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Bill Lee on Steinbrenner’s death: ‘Good’ 07.16.10 at 7:56 am ET
By Jerry Spar

Bill Lee

Former Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee did not soften his stance on George Steinbrenner following the Yankees owner’s death Tuesday. “As far as Steinbrenner’s passing? Good,” Lee said in an interview with New Hampshire TV station WMUR. Added Lee: “Trust me, if hell freezes over, he’ll be skating.”

Lee, who spent 10 of his 14 major league seasons with the Red Sox and took part in a number of heated battles vs. Steinbrenner’s Yankees in the mid-1970s, claimed that Steinbrenner tried to have him banned from baseball. “He said I was an incompetent and I was bad for the game of baseball,” Lee recalled. “Well, I’m not a convicted felon like George Steinbrenner, and he’ll take that to his grave.”

Lee continued his rant during an appearance on WEEI’s Planet Mikey show Thursday night. “He tried to run me out of the game a long time ago, after the [1976 Red Sox-Yankees] brawl,” Lee said. “He said I was a pariah, I wasn’t good for baseball. … I told him basically to shut up.”

Added Lee: “He may have been good for the Yankees organization, but he was definitely a thorn in my side.”

During the WMUR interview at a golf tournament in Concord, N.H., Lee said of Steinbrenner, “I used to have nightmares of him. I was hallucinating one time and I thought he came into my hotel room window, and I realized I didn’t have any windows. And I was on like the 38th floor. [Play-by-play broadcaster] Dick Stockton was with me. He’ll vouch for it.”

Asked if he had any sadness about Steinbrenner’s death, Lee said: “I have no sadness. I’m Irish, I’m Catholic, and when you’re gone, you’re gone.”

On Planet Mikey, Lee joked his golf game improved dramatically when he learned of Steinbrenner’s death. “When I heard he was dead, I went out and sank seven 30-footers,” Lee said. “I was like on Tequila. I was floating. I took the team — we were 1-under and we went to 10-under, and the best golfer was me, and I’m a 15-handicap.”

To see the interview at WMUR.com, click here. To listen to Lee’s interview on the Planet Mikey show, click here.

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  • Gio

    What a nasty thing to say after Mr Steinbrenner dies, the mans dead, mean unfeeling cad, show respect.

  • Cali

    You tell him, Georgie

  • Cali

    And by Georgie, I mean Billy. Brain fart.

  • Pounder

    Maybe Graig Nettles should come back and kick your gay butt again!

  • Lewis Banelis

    George Steinbrenner was good for the Yankees and bad for the two public parks the yankees were given for their new ball park. Lee was Lee,what would you expect? He says what he feels. Steinbrenner was no saint. You always hear only the good stuff when someone dies.Wait a bit and you’ll find out what a
    pompous windbag he was.

  • Ted

    It was in poor taste, but so was Steinbrenner’s entire existence.

    Steinbrenner knew he wasn’t making a bunch of friends, I honestly don’t think he would care if you revived him to tell him what this guy said.

    But I think dead people are probably less easily offended than living people anyway.

  • greg

    Space Cadet Lee hasn’t changed, still an idiot

  • Doug H

    That bum Lee has no rings and got his a** beat by Nettles. Go back to the bush you classless pi*.

  • expopbill

    please…. bill Lee has every right to comment on a villain of his.
    what is he supposed to do, cry?
    and why is everying kissing up to GS?
    the media and yank fans hated him during the 80′s and 90′s
    get over this….. world!

  • mr ed

    Why is Bill Lee still talking 30 years later? Why not go after George while he was alive? Bill Lee remains a gutless hack who wasn’t even very good at his chosen profession. No talent and no class. When Bill Lee dies and goes to meet the devil, no one outside of his family will care at all. Be proud Boston, be proud.

  • http://weei fran

    that interview displayed what happens when you get two morons together at the same time

  • michael vh

    If someone is a douchenozzle in life, why do you suddenly have to be respectful of them in death? He was still a douchenozzle. Nothing changed.

  • http://Weei.com IronManGehrig

    What else would you expect from an admitted dope smoking has been from the 70′s. What a classless puke you are Bill Lee. RIP “The Boss”.

  • James

    Lee won a ring with the Yankees in the 60s. He, along with millions of others, has every right to hate everything Steiny touched. George was almost as bad for baseball as Selig.

  • DZ

    Two quick points:
    1) Bill Lee is an idiot who rehearses stupid comments so he can keep his little “Space Man” thing going.
    2) All of you wind-bag Yankee “fans” who ran to your basements after last season to dig-up and dust off your NY caps and become “fans” again should get off your high horses and realize that NOBODY cheered louder than you when that pompous ass was suspended from MLB. Hal will now start rehearsing his little contrived rants so he can try to be like daddy.

  • DZ

    Correction on my last. Hal is the quiet professional. Hank will be the new resident dou**ebag in NY.

  • Robert marshall

    Death isn’t about the person who died really. It’d about their families and their healing. That is why talking harshly about anyone who has passed is distastful.

  • DZ

    Your “high moral ground” approach is admirable, Bob. I, however, believe that as unfortunate as it may be, the truth, much like death, hurts.

  • philsfollicles

    DZ is a douche bag.LOSER!

  • Most Fans SK Here

    Nettles sucker punched Lee from behind and then body slammed him. Nettles was the no class loser. Watching people do 180′s when someone dies amazes me. Hearing everyone go on and on about what a great man GS was, well just go ask Zimmerman what he things about him after being Joe Rockeahs trusty bench coach for years. Like Micheal Jackson, after death greatness overshadows all for the negatives. Nettles will always rank up there as one of the biggest losers to wear pinstripes.

  • rleve13

    Sorry Most Fans SK Here it doesn’t wash. As of 2008, Nettles held the single-season Major League record for assists by a third baseman, and was tied with Brooks Robinson for second-most all-time. His 412 assists in 1971 broke the record of 405 shared by Harlond Clift in 1937 and Robinson in 1967. In 1973 he recorded 410 assists, breaking Clete Boyer’s New York Yankee record of 396 in 1962; Robinson would tie this mark in 1974. To date, Nettles and Robinson have four of the six 400-assist seasons by a third baseman in Major League history. Offense not as good – In his 22-season career, Nettles hit .248 with 390 home runs and 1,314 RBI in 2,700 games. He had a career fielding percentage of .964, exceptional for the hot corner – So one of the best defensive 3rd baseman ever – Do the research and find the facts. thanks.

  • fred lamb

    three times married,a drug advocate,a wacko who had a mediocre career.
    his own parents despise him.george steinbrenner did so much for so many people and charities.george,s so called felony was for contributing too much in excess to nixon.they did and still do it all the time.
    bill lee is a total self absorbed jerk.a shameless,classless show off.
    he is a mental case,probaly bipolar who never could cope w/ love or life.

  • Freddy914

    Wait a minute. This nut was on the 38th floor of a hotel with no windows hallucinating with Dick Stockton and we are supposed to take anything he has to say seriously.

  • http://att.net Columbo

    His nickname is Space Man so what else to you expect from him. The guy could be Bipolar.

  • http://gorgorodas.com Kendall Hung

    Thanks pal. It has been nice seeing

  • jason bay

    Why would anybody care what this guy said, he’s a crackhead and a drunk

  • epaddon

    Bill Lee demonstrates once again why he was and is a vile, evil despicable human being who has gotten a free ride from left wing sports writers and the idiots of Red Sox Nation for decades simply because they are infatuated with him for his bizarro wacko politics. How else to explain the fact that this jerk never got the goathorns he deserved for the Red Sox losing the 1975 World Series with his choke job in Game 2 (which he tried to blame on no one telling him about what the Reds players said in TV interviews during the rain delay about how they would hit him; only problem is the tape still exists and no one talked about how they would hit Lee), or his eephus pitch in Game 7 that singlehandedly changed the momentum of the game (and in his typical left wing approach of evading responsibility for his own actions he tried to place the blame on Denny Doyle for botching the inning ending DP and Stan Williams for not coming out to calm him down).

    Oh, and then there was his selfish me-first act of walking out on the team after Bernie Carbo was sold, but unfortunately for Lee, no less than Carbo himself now admits that it was his own fault he got sold and that management was right to do what they did. Then there’s the Big Lie Lee has been pushing for decades about how Zimmer not using him down the stretch is why the Red Sox lost the AL East, which requires conveniently ignoring his garbage stretch of losing seven straight decisions which got him yanked out of the rotation (Earth to Spaceman: If you had just stunk up the joint one LESS time during that stretch there is no playoff game). Then we hear this cock and bull of how his trade to the Expos was somehow the equivalent of the Sparky Lyle deal which conveniently ignores the fact that he just had one good season in Montreal before tailing off and then seeing his career end in another act of self-centered me-first behavior when the Expos released another pal of his, Rodney Scott and they decided they’d had enough of him and his antics.

    But of course, because Bill Lee is a left-wing wacko who holds political viewpoints the sportswriters love, then that’s why they kept puffing him all those years before and after when he should have rightfully been made an outcast from the game for being a vicious human being, and this little bit of his is the ultimate proof of how Zimmer’s words could equally apply here: “It was typical of the jerk he was and is.”

  • http://PastKast.com Scott

    Hah. WOW! Lee’s never been afraid to say what he thinks, and often probably exaggerates what he thinks to get attention. Think this is one of those cases.

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