It was a minor-league gimmick, but the last laugh went to free-spirited left-hander Bill Lee. The former Boston Red Sox pitcher was never a hard thrower - and he certainly isn't these days.
But that didn't stop him from becoming perhaps the oldest pitcher to win a professional game over the weekend, leading the Brockton Rox to a 7-3 win over the Worcester Tornadoes in a Can-Am league game in Massachusetts.
His line: 5 1/3 innings, two runs, five hits, one strikeout, no walks. Age 63. He hadn't pitched in a professional game since he was released by the Montreal Expos in 1982. But Lee never really stopped pitching - his documentary film, "Spaceman: A Baseball Odyssey" airs every once in a while on MLB Network, a film in which he barnstorms through Cuba with a recreational team as its pitcher.
But he was getting guys out on Sunday - professional baseball players, mind you - who are old enough to be his grandchildren.
"I didn't know whether to clap or be angry with him," said Worcester manager Rich Gedman, a former Red Sox catcher who started his career after Lee retired, to the Worcester Enterprise News. "I'm happy for him. There's not a lot of people who can do what he did."
Brockton manager Chris Carminucci was just as impressed.
"He does not have his fastball anymore, but he can do everything else," Carminucci said. "He hit his spots. What does that teach our guys? We've got 24-year-old arms. If you hit your spots, you get people out.
"He got people out today with his mind and hitting spots and knowing how to pitch. He threw a changeup that was like eephus and then he threw a fastball that looked like it was 105 (miles an hour) from the dugout. It was amazing. It was cool stuff."
Comments
It’s ‘Brockton’, not ‘Brocton’.