The End Of Spaceman Lee

The disaster of 1980

The End Of Spaceman Lee

I had forgotten that Bill Lee pitched for the Montreal Expos until I read this, from Bill James’ preview of the 1979 baseball season:

From Esquire, April 24, 1979, page 65

James was wrong about the 1979 Expos, of course. They wound up surprisingly good, finishing in the end only 2 games out of first place in the division.

And Bill Lee had a lot to do with that. He went 16-10 that season, throwing 6 complete games and netting an impressive 3.04 ERA.

It was Bill’s best season in years

Bill Lee had kind of a rough start to 1980. He wound up giving more than his share of runs from the start, and had a 3-4 record with a 4.79 ERA in early June.

In fact, that ERA was low in large part because of his complete game victory over the Cardinals on June 6, in which he only allowed a single earned run:

From Montreal Gazette, June 7, 1980, page 84

And then something totally bizarre happened.

Bill Lee apparently fell on a fence while jogging at 2 AM only a few hours after that victory.

Only George Vecsey can tell this story right:

From The Evening Sun (Baltimore, MD), June 10, 1980, page C2

The injury Bill received was apparently a bit more serious than that:

From The Sun Times (Owen Sound, Ontario), June 12, 1980, page 15

Bill came back in mid-July. After 5 frankly ineffective starts, however, he was placed back on the disabled list — presumably because of that jogging accident in June:

From The Montreal Gazette, August 8, 1980, page 13

And, as crazy as this sounds, that was really the end of Bill Lee’s career.

Despite Bill’s protests, he remained out of the rotation until September 6.

Bill only started a single game — the September 29 game against Montreal. Those following his won-loss record will note that he won a single game in relief during that period of time. He ended the season with a 4-6 record and a 4.96 ERA, and was certainly the victim of bad luck (he had a 4.24 FIP, for what it counts).

Lee went 5-6 in 1981, but only started 7 games all season. He was only 34 years old. He wound up pitching in two games that post season, recording a grand total of 1 inning pitched.

He appeared in 7 games in 1982, had a 4.38 ERA, and his career ended.

Bill’s SABR biography indicates that he likely actually fell out of a building when he was injured in 1980:

I’m not sure what the source is of this version — but, then again, I haven’t read either of the books that Bill wrote. However, my guess is that there was probably some after-game partying going on that contributed to the injury.

Bill had a series of arguments with Expos management after Rodney Scott was released on May 8, 1982. He was released on May 9. And, after all that, nobody wanted to touch him.

It’s amazing. He went from a star season in 1979 to out of baseball for good in 1982. He was a bit older, sure, but he wasn’t that old.