I Think Bill Lee Likes Manny

Posted by Adam Hart November 8, 2008 at 1:02 pm

Spaceman tells it like it is… with jokes! On tap today is Manny Ramirez, racism in Boston, the media, Curt Schilling and the true feelings of Tim McCarver and Joe Morgan about our fair city. Oh yeah, and we had the ‘bleep’ button ready…

Bill Lee has always been outspoken. One never retires from being outspoken — save for some sort of throat surgery gone wrong. But that wouldn’t stop Lee. He would then become outwritten, or out-handsy. Anyway, at the Red Sox Hall of Fame celebration, the honorees were Mo Vaughn, Mike Greenwell and the Spaceman. Take a guess at who stole the show, spouting off about the Manny Ramirez situation, and just about everything else. I’ll give you one hint: It wasn’t the one who frequented the Foxy Lady during his Red Sox years…

Spaceman makes some fair points:

“This year I think Boston just kind of got fed up with winning. That’s too bad. Because we could have been World Champions again. And (Manny) wouldn’t have hit those 6-irons into the wind against the Cubs; he would have hit them against Tampa Bay.”

Home runs are one thing. But Lee sees Manny as something more. Something biblical. (Or not. As our commenter, Ed, points out, Lee is talking about himself in the following quote. Watching the video again, I see his point. So to make it up to you, here are some of Lee’s greatest quotes. It won’t be the last time I misunderstand something Bill Lee says. Still, I don’t like being referred to as ‘chief’.)

“A prophet in his own time is not well-received in this town,” Lee said.

Spaceman sees the Red Sox as unreasonable for not doing their utmost to keep Manny hitting in the cleanup spot at Fenway Park. And that the team should have told traveling secretary Jack McCormick to get up and remove the dust from his clothes.

“You pick up the traveling secretary and you dust him off,” said Lee. “You don’t say he was a pariah like Schilling said and everything else. He (38Pitches) can kiss my ass.”

And how about Manny’s typical time off? Those couple of weeks strung together when his knee is aching.

“Was there ever a doubt the year before? He always took August off,” Lee said of Manny’s love for phantom knee injuries. “In France they give you a (unholy adjective) two month vacation and two hours for lunch.”

And Lee knows who served as the catalyst for the move, which sent Manny to L.A. and brought in Jason Bay (rhyming is awesome).

“It was the New York press that started it. And you guys felt that you were out to lunch. You know, in hockey that’s called 2 minutes — third man in.” Lee said. “They pulled the wool over your eyes. McCarver hates this town. You think Joe Morgan likes this town? He hates this town. Couldn’t get a black player to play in this town.”

Lee doesn’t hold anything against Bay, because Spaceman has married two Canadian women. And his description on moving from one woman to the other is the way Mother Nature outlined such a move.

“I wait for one to get cold and then I go get a warm one,” Lee said in jest.

Finally, the event which has brought the Spaceman back into our lives was approached. Would Manny be inducted into the Red Sox Hall of Fame?

“Oh, surely you should patch it up with Manny. You’re going to see his number on the (not nice adjective) wall sooner or later. He’s the greatest I ever saw.”