving so fast you can hardly see it.  And while all sports require some amount of strategy, baseball is much more of a thinking man’s game due to its endless situational possibilities and therefore many more intellectual athletes seem to be drawn to it as opposed to other sports.  Finally, baseball is inherently much more of an individual game than any other team sport.  When a batter strikes out he cannot blame his teammates and when a team completes a perfect game it is only the pitcher who gets recorded credit for the statistic.  These nuances, along with the overly-conservative rigidity of MLB, make baseball the perfect sport for unique personas to stand out, and no character has ever shined brighter than baseball’s one and only Spaceman, Bill Lee.

William Francis Lee III, born December 28, 1946, was literally bred to play baseball.  His grandfather played in the Pacific Coast League, both his parents played ball, and his aunt threw the first perfect game in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (the same league portrayed in the movie A League of Their Own).  Aided by his “secret power”, left-handedness, and the ability to outthink hitters using a variety of pitches, Lee quickly developed into an outstanding pitcher.  He went on to pitch for the University of Southern California, where he won a national title in 1968 and was named to the All-Tournament Team and was drafted by the Boston Red Sox in the 22^nd round of the 1968 Amateur Draft.

Lee became a favorite in Boston for the way he threw, but was soon beloved by fans across the country for his eccentric personality and counterculture lifestyle.  He was fearless, and sometimes reckless, in his public commentary, and quickly became a media darling as reporters clambered over one another in the clubhouse to get their microphones in position for his latest sound bites. Rather than using the same tired sports clichés, Bill Lee quoted astrophysicists and Chinese philosophers to describe things.  He espoused the benefits of yoga, meditation and health food before it became trendy, and never shied away from discussing his use of psychotropic substances.  Bill Lee is the only major professional athlete I know to have graced the cover of High Times magazine while playing, and he once claimed that sprinkling marijuana on his pancakes made him “impervious to the bus fumes” on his morning jogs to Fenway Park.  Of course, Lee was despised as a dirty, drugged up hippy by many of baseball’s staunch traditionalists for these very same reasons.

The Spaceman was never scared to speak his mind, much to the chagrin of manager Don Zimmer (who Lee named the “designated gerbil”) and the Red Sox front office, both of whom he frequently criticized for decisions he did not agree with.  His relationship with team management was tumultuous at best, and after the 1978 season the Red Sox finally cut ties with Lee, essentially giving him to the Montreal Expos in exchange for utility-nobody Stan Papi and freedom from his criticisms.  Lee threw three seasons in Montreal, then early in the 1982 season was released and blackballed from the league for staging a one game walkout in protest to their release of his teammate and close personal friend Rodney Scott.

Although his MLB career ended that year, Bill Lee never stopped playing baseball, because playing baseball is what Bill Lee loves to do.  He played semi-pro ball in Manitoba, Canada for a short time, then in Russia and basically any other place that offered him a spot on the field.  Today he plays in a 60-and-over league and makes an annual barnstorming trip to play in Cuba, a place where he says “they play baseball for all the right reasons…because they like it.”  One of these trips was documented for the 2006 film Spaceman: A Baseball Odyssey, an excellent source for anyone wanting to learn more about the career and life of the legendary Lee or just be entertained by his unorthodox attitudes about baseball and the world we live in.

Bill Lee never played for money or fame; he played, and continues playing to this day, because to him the greatest place in the world is out on a baseball field.  As wonderfully entertaining as he is for so many other reasons, this is what fans need to remember about the Spaceman: there has never been anyone more dedicated to the game of baseball.  In today’s jaded age of labor disputes, lackadaisical prima-donna players and twelve dollar stadium beers, it’s refreshing to look back at someone who was truly out there for no other reason than pure love of the game.

You may have noticed this article is devoid of statistics, and that is intentional.  Yes he is the third-winningest Red Sox leftie ever with a career 3.62 ERA and yes he won 17 games three consecutive seasons, but to the Spaceman it was never about personal statistics or accomplishments; it was about going out with your team and trying to win a game.  He was fiercely loyal to his teammates and expected, albeit naively, that his teams’ management be loyal as well.  For this, and his outspoken attitude towards authority, he paid a large price.  But his competitive drive and passion for the game are incomparable; he always plays every game like his life depends on it.  And to him it does, because Bill Lee’s life is baseball.

The following provide quotes from Bill Lee himself, as well as a couple of interviews, including one he did with High Times in 2007.

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/quotes/quobsl.shtml

http://blog.gaiam.com/quotes/authors/bill-lee

http://hightimes.com/entertainment/dan/4246

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/bill_lee_interview.shtml

July 20, 1987