{"id":5834,"date":"2012-01-14T11:00:45","date_gmt":"2012-01-14T17:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/?p=5834"},"modified":"2012-01-14T19:15:41","modified_gmt":"2012-01-15T01:15:41","slug":"spaceman-time-warp-a-stoned-baseball-fan%e2%80%99s-look-at-bill-lee%e2%80%99s-high-times-cover-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/archives\/5834","title":{"rendered":"Spaceman Time Warp: A stoned baseball fan\u2019s look at Bill Lee\u2019s High Times cover story"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 When we lived in the Woodlands (1994-96) there was a badass little memorabilia\/comic store in the mall called Igor\u2019s Dugout where we used to hang out with the owners while our parents shopped.\u00a0 Usually we\u2019d 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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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\u2019ve had neither the funds nor the inclination to do so myself.\u00a0 However, my interest in sports memorabilia hasn\u2019t totally waned and this week at the original Gas Pipe<\/a> in Dallas I saw something I couldn\u2019t live without: a copy of the July 1980 issue of High Times magazine<\/a> featuring Bill \u201cSpaceman\u201d Lee on the cover.\u00a0 As a devoted High Times reader and devout Spaceman believer, this was special.\u00a0 It was a treat just to hold in my hands and I had to have it.\u00a0 Even totally broke, the ten dollar price tag seemed like a bargain.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 I\u2019m happy to report that this is no longer true.\u00a0\u00a0 Tim \u201cLight my fire\u201d Lincecum was included on the January 2012 issue of High Times as one of the \u201c92 cannabis celebrities appear[ing] at a fantasy pot party\u201d<\/a> (Congratulations to Westley Cramer, who won a trip to the 2012 Cannabis Cup for correctly naming 89 of the 92 cannabis celebs).\u00a0 Lincecum also made it into the same issue\u2019s \u201cPots Greatest Hits\u201d where he was named the \u201cTop Baseball Stoner\u201d of the present.\u00a0 He shared this distinguished honor with Bill Lee, who High Times named the \u201cTop Baseball Stoner\u201d of the past and is undoubtedly the top baseball stoner of all time.\u00a0 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\u2019s 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.\u00a0\u00a0 Lee was blackballed by the league within two seasons of this article\u2019s 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.\u00a0 It just couldn\u2019t happen.\u00a0 Even in an age when many athletes spew tweets by the million, nobody who makes their paycheck playing sports gets to be this candid.<\/p>\n

While this certainly gives value to the magazine as a relic of a bygone era, it is Lee\u2019s own words that are truly priceless.\u00a0 As Ken Kelley, who conducted the original interview, says in his introduction, \u201cLee is nothing if not imminently quotable,\u201d and much of the Spaceman\u2019s wisdom rings true, maybe truer, three decades later.\u00a0 Lee was unhappy with how the article came out, telling the Boston Globe<\/a> that summer, \u201cKelly 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

First question:<\/p>\n

\u201cHigh Times: So let\u2019s begin with a discussion of drugs.<\/p>\n

Lee:\u00a0 Whatever\u2019s cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 Lee then explains how exactly he ended up getting fined $250 for his admission of using marijuana while playing for the Boston Red Sox.<\/p>\n

Then there is this sequence, which begins with the question on the cover:<\/p>\n

\u201cHigh Times: What would happen if Bowie Kuhn levied a $250 fine against every player in baseball who smoked dope?<\/p>\n

Lee:\u00a0 He\u2019d be a rich man.<\/p>\n

High Times: So it\u2019s safe to assume that lots of ballplayers smoke it?<\/p>\n

Lee: Who doesn\u2019t? Smoking\u2019s a way to let you down slowly from a ballgame\u2026 It makes people better in the way they act towards society.\u00a0 Everybody\u2019s nicer.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to be mean when you\u2019re stoned.\u00a0 It\u2019s made players a lot less alcoholic.\u201d<\/p>\n

I wonder how Spaceman felt about the Red Sox this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Maybe the Dodgers should team up<\/a> with some of LA\u2019s dispensaries for a new form of crowd control.\u00a0 Roving blunt vendors at Dodger Stadium? Sign me up.<\/p>\n

Lee shares his thoughts on other drugs as well.<\/p>\n

On cocaine: \u201cSome ballplayers grind it up with Cheerios for breakfast.\u00a0 Gotta keep it up on the up and up though \u2013 as long as he can do his job, and it\u2019s an ally of his instead of an adversary, it sure beats coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n

On mushrooms: \u201cI like them because they cause a periodical cleaning out of the system.\u00a0 Roto-Rooter type of thing. They do that for me\u2026 mushrooms are kind of like a psychedelic enema.\u00a0 I think probably High Times readers do the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well I know at least one of them who does.<\/p>\n

On other drugs:<\/p>\n

\u201cHigh Times: Let\u2019s talk for a moment about the drugs that are sanctioned \u2013 indeed, virtually mandatory \u2013 in organized sports, such as novocaine, cortisone, the steroids \u2013<\/p>\n

Lee:\u00a0 It\u2019s all rotgut.\u00a0 Your kidneys produce enough cortisone.\u00a0 As far as the management is concerned, the short-term goals outweigh the long-term ones.\u00a0 Novocaine and steroids, especially.\u00a0 It\u2019s ironic that Bowie Kuhn gets upset about pot when, every day, ballplayers are being shot up with drugs that actually destroy players\u2019 system.\u201d<\/p>\n

He goes on to claim that baseball management encourages players to use steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cHigh Times: What else, in your opinion, are the most harmful drugs in America?<\/p>\n

Lee:\u00a0 All are bad if you don\u2019t neutralize them with another one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Classic.<\/p>\n

A great metaphor: \u201cSome people clean the laundry; some people do the laundry.\u00a0 Doing the laundry means not really understanding the concepts that are involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

And to finish it off, Bill Lee on the big picture:<\/p>\n

\u201cHigh Times: So, in summation, what\u2019s the meaning of life?<\/p>\n

Lee:\u00a0 Play to win and always adhere to the law of averages.\u00a0 The strange may occur.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 And keep laughing, and be kind to people on the way up because you\u2019re gonna see them again on the way down.\u00a0 Actually, I don\u2019t know what nuthin\u2019 means.\u00a0 English is not my trump card.\u00a0 That\u2019s why I get quoted a lot, like Casey Stengel.\u00a0 I walk the tightrope between two worlds.\u00a0 Between the oral and the doing, which I think are contradictory worlds.<\/p>\n

High Times: How do you resolve the contradiction?<\/p>\n

Lee:\u00a0 Do \u2018em both.\u00a0 There\u2019s a time and place for everything.\u00a0 And keep your mouth shut at all times.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a hippie ski bum working on a master\u2019s degree in creative writing, I feel like I sometimes walk that same tightrope.\u00a0 And as a stoned baseball fan, I\u2019d 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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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.\u00a0 Some were bought with saved up allowance, others were gifts, and some we got waiting in long lines at public […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[292,2899,1300,6,13,14],"tags":[649,3076,3078,558,3081,3077,636,3079,196,3080],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5834"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5834"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5839,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5834\/revisions\/5839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}