USA – 2006 – 70 MIN – COLOUR - FEATURE - IN ENGLISH
A FILM BY BRETT RAPKIN
FEATURING BILL (SPACEMAN) LEE
Throughout the 1970’s, Bill Lee was the ultimate gonzo baseball player, a brilliant left-handed pitcher who flouted every manager or front office executive who tried to control him. The fans loved him and so did the sportswriters who delighted in asking the usual baseball questions, only to get philosophical responses involving the relationship between Camus and the curveball or the effects of arma on a pitcher’s rotator cuff.
Blacklisted from professional baseball in 1983, Lee was left to roam the world in search of a chance to play the game he loves. Harkening back to the days of barnstormers like Satchel Paige, who traveled the globe in search of good baseball, Lee’s adventures have taken him across the United States to China, Russia, South America, and every province in Canada.
The film follows Lee, approaching sixty years young, on a road trip from his farm in Vermont to the impoverished baseball mecca of Cuba and on his triumphant return to Fenway Park. Along the way, we hear from former teammates, family members, sportswriters, fans, and especially Lee himself about the unique life and career that spawned the legend of a ballplayer who will forever be known as the SPACEMAN.