Bill “Spaceman” Lee is a big-league lefty in every sense of the term. The longtime Red Sox and Expos pitcher was best known during his playing days for odd antics on the field and a candid, controversial, and occasionally bizarre manner off of it.

Lee’s Major League career ended in 1982, when the Expos cut him following a one-game walkout he staged on behalf of recently released teammate and friend Rodney Scott. But Lee never really stopped playing baseball, showing up in various celebrity and senior games and pitching on Sundays in a 35-and-over league in his adopted home state of Vermont. (His commitment to baseball, for what it’s worth, seems hardly a stunt. I play some old-man baseball myself, and in so doing I’ve probably met about 15 dudes claiming to have played with or against Bill “Spaceman” Lee at some point.)

Now, Lee will run for governor of Vermont on the ticket of the Liberty Union party, the group with which Bernie Sanders got his start in politics in the early 1970s. Kyle Midura at WCAX.com has the story, all of which is worth reading:

Lee famously quipped that marijuana sprinkled on his pancakes immunized him from Boston bus fumes as he jogged to Fenway Park during his nine years with the club.

He argues for legalization and taxation of pot in Vermont, along with single-payer health care, paid family leave and bringing the Expos back to Montreal….

“If things don’t go our way, if we get Trump as president, I’m out of here and I’ll take Vermont with us,” said Lee.

Lee previously ran for president in 1988 as part of the Rhinocerous Party, which, among other things, pledged to bulldoze the Rocky Mountains to give Alberta a few more minutes of sunlight every day.

As for why a Vermont gubernatorial candidate should have any input whatsoever into returning an MLB club to Montreal, don’t overthink this. Bill Lee’s got importance stances on the issues at hand here.

(Thanks to HardballTalk for calling our attention to this story.)