1. In your book, you have Ted Williams save the world by having him kill Adolf Hitler at a Red Sox game at Fenway Park. How did you come up with that outrageous scenario?
It just made sense. Ted Williams was the best at everything he tried. He was a combination of Gen. Patton and John Wayne. Hitler would be no match for him. The Splendid Splinter would have destroyed The Splendid Sphincter.
2. Why do you think this book is worthy of a Nobel Prize in Literature?
It combines the tragedy of MacBeth with the frivolity of Where’s Waldo. It is longer than Hemingway and more fantastic than Harry Potter. In short, it’s a masterpiece. Already have my flight booked to Stockholm for the ceremony.
3. You seem to have a genuine distaste for New York, especially the Yankees. Why?
They are the ‘Dark Side.’ They represent all that is evil about baseball, and about our society in general. They use money to achieve greatness. That goes against nature. Also, it’s hard to get a cab there.
4. Is New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner the anti-Christ?
He was cast out of Heaven by Abner Doubleday himself when he tried to buy Ty Cobb from Hell’s team for 30 pieces of silver and an angel to be named later.
5. You depict MLB commissioner Bud Selig in the book as the Pope of Baseball. What do you think of his term as baseball commissioner?
Any commissioner who encourages ties in All-Star games should be working for the UN, not Major League Baseball.
6. If you could be commissioner for the day, what changes to the game would you make?
I’d establish teams in Japan, Cuba, China and Craftsbury, Vermont. I’d make Ted Williams’ birthday a national holiday. I’d do away with the DH and domed stadiums and artificial turf.
7. Boston sports fans are famous for their suffering. What is it about these die-hard fans that makes them such “victims”?
It all goes back to their roots. The Salem Witch Trials and all that. New Englanders are persecuted and cursed and will remain that way until Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson forgive us.
8. A large section of the book creates a fictional account of what would happen if the Red Sox had kept Babe Ruth. Give us a quick idea of how the world would have been different if the Bambino stayed in Beantown?
New York would have become practically a ghost town. Boston would be the center of the U.S. economy as well its cultural center. The Yankees would now be a farm team of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. New Yorkers would have a huge inferiority complex and it would be completely justified, because they are inferior.
9. Let’s sum up then. In your book, you have killed Hitler, assassinated Nixon, made Selig the Pope and elevated yourself to President of the United States. What’s next for Bill Lee?
Sainthood would be nice. I’d also like to make a comeback as a pitcher, maybe with Baltimore. I’m also waiting for the movie of my life to come out. It’ll be called ‘Farewell to Arm’ or ‘Oh, Fastball, Where Art Thou?’
“I think about the cosmic snowball theory. A few million years from now the sun will burn out and lose its gravitational pull. The earth will turn into a giant snowball and be hurled through space. When that happens it won’t matter if I get this guy out.”
“I would change policy, bring back natural grass and nickel beer. Baseball is the belly-button of our society. Straighten out baseball, and you straighten out the rest of the world.”
“I’m mad at Hank Aaron for deciding to play one more season. I threw him his last home run and thought I’d be remembered forever. Now, I’ll have to throw him another.”
“Most of the managers are lifetime .220 hitters. For years pitchers have been getting these managers out 75% of the time and that’s why they don’t like us.”
“If it had been me out there, I’d had bitten him his ear off. I’d have Van Gogh’ed him.”
“People are too hung up on winning. I can get off on a really good helmet throw.”
“The more self-centered and egotistical a guy is, the better ballplayer he’s going to be.”
“You take a team with twenty-five assholes and I’ll show you a pennant. I’ll show you the New York Yankees.”
“The other day they asked me about mandatory drug testing. I said I believed in drug testing a long time ago. All through the sixties I tested everything.”
“You have two hemispheres in your brain - a left and a right side. The left side controls the right side of your body and right controls the left half. It’s a fact. Therefore, left-handers are the only people in their right minds.”
“There’s nothing in the world like the fatalism of the Red Sox fans, which has been bred into them for generations by that little green ballpark, and the wall, and by a team that keeps trying to win by hitting everything out of sight and just out-bombarding everyone else in the league. All this makes Boston fans a little crazy and I’m sorry for them.”
“You should enter a ballpark the way you enter a church.”
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