Chapter 23 … Sandy and The Spaceman

Del Shannon was one of my heroes. No one ever said Del was cool.

I got to meet many of my heroes along the way — Del Shannon, Bobby Orr, Carlton Fisk, Bill “Spaceman” Lee. And I got to meet so many people who became personal heroes—Irving Greenblatt, Duncan Syme and Murray Howell, John Schaeffer, Ed Koren, David Aldrighetti (Bethel Volunteer Fire Department).

I met the girl of my dreams in Bermuda when I was 19. The two of us grew up together. And later I met the love of my life. The two of us are growing old together.

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My new home is The Parsonage, built in 1826 to attract a Parson for the Episcopal Church across the street. While I loved The Big Shabby as a teenager’s party house, this is much more to my personal style. Meticulously restored and maintained by Sandy, she raised her son, Stephen, and daughter, Heather, as the wife of Phil, the President of the local hospital, Gifford Medical Center, who had passed away in n 1994 at the age of 56.

Who knew we would someday be together?

We began our lives together in 1999. We shared a love of exercise. I began, under Sandy’s tutelage to learn how to cook, not that, I would aspire to the kitchen throne. We go on walks, we work in the garden, we keep up with family. Her son Stephen, in 1999, was on the West Coast studying for his advanced degree, beginning his own brood. We knew each other already from times when he would stop by our home in West Brookfield to challenge me to spirited one-on-one games of basketball. Heather and her husband Matt were on the West Coast at that time, too, but soon to return home to Burlington. Shortly thereafter, she gave birth to her son, Tully Luke.

(To jump ahead a few years, Tully is now, like me, a Yale Bulldog.)

Patrick began studies at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, while Jake pursued musical ambitions at Oberlin College in Ohio. It was a “mixed-up, jumble-up, shook-up world,” as Ray Davies said in Lola, except I was finally with a soulmate with Sandy.

The gardens at The Parsonage were already beautiful when I arrived, but now, with my addition of energy, compost, and a strong back, under Sandy’s guidance they reached a new level. She was particularly enamored of standing stones. We’d walk from The Parsonage down to the Third Branch of the White River, and inevitably, she would find one in the woods, a vestige of a long-ago farm.

“This would look great in the garden,” she say, and I would counter with “Are you nuts? There’s no way to get a vehicle anywhere near here. Do you know how much that thing weighs?” She’d accept the rationale, but back in the garden, she perfected an expression that said plaintively “Wouldn’t that stone look great right here?”

“All right,” I’d sigh and head for the wheelbarrow.

These days we have a spring ritual, just as the ground has recovered from the snow-melt, of going stone-to-stone, straightening them. I have a heavy iron rod for tamping the dirt while she finds the chinking stones for holding the pillars in place for another season. At some point we take a break, look at each other, and one of says “How’d we ever do this?”

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Baseball is not a game so much as a sacred ritual of the human species. It is for this reason that even a humble low-life like me can watch a game and think of himself as continuing a tradition of profundity.

I grew up with baseball. I lived baseball as a kid. I was going to batting champ of the American League. Someone should have told Wade Boggs.

But there came a time when Life, Art, Girls, Beer, and Rock ‘n Roll (all subjects that deserve capitals) replaced Baseball as a priority in my life. I drifted apart from my beloved Red Sox. In ’67, perhaps the most amazing year in recent Red Sox history, I followed the series only tangentially. I was a sophomore in college and somehow the Meaning of Life seemed more important than whether or not the Red Sox won their first pennant since 1918. Only now, with the wisdom filter of age, do I realize how totally wrong I was.

After ’67, the next half decade was an anti-climax for the Red Sox fan. For the average person, it was an era when events such as Woodstock, a man on the moon, the end of Vietnam, Earth Day, and Watergate made baseball seem, like….well, a game.

I still went to Fenway Park semi-religiously. This was before enormous ticket prices and perpetually sold-out games. You could decide during the second inning of a Sunday double-header to hit the game. For a few bucks you could relax in the bleachers and watch some ball.

Pudge wasn’t happy about signing one card to two people. (You get paid by the card.)

I became re-engaged with the game thanks to a few young players, all my same age, who joined the Sox at this time. Pudge Fisk provided a foundation behind the plate. Rick “the Rooster” Burleson turned the shortstop position into a combat role, and a left-handed pitcher named Bill “Spaceman” Lee brought something to the pitching mound, and to baseball, that had been missing for too many years- a sense of humor.

My reconnection with baseball came after a spur of the moment decision to attend a double-header. These were the days when you could hear the start of the game on the radio at Post Island, hop in the car, drive to Fenway, park for free, pay your buck for admission for a seat in the bleachers, and watch the start of the second inning. 

Between games Bill Lee motioned for us to throw the Frisbee down, promising he’d throw it back. We did and he did. It was cool, a sailing plastic connection between mortals and a god. Bill Lee was letting us know that he was one of us, a mortal.

In 1975 Bill Lee was at the height of his powers. So were the rest of the Red Sox. They charged to the American League East lead and looked like a good bet to go all the way.

A moment of pure joy occurred when Carlton Fisk rocketed a ball of the left field foul pole to win the sixth game of Series. I writhed in front of the television set, bleating “I’m going to the Seventh Game. I’m going to the Seventh Game.”

Bill Lee, now dubbed The Spaceman, pitched the Seventh Game. He was masterful until the seventh inning when one of his slow blooper curves was sent into the stratosphere by Tony Perez. The Sox eventually lost, relegating another generation of fans to the unique frustration of rooting for Red Sox.

Flash forward. It is the summer of ’94, and I’ve taken three boys to see the new kids in town, the Vermont Expos. It’s a great night of relaxed baseball, the way it’s supposed to be played.

“We have a special guest tonight,” says the announcer. “Bill Lee, ex- major leaguer, is in the stands tonight. Let’s have a big hand for The Spaceman, Bill Lee.”

A man with graying hair, wearing a purple polo shirt stands and waves. The crowd applauds politely. A line of kids form to get autographs.

I bide my time until the thrill seekers subside, then my boys and I make our way toward The Spaceman. He is holding a baby. He appears to be about my age. I tell him that we used to play Frisbee at Fenway Park.  I can tell it’s not the first time he has heard this.

I ask about the Seventh Game. Perhaps, I suggest, they should have left him in. After all, one bad pitch is all he made. “Naw,” he answers, “They should have taken me out even earlier. I popped a blister. I was bleeding all over the ball.”

I spend minutes kibitzing with The Spaceman on that warm evening, rare for Vermont. The kids aren’t much interested. He’s my hero, not theirs. They would be much more excited by members of the current Red Sox. Bill addresses me as “Mr. Morris,” a odd token of deference. He lives in Vermont now.

Now … fast forward. The boys are grown and making their ways in the world. I have a new profession as a book publisher. I have a new partner who will eventually become my wife. A lot of water has flowed both over and under the dam. In hindsight … wow.

It is June, 2003. The setting is the Tunbridge Fair Grounds, the setting for the famous Tunbridge World’s Fair each September. The setting is right out of Vermont Life Magazine. right down to the baseball player in a vintage uniform. The occasion is the Vermont History Expo, a gathering of 100 of Vermont’s local historical societies.

The player in vintage garb is Bill Lee, here as part of the “celebrity box lunch auction,” a fund-raising event in which box lunches to be shared with local celebrities. The governor is there, and there’s Senator Leahy, and Bernie Sanders, and the TV weatherman from WCAX … and Vermont’s own link to the major leagues, The Spaceman.

“Are you going to bid on him?” asks Sandy, my partner who also happens to be the event director of the History Expo.  She knows of my baseball fetish. She also knows that it was I who suggested Lee as a Vermont celebrity to be included in the auction.

I hesitate, hedging. “We’ll see how the bidding goes.”  She also knows how reluctant (read “cheap”) I am, especially (read “cheap”) when it comes to anything that could interpreted as a luxurious (read “cheap”) self-indulgence. In other words, I am cheap.

The way the auction is supposed to work is that the celeb is brought to podium, the bidding takes place, the high bidder and the celeb go off with two box lunches for an intimate picnic. As Bill’s turn comes, she asks again, “Have you decided yet?”

“A hundred bucks,” I state definitively. Her walkie/talkie crackles and she disappears. The bidding starts at a hundred bucks, and I am left in the dust before even getting my hat in the ring. Probably a good thing, too, as I note that one of the active bidders is Peter Mallory, another known baseball nut who is also Chairman of the Board for the Vermont Historical Society, sponsors of the History Expo.

The bidding spirals upward, past the bid for Bernie and past the Governor. Soon it’s down to Mallory and one other, but when the bid hits $250, he, too, deems it too steep. “Sold to the lady with the clipboard for $250!” says the auctioneer. Mallory cranes his neck to see who the high bidder is. So do I and many others. It’s Sandy.

That’s the kinda girl she is. She makes dreams come true.

Bill Lee takes the microphone from the auctioneer and says to her “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to offer a raincheck on lunch, because I’m scheduled to play in a Senior League game that starts in just a few minutes. What I’d like to do instead is to invite you and a guest to have lunch at my home in Craftsbury. Will that be ok?” She nods. “Call me and we’ll set it up.” And The Spaceman is off. He’s got a game to play. Mallory, meanwhile makes a beeline for the lady with the clipboard. He’s got a deal to propose to his Event Director.

Several weeks hence we–Sandy, Peter, and I– are pulling into the driveway of Bill Lee’s home in Craftsbury. I remember thinking that his driveway must be a bitch to get up in the winter–this is how Vermonters think. Inside we meet Bill’s wife, Diana, and his Aunt Annabelle Lee, who was a pitcher in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.  Before any of us can say “Isn’t that …?” It’s confirmed that this was the inspiration for the movie (A League of Their Own) starring Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Rosie O’Donnell, and Madonna. Annabelle was a star left-handed pitcher who threw the first perfect game in league history.

“She’s the one who taught me to pitch,” says Bill.

If there was any concern about conversation lagging, it was misplaced. In fact, Annabelle was the only one who seemed to be able to squeeze in a word edgewise, with Bill. He shows us his stretching routine, and tells us about his bat company, and fulfills nearly every baseball fantasy Peter or I ever had. He is a great host, as well, grilling a delicious, marinated flank steak that proves him as proficient on the grill as on the mound. Diana, meanwhile, exchanges a couple of eyeball-rolling moments with Sandy.  “Can you believe what I have to put up with?” her expression asks. Sandy’s smile is sympathetic and indulgent, as if she is watching men being boys, which was exactly what she is watching.

It is an afternoon more memorable than any at the ballpark, and all made possible by the generosity of someone who thinks that baseball is just a game.

Welcome to my world, Sandy, and thank you for letting me be part of yours.