Play Ball!

Oh, the baseball here is terrible;
It makes me feel despair
Our pitchers offer meatballs
While our hitters swing at air.
Our fielders first can’t catch the ball,
Then fire it in the stands.
Announcers tell dull stories.
The fans sit on their hands,
Unless they brought some gadgets
To update all their blogs.
There’s campfires in the bullpen.
The umpires call their dogs.
— The Amazing Bob

All literary men are Red Sox fans — to be a Yankees fan in a literate society is to endanger your life.
— John Cheever

I couldn’t get to sleep until four in the morning. Nobody knew. You pick up the morning paper in Chicago, and it says, ‘N.Y. at Detroit (n.).’ I mean, doesn’t a man have a Constitutional right to the box scores?
— Roger Angell

If anything prepares you to be president, it’s being a Red Sox fan.
— John Kerry

Clearly this study demonstrates that the Red Sox winning is good for the health of western civilization.
— Larry Lucchino


The best show on television is Red Sox baseball. Everything else sucks.
— Stephen King

Y’all know who Bill Lee is? Of course you do. He was the gonzo left handed pitcher for the Red Sox from ’69 to ’78.

From a column on the site Vice:

Bill Lee says controversial things. The former Boston Red Sox lefty-cum-New-England-cult-hero once compared the New York Yankees to Nazis and "a bunch of hookers swinging their purses." He has written about his desire to bite the ear off an umpire over a call in the 1975 World Series. (“I would have Van Goghed him.”) He has claimed that ingesting weed pancakes made him immune to the exhaust from buses during his regular jogs to Fenway Park. During the 1970s, Lee famously backed a judge’s decision to forcibly desegregate Boston’s schools.
Age has not softened Lee’s outspoken eccentricity. The 66-year-old recently told me that had he been elected president in 1988, when he ran under the Rhinoceros Party, September 11 would never have happened. He is the subject of a Warren Zevon song and he is, without a doubt, the only man to win 119 major league games and also grace the cover of High Times.

TAB and I had the pleasure of meeting him (BRIEFLY) when he was running for prez in ’87 with the Rhino Party. My fellow minor league ball fan, Steve and I saw him play a game up in Portland, Maine (was it Portland?). He was, unsurprisingly, awesome plus — he’s fresh air, wildlife and wicked amounts of fun. Yeah, I’m a wee bit in love. Have you noticed, by the by, how much Lee resembles my dear, studly TAB?

A small selection of Mister Lee's wit and wisdom:

My first edicts if I were Commissioner of Baseball would be to get rid of the designated hitter, bring back the 25-man roster, get rid of Astroturf, maintain smaller ballparks and revamp quality old ballparks. I'd outlaw video instant replays. I'd outlaw mascots. I'd put organic foods in the stands. I would make cold, pasteurized beer mandatory from small breweries located near the ballparks -- no giant multinational breweries. I would bring back warm, roasted peanuts. Just the smell of grass and those warm, roasted peanuts should be enough to make people come to the park. I would just try to reduce it to an organic game, the way it used to be. 

I think about the cosmic snowball theory. A few million years from now the sun will burn out and lose its gravitational pull. The earth will turn into a giant snowball and be hurled through space. When that happens it won't matter if I get this guy out."

I would change policy, bring back natural grass and nickel beer. Baseball is the belly-button of our society. Straighten out baseball, and you straighten out the rest of the world.

People are too hung up on winning. I can get off on a really good helmet throw.

You should enter a ballpark the way you enter a church.

The only rule I got is if you slide, get up.

And here’s his High Times interview from October 2013.

Go read. You’ll be glad you did.

Just FYI, Sox won against the Blue Jays yesterday 7-6 and today’s game (against the Blue Jays again) starts at 1:07 PM.

You’re welcome.