In the 1975 World Series, Boston Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee, up 3-0, threw an eephus pitch in the top of the 6th inning to Cincinnati Reds 1st baseman, Tony Perez. If you’re a Boston fan, you probably don’t know what an eephus pitch is, which is okay, it’s a silly name for a rare and silly occurrence in baseball. If you don’t know what a “Leephus,” a “spaceball” or a “moon ball” is, I won’t be surprised about that either, you’re a Boston fan, after all. But that’s what baseball fans called it when Bill Lee lobbed a super-change-up over home plate, hoping to surprise the batter into swinging wildly and missing. When he tried it for the third time on Perez, the power hitting infielder paused, shifted his weight and crushed the ball over the Green Monster in left field. Johnny Bench came around from second to score on the homer, and the Reds pulled within a run of the Sox. According to Baseball Reference, this brought the Reds win expectancy up from 12% to 28%. They were still bound to lose, but Boston, their curse, and their general incompetence knows no bounds and Ken Griffey, Pete Rose and Johnny Bench went on to steal the game, tying it in the 7th and pulling ahead in the top of the 9th. With that, Cincinnati took the Series.
I could watch the video of this homer over and over again. It gives me nearly endless joy. “’He was waiting for that one,” says announcer Curt Gowdy. Part of this is because I hate Boston. I won’t try to justify this; it’s an irrational hatred that emanates from my core without reason, and that makes it all the more real. Seeing them lose in such a ridiculous fashion is wonderful to behold. But even greater than that is Bill Lee and his pitch. He looks absolutely absurd, a giant leg kick, an exaggerated motion, a floating pitch that seems to take forty-five seconds to reach the plate. All that on top of the fact that he was a fantastic pitcher. In just this game he had already pitched five shut-out innings. And in a 14-year career he put up a 3.62 ERA.
Better than his stats, though, is his legend. In Ken Burns’ lengthy PBS documentary series, Baseball, Bill Lee provides some of the best material. It would have been worth it to me, but not to you, to write out every word Lee says, but instead, I’ll just put the video in the piece that I would have transcribed.
Bill Lee offered something that baseball players rarely do: a true perspective, true intellectual quirk, real thought, however silly it may be. He was the spirit of the Portland Mavericks in the Majors even more than Jim Bouton who went on to play for the Pacific Coast League independent team. (On a side note, if you haven't seen The Battered Bastards of Baseball and you're into baseball whimsy, it's worth a watch.)
The Pirates, my team, sometimes do dances in the dugouts, and have had a series of on base celebrations that have been fun to watch, but in the end, it’s jock humor that has never pushed the boundaries of sports culture and the anti-intellectualism within it. Bill “Spaceman” Lee transcended that aspect of the game, and as an even quirkier twist, he played for Boston Red Sox, the least transcendent team in the Major Leagues.
