Bill 'Spaceman' Lee Breaks Record in Complete-Game Victory for San Rafael
August 24, 2012 - North American League (NAmL)
San Rafael Pacifics News Release
SAN RAFAEL, Calif. - Bill "Spaceman" Lee left Major League Baseball in 1982. His catcher Thursday night, D.J. Dixon, was born in December of that year. The two were battery mates at Albert Park and together, put in a game that bordered on the surreal. The 65-year-old took the mound in front of 1,265 and pitched a complete game in a 9-4 Pacifics victory. Lee broke his own record, becoming the oldest player to pitch (and win) a professional baseball game. At 63 in 2010, Lee pitched 5 1/3 innings, earning the win for the Brockton Rox of the Can-Am League.
Wearing the Pacifics blue alternative No. 31 jersey, and batting for himself in the ninth position, Lee took the mound to a rousing ovation and promptly set down the first nine batters he faced.
"(D.J. Dixon) did a great job," Lee said about his catcher. "We worked fast, and the guys played well. (Maui) thought they had a walk in the park, and now they gotta scramble for the next three games."
Besides a hiccup in the fifth inning - when Maui took a 3-0 lead - and a small speed bump in the seventh - when Maui tied the game at four - Lee and Dixon had the Na Koa Ikaika off balance all night. The Spaceman earned the win giving up four earned runs and eight hits, and while he didn't register any strikeouts, he didn't walk a single batter either.
"I was pushing for him to keep going," Dixon said. "I told the coaches 'let him go', I had a feeling he could (go nine). The hitters weren't centering the ball off him well, and I felt that if he just threw strikes we had a chance to get outs."
As Lee (1-0) dazzled on the mound, he also got the scoring started for San Rafael. His line drive to right scored Chad Bunting (1 for 2, run) and got the Pacifics on the board in the fifth, and it's fair to assume that he now holds the record for the oldest player to drive in a run in a professional baseball game.
And if it was Lee who started it, it was only natural that Dixon produced the game's biggest hit. After Maui intentionally walked Maikel Jova (3 for 4, two runs) to load the bases with two outs, Dixon stepped to the plate with a chance to break a 4-4 tie.
"I thought to myself, 'I want Spaceman to get the win,' and I just wanted to swing and hope that I made contact," Dixon said. "It happened and I was just so happy for (Lee), I'm glad it worked out."
The left handed hitting catcher would clear the bases on a ball blasted over the right fielder's head and put the Pacifics up for good. He finished 3 for 4 with four RBI. Darrick Hale (1 for 5, run), Johnny Woodard (4 for 5, two runs), and Boon Maeda all had RBIs for San Rafael. Maeda checked in with his first Pacifics home run of the season in the sixth - giving San Rafael a short-lived 4-3 lead.
The Spaceman took care of the rest. He trekked to the mound in the eighth and had a one-two-three inning - shaking off one coaching visit to the mound - and then in the ninth, given a 9-4 lead and a standing ovation, the former Red Sox and Expo set down the order to preserve the masterpiece.
"One of the greatest performances I've ever seen on a baseball field," a flabbergasted Pacifics manager Mike Marshall said. "I don't think he believed what he was doing. He threw 100 pitches in batting practice yesterday, but he had his game face on, he was into it. I feel like Jack Buck, 'I can't believe what I just saw.'"
As did most of the Pacifics, who surrounded Lee on the mound after the final out was recorded - a soft line out to second - but to the Spaceman, it was business as usual.
"The main thing is cut your head off and let your body do the work, you don't think out there and you play really well," Lee said. "I'm still able to do this, because I never quit."
The win puts the Pacifics (32-25) back into a tie for first place in the North American League North Division going into the weekend series. San Rafael and Maui have agreed to play a best-of-three series, Aug. 24-26, to decide the division champion. The Pacifics will send Jake Rasner (7-1) to the mound Friday night in Game 1, followed by Tyler Pearson (4-0) and Jesse Garcia (0-2) for Games 2 and 3, respectively.
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