Bill Lee is running for governor of Vermont. Even if this weren’t the year of politics outside the normal, news of the former big-league pitcher’s candidacy would hardly come as a surprise. You see, The Scrapbook has followed the career of the star-child popularly known as “Spaceman” for some 40 years now. We were expecting this.
The Scrapbook, as it happens, was there that summer night in the Bronx in 1976 when the Yankees’ Graig Nettles and Mickey Rivers virtually mugged Lee and dislocated his shoulder in a brawl at home plate. We watched Lee grow, blossom, and blossom more, from southpaw gadfly with the Red Sox and later the Montreal Expos (now our very own hometown Washington Nationals) to author, media celebrity, and political pundit on the very, very far left.
This isn’t the first time he’s run for office. In 1988, Lee ran for president. Obviously, the time was not yet right for a Vermont socialist to throw his hat in the ring. “I’m Bernie-heavy, I’m not Bernie-lite. My ideas were before Bernie,” Lee told reporters last week. “I’m a pragmatic, conservative, forward thinker.”
Nope, the man running on the Liberty Union ticket is none of those things. It’s not pragmatic to eliminate the border between the United States and Canada, as Lee wants to do. It’s not conservative to rain dollars on Vermont voters, as Lee promises. And Lee has never been “forward,” which, with The Scrapbook several scoopfuls into a pint of Cherry Garcia, sounds an awful lot like “linear.” No way, man. The master of the Eephus pitch—launched like a 60-foot 6-inch parabola outside of time—was anything but linear.
Insofar as The Scrapbook must confess to a soft spot for a political figure far to the left of Lev Davidovich Bronstein, it is not because the Spaceman thought outside the box, but because he pitched outside it. He got hitters out not with overpowering stuff, but through subtle management of time, speed, and place.
During his 14-year major league career, Lee won 119 games, with an ERA of 3.62. He also struck out 713 batters—but how many has he whiffed since retiring from the show in 1982? The once-lanky southpaw is still playing amateur baseball—pitching and playing first base—in Vermont and Canada. The Scrapbook is willing to wager that if you took every person Lee has struck out in his 69 years, the sum total is more than enough to push him over the top and elect him governor of Vermont—and maybe New Hampshire, too. And if he is elected governor, you can bet you’ll see The Scrapbook at the inaugural ball, perhaps dancing with Susan Sarandon.
