On Friday night, my roommate Christopher Kain and I went to the Somerville Theatre to watch Spaceman, the biopic of former Boston Red Sox and Montreal Expos pitcher Bill "Spaceman" Lee. starring Josh Duhamel of Transformers fame.
Lee is also running for Governor of Vermont under the Liberty Union Party banner (Bernie Sanders ran for Governor with them four decades ago). As such, I thought this would be a good article for The American Spectator, but so much for those plans.
When we arrived at the theater, much to my shock I saw Lee walk out of the theatre. I have seen many a biopic, but this is the first time I've ever seen the subject of a biopic in the flesh. Lee was busy talking with a bunch of people, so I didn't have a chance to say hello. Evidently, he was present for the earlier show. As it turned out, I could understand why he left. Until we came along no one had bought tickets for the second showing. That was too bad. It would have been fun to spend an evening with The Spaceman. I told one of the ushers, "I didn't know Bill Lee was going to be here." The usher replied, "Neither did we."
The movie was shown in a very small theater in the basement across from the washrooms. There could have been no more than 20 seats. Initially, we sat in the second row. Why? If we have the theater to ourselves, we might as well sit in the front row.
The audience briefly doubled in size about half way through the movie when this father and daughter came into the theatre. The girl couldn't have been more than 7-years old. At the very point they entered the theatre, there was a scene featuring Lee giving dope to his new teammates on the semi-pro Longeuil Senators. I'm sure the girl's mother would have been utterly horrified at the spectacle.
The movie itself was OK. It was loosely adapted from Lee's autobiography The Wrong Stuff (which I first read 30 years ago when I was in the eighth grade). It specifically focused on when Lee walked out on the Expos early in the 1982 season protesting the release of Rodney Scott & how he was effectively blackballed from Major League Baseball. There wasn't much here for Red Sox fans although the home run he gave up to Tony Perez in Game 7 of the 1975 World Series is mentioned while the Eliot Lounge was given a plug as well.
Ernie Hudson of Ghostbusters fame is in the movie as is Wallace Langham who some of you might report from The Larry Sanders Show starring the late Garry Shandling. Cameos were also made by baseball writer Jonah Keri (a native of Montreal) and former NL Cy Young Award winner Eric Gagne, also a Montreal native who was a co-producer on the film. Gagne briefly pitched here in Boston albeit past his prime. Alas he is not so fondly remembered by Red Sox Nation. But that as they say is another story.
What is most remarkable about the Bill Lee story is that he is still pitching as he nears the age of 70 (his birthday is on December 28th). He is the Satchel Paige of this generation, barnstorming all over the world playing baseball, softball or anything else where a ball and a bat are involved. I'm sure being Governor of Vermont would be boring by comparison.
But all things considered it could be worse. While I'm not crazy about Lee when he acts as an apologist for Cuba and wears Che Guevara clothing, given Donald Trump's admiration for Vladimir Putin, Republicans are hardly in any position to complain.
In any case, this was the strangest experience I've ever heard had at a movie theater. But far from the worst.
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