Decades later, Lee, 78, will appear in the film “Eephus,” which is set to be released Friday. From director Carson Lund, the comedy depicts a game between two men’s league baseball teams in New England on the last day before their field is destroyed to build a school.
The film captures life as it unfolds around this final game — the down time between innings, outs and pitches. Lund felt Lee’s life perspective meshed well with that of the film. “He’s the stoner. He’s the hippie. He’s the outsider,” Lund said, adding that Lee had a combative relationship with authority figures within baseball and “this film itself is sort of rebellious within the baseball tradition.”
Lee has always been outspoken about his beliefs, cementing the perception in baseball of his outsider status. During his playing days, he openly supported Boston’s integrated busing program, pushed for the Equal Rights Amendment and practiced a one-game walkout in protest of Montreal’s decision to cut his friend Rodney Scott during the 1982 season. The Expos released Lee the next day, and he never played in another major league game.
These days, Lee lives near the Canadian border, in what’s known as the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. When he was reached via telephone recently to discuss his role in the film, he said he was “hermetically sealed in six feet of snow. I can’t even find my dog half the time.”
Lund grew up about an hour north of Boston and had long been fascinated by Lee. “I’ve always been a Red Sox fan, and my dad especially has been a lifelong Red Sox fan, so it was pretty early on that I learned about ‘Spaceman,’” Lund said, referring to the nickname Lee was given by sportswriters because of his “out there” personality.
Lund reached out to Lee via landline — one of the only ways to get in touch with him — and started a phone correspondence. “I sent him the script — I’m still not clear if he ever read it,” Lund said. “He told me he goes to the library once or twice a week and checks his email, and he would read it there.”
Lee enters the film to provide sage advice to other players and throw one inning in relief.
While filming Lee’s scenes, Lund said he was unable to focus too closely on the veteran on the mound — “it was just so much happening at once, and we were moving the camera around … and I was giving cues to the actors who were going up to bat against him, so I really feel like I didn’t get to really watch him pitch very much” — but he cherished the opportunity to take batting practice off Lee later in the day.
The film experience was the latest chapter in Lee’s uncommon baseball life. Though his major league career ended prematurely, Lee did not stop playing the sport he loves. He appeared in Cuba, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, China and the former Soviet Union, spreading the game and handing out baseball equipment whenever he could. “If I see a boy without a ball, I give him a ball. If I see a boy without a bat, I give him a bat,” he said.
Lee said his time playing around the world wasn’t just about sharing bats and gloves; it also had political ramifications. “It wasn’t Reagan [saying], ‘Tear down this wall, Mr. Gorbachev.’ It was the fact that I threw two back-to-back shutouts on a Thursday and a Saturday. … I threw a seven-inning shutout against the Russian national team. They were so upset when they saw I had gray hair that they wanted to play me on Saturday. I had one day’s rest, and I threw a nine-inning shutout and picked seven guys off base. I realized that these guys ain’t going nowhere.”
Lee’s political aspirations peaked when he ran for president in 1988 with the platform, “No guns, no butter,” and then ran for governor of Vermont as the nominee of the far-left Liberty Union Party in 2016. But his strong political leanings remain. “We’re a political nation, and we have borders,” Lee said. “But I don’t believe in borders. My job is to erase borders, to erase racism, to erase all these problems.”
He also still has strong opinions about baseball. He was an opponent of the designated hitter in the 1970s, and he continues to disagree with more recent changes to the game, such as the introduction of the pitch clock: “They are all wrong,” Lee said.
Reflecting on his life, Lee explained: “Sometimes people want me to shut up, but usually what I say goes over their heads. The key is once you find out what I’ve said and you start laughing, make sure to pull off the highway so you don’t do any harm.”
Lee summarized it all, saying: “I’m autistic. I’m dyslexic. I had my left hand hit by nuns all my life, but I persisted through it.” Then — referencing his uniform number — he added, “I love the fact that 37 is normal in Celsius. … I am normal.”
“Eephus” is out in select theaters as a limited release Friday. In the Washington area, it opens at the AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring and the Avalon Theatre in Northwest Washington on March 14.