Zaniness cometh from the ‘Spaceman’

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THE LITTLE RED (SOX) BOOK, by Bill “Spaceman” Lee with Jim Prime, Triumph Books, Chicago, 2003, 224 pages, $19.95.

If we can’t make Bill “Spaceman” Lee president, can’t we at least make him commissioner of baseball?

Bill Lee, my very favorite Red Sox player (he still hates the Yankees), has penned a second opus on baseball, his favorite sport. This one is “The Little Red (Sox) Book,” published by Triumph Books.

This Alice in Wonderland revisionist history has the Red Sox purchased by the Kennedy family instead of Harry Frazee, has Babe Ruth staying with the Sox instead of moving to New York, has Bucky Dent becoming a concert pianist instead of a heartbreaking Yankee, and has the Red Sox winning 37 World Series titles.

In a vast improvement on reality, Lee allows the Yankees only a few scattered World Series victories in the last century. You always judge a person’s character by the quality of his enemies.

For the younger fans, Spaceman was a thin southpaw (left-handed pitcher) who had a “speed limit” fast ball of about 55 mph and a curve a lot slower than that. Somehow, he lasted 13 years in the majors and went 119-90 for Boston and Montreal and was actually an All-Star pitcher in 1973.

The California (what else?) product had a fabulous talent for beating the heathen Yankees, more so than any other Red Sox pitcher in memory. Never mind that he lost the 1975 World Series when he fed Cincinnati Red Tony Perez a “blooper pitch” that ended up in Cambridge.

Lee admits that “I was both rattled and annoyed at the misplay in the field and decided to throw Perez a slow curve, a variant of the ‘eephus pitch.'” He also drove Manager Don Zimmer crazy, led an uprising of Red Sox “Buffalo Heads” with fellow rebels Ferguson Jenkins, Rick Wise, Bernie Carbo and Jim Willoughby, advocated pot smoking, and warred with staid Boston politicians.

They didn’t call him Spaceman for nothing. Southpaws are supposed to be odd.

“In baseball’s great parade, everyone seems to be marching to John Philip Souza while I am keeping pace to a distant kazoo,” Lee says.

He claims that he was blacklisted from professional baseball, but still plays amateur ball in Cuba, China, Canada and any state that will have him.

He tells us that his personal philosophy “has been forged by the logical humanism of Buckminster Fuller, tempered with the illogical home run of Bucky Dent.” He describes life as “a hanging slider with God coming to the plate.”

Baseball, his beloved game, needs help, Lee writes. When and if he becomes commissioner (right after hell has an ice storm) He would ban domed stadiums and Astroturf, then eliminate the designated hitter “so guys like Roger Clemens won’t have carte blanche to throw at people. All of a sudden he will be just another .500 fascist fastball pitcher.”

See what I mean? He hates all the right people.

In this delightful, revisionist history, Joseph Kennedy buys the Sox in 1916. Kennedy actually tried to buy the club, but lost the bidding to New Yorker Frazee. In the real world, Ruth went to the Yankees and the destitute Red Sox won four American League pennants and no more World Series titles, while New York won dozens (who is counting?).

But Spaceman asks, what if …

… Kennedy and Ruth established a lifelong relationship over a couple of (illegal) pops?

… Ruth’s salary were doubled to $20,000?

… Millionaire Kennedy signed a long list of

All-Star players including Waite Hoyt, Harry Harper, “Bullet” Joe Bush and Sam Jones.

… The Red Sox win six more World Series with Ruth, who eventually retires and becomes mayor of Boston.

… Kennedy grabs Tris Speaker, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, then Jimmie Foxx.

… In 1929, when Wall Street crashed, the financial business center moved to Boston, where it stayed.

… The Boston Red Sox won 37 World Series as the Boston team stockpiled talent.

… Adolf Hitler were assassinated at Fenway Park and World War II never happened.

… On April 16, 1945, the Red Sox audition and sign three black players: Marvin Williams, Sam Jethroe and Jackie Robinson, and become the first (instead of the last) team to break the color line in baseball?

… In the 1946 series, Robinson, not Johnny Pesky, takes the throw in the deciding seventh game and throws out Enos “Country” Slaughter by a mile. Sox win!

… Robinson is later elected mayor of Boston, like Ruth.

… The Boston Red Sox and Boston Braves meet in the World Series of 1954, ’55, ’56, ’57 and ’58, and the Braves do so well that they never leave Boston.

… In 1967, Sox slugger Tony Conigliaro is not beaned by Jack Hamilton on Aug. 18, and goes on to star in the World Series, hitting a game-winning home run off Cardinals star Bob Gibson in Game 7.

… In 1975, shortstop Denny Doyle does not throw the ball into the dugout, makes the double play and Lee never faces Tony Perez and never throws that damned slow curve.

… Manager Darrell Johnson doesn’t take pitcher Jim Willoughby out of the game and the Sox win the seventh game 3-0 and the Series 4-3.

… In 1978, Bucky Dent followed a career at the keyboards instead of baseball, The Red Sox win the one-game playoff against the Yankees, then beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Series.

… In 1986, during the sixth game of the World Series against the New York Mets (almost as bad as the Yankees), Sox first baseman Bill Buckner opts out of the game and is replaced by Dave Stapleton, who makes the putout on Mookie Wilson’s weak grounder. Sox win!

… In 1996, Roger Clemens stays in Boston, and the Sox win a few more World Series.

… Bill Lee wins the Nobel Prize in literature for “The Wrong Stuff,” then “The Little Red (Sox) Book,” then is elected as U. S. president (with Dennis Eckersley as vice president) on the Rhinoceros Party ticket. Later he buys the Red Sox.

Hey, it could happen.

Bill Lee will be president before the Red Sox win another World Series.