FAIRBANKS — As
Bill Lee paced
through the dugout in the 10 p.m. sunlight, the old pro spouted wisdom,
dirty jokes, anecdotes from his career and political musings to the
Goldpanners, young men one-third his age who lapped up his every word.
“It’s all about money or sex. Trust me. Follow the
money: deep throat,” the 61-year-old known as “Spaceman” proclaimed.
The dugout broke into laughter, though no one on the
roster was even alive when the raunchy film was made or Watergate ruled
the news.
“‘Either hang together or they’ll indeed hang you
separately,’” quoted the man who is happiest when he is pitching or
holding a chainsaw. “Who said that?”
“Spaceman!” someone proclaims.
“Trust me, I have never said an original thing in my
life,” Lee responded, now back to his joking tone. “I am just a spud.”
As varied as the speech became, one statement seemed
to stand out, a strong theme amid the disjointed ramble.
“Always remember your history.”
Any player who took that advice wouldn’t forget what
happened next on June 21, when a 61-year-old man took the mound in the
Midnight Sun Game.
•••
Lee has plenty of theories on how he turned back the
clock that Saturday night, but he certainly doesn’t attribute it to his
physical condition.
“The thing is: I hadn’t thrown in four weeks,” he
said. “I’d been taking care of my aunt and my dad. I wasn’t thinking
about the game. It was the furthest thing from my mind.
“I’d been drinking. My hamstrings were cramping. My
calves were cramping from the night before.”
He knows he got a boost from returning to Alaska and
being in front of Interior fans again.
“You’ve got to give Alaskans credit to start a game
at 11 o’clock after you’ve been drinking since 6, and go until 3 in the
morning,” he said. “That’s legs.”
It could have been the clear skies and 70-degree
weather, which he said were the exact opposite of the Midnight Sun Game
he lost in 1967 to the Japanese national team.
Maybe it was his pregame sacrifice, a six-pack of his
Lagunitas IPA that he never drank as “kind of an offering to the gods.”
Whatever it was, there was something in the Fairbanks
air that hinted to Lee it was no ordinary game.
“There was just a lot of magical moments in that town
that day,” he said.
•••
It appeared Lee was there for novelty.
The tall, thick-legged left-hander played for the
Goldpanners in 1966 and 1967. He followed that with a major league
career in which he compiled an 119-90 overall record in 10 years with
the Boston Red Sox and four with the Montreal Expos.
The first batter of the game, 1980 Goldpanner Don
Sneddon, who was coaching the opposing Southern California Running
Birds, was honored in the alumni presentation along with Lee.
As Lee and Sneddon eyed each other, the fake shutter
sounds of digital cameras clicked throughout Growden Memorial Park, the
modern-day equivalent of flashbulbs popping. It was a good time to have
your camera out. Who knew how long either would last?
For Sneddon, it was brief. He fouled the first pitch
into the stands just past first base and then struck out on the next two
pitches. When the Birds switched to defense, Jim Leverson took his place
in left field.
Lee however, kept going, though he never felt
comfortable while pitching.
His feet weren’t very stable on Growden’s soft dirt,
so he traded in his left shoe in for long cleats from one of his
teammates. He was a bit more anchored then, but every pitch dug his left
foot further into the mound.
“Every inning I went out and I repaired the mound,”
he said. “I’d get the hole all the way up to about 5 inches deep, and by
the end of the inning it’d be down to China.”
By the end of the second inning, he was two runs
down, one from a wild pitch. It seemed like he had dug himself too deep.
•••
In the average 60-something man, joints are much
stiffer, especially in the spine and rib cage. For a pitcher, that puts
more stress on the shoulder to throw the ball, according to Greg Milles,
a nine-year physical therapist.
“It would be something if he was playing in a
recreational softball game,” Milles said, “but to be able to pitch
fast-pitch ball like that, it’s going to take a lot more wear and tear
on his rotator cuff and on his body in general.”
Two innings of overhand, full-force work would have
been a commendable feat for anyone who qualifies for AARP discounts. And
for Lee, who is knocking on the door of Social Security, it’s downright
astonishing.
So after the second, when he looked vulnerable, no
one would have thought less of him for calling it a night.
But the sun hadn’t set yet, not in the sky, nor for
Lee.
•••
Lee breezed through the third inning, but the strain
on his body was beginning to show.
Panners manager Tim Gloyd noticed Lee breathing out
of his mouth, gasping for air at times and looking wobbly in his legs.
“You could tell he was old after he released the
ball,” Gloyd said. “When he was pitching, he was fine because he was so
focused.”
With these signs of fatigue, Milles said he wouldn’t
expect Lee to go on.
“It’s just amazing that he threw that many,” Milles
said. “He may be in great shape, but it still takes a big toll on the
body to play at such a high level.”
Making matters worse, Lee was relying on his heat
more than usual.
“The funny thing is: They couldn’t hit my fastball,”
Lee said. “It was weird, you know? They hit my breaking ball. I made
some mistakes on my changeup and they hit that, but any time I stayed
hard, they couldn’t hit it, just foul it back, foul it back, foul it
back.”
But he continued through the fourth inning, when many
participants from the Midnight Sun Run were filing into the stadium.
Soon, the best spots available were on the grass
behind the chain-link outfield fence.
The packed crowd, cheering louder with every out, was
a major part of what pulled him through the next few innings.
“I went to places through adrenaline and the crowd
and everything,” he said. “Somehow my body was 38 years old again.
“It was an emotional game. I took my shoulder places
it hasn’t been in a long time.”
And he was still hurling through the sixth, which was
long enough for the Panners’ offense to give him a 5-4 lead and the
chance for a win.
At this point, Lee could not lose the game if he
stayed off the field. So it was surprising to see him put on his glove
and begin the seventh.
As it turns out, it was only to throw one final
pitch.
“I said, ‘Well, I’m gonna make it a good one, so I
challenged the kid and he got a base hit,” Lee said.
Lee walked off the mound to a rousing ovation and
with no chance of a loss.
The Panners slowly expanded their lead to 10-4, and
it seemed all but inevitable that Lee was going to avenge his defeat in
1967.
With victory near, Lee’s mind wasn’t on his career or
where this accomplishment stood in baseball history.
His thoughts were of Ken Kesey’s “Sometimes a Great
Notion,” whose main character’s motto was “Never give an inch!” and John
McPhee’s “The Sense of Where You Are” about the rise of basketball great
Bill Bradley.
At 1:35 a.m., after a short period of deep dusk, the
sun was heading back up to the horizon in the bottom of the ninth. The
crowd chanted “we want an out,” imploring that the Running Birds’
Crispin Tarango, with two strikes against him and two outs on the board,
be the last batter of the night.
Tarango swung without contact. 10-6 Panners. A win
for Bill Lee under the midnight sun.
The crowd had erupted into applause the moment the
ball popped into Jeremy Gillan’s mitt. The Byrds’ “Mr. Spaceman,” with
its folksy twang, was soon at full volume on the PA system, warbling
through the claps and whoops from the stands.
Lee was at the mound almost immediately, shaking
hands with youthful energy.
He headed for the stands behind home plate, an unlit
cigar protruding from his white goatee and wide smile, and signed the
first of the multitude of balls and programs he autographed that night.
He was equally swamped in the dugout by the
Goldpanners, who had handshakes, back slaps and photo ops awaiting him.
“I’d finally redeemed myself since ’67,” he said.
“Sometimes you gotta wait a long time for it to come back, you know?”
•••
A little sore the next day, Lee said a steady intake
of beer kept his body’s stiffness at bay.
But the wear of 83 pitches finally caught up to him
on his Tuesday flight to Seattle.
Not allowed to bring a bottle of water and two
bottles of Samuel Adams on the plane, he downed them quickly before
boarding. He said he was so dehydrated he didn’t have to use the
restroom until he landed in the Lower 48.
But the soreness and fatigue wasn’t enough to slow
down Lee, who is constantly booked for appearances.
“The phone rings all the time,” he said. “I’ll do a
few things for money, and I’ll do a few things for charity. I just want
enough to keep myself up in bullets and chainsaws.”
He found time to play in a charity golf tournament in
Anchorage before flying back to New England for four baseball games in
three days at Rockland, Maine, this weekend.
“I don’t want to get to cocky because there’s always
some kid out there with an aluminum bat who’s gonna hit one back at my
head, or at my nose like General Patton,” he said. “Then I’ll be dead,
but that’s not a bad way to go.”
He’s there to benefit Tourette’s syndrome research
with friend Terry Colson, who suffers from the disease.
The two met in 1994 when Lee was playing a charity
basketball game in Colson’s hometown and agreed to throw a pitch to a
volunteer. Eighth-grader Colson, a fellow lefty, volunteered. He was
given a right-handed mitt and was subsequently knocked out when he
couldn’t stop the ball with the wrong glove hand.
It’s one of many tales the two now share, though it
seems everyone who’s met Lee has at least one good story from it.
Those who were at the 2008 Midnight Sun Game might
have the best one of all.
•••
About 3 a.m. after the game, Lee was soaking in the
moment enjoying a bottle of wine outside the Captain Bartlett Inn.
“Everybody’s still driving by, and the sun’s just
coming up. The bottom of the clouds were bright red,” he said. “It was a
great day.”
But somehow, it wasn’t quite great enough.
“You know, I’m really upset that I didn’t go nine,”
he said. “Now that I look back at it, I really had the opportunity. If I
had been in a little bit of shape. If I had dedicated a little more
toward myself instead of what I had to do, I coulda gone nine. That
would have been legend.
“Trust me, It’s good the way it is, but I’m telling
you I could do better.”
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