"I feel like a monkey fuckin' a football," Lee said after sitting another night in the bullpen watching the waning moments of the 1978 season. "That guy [Zimmer] hates me. He just doesn't like me. And I don't like him. He's an asshole. I just can't tell you in public some of the things he's said to me, and then he goes out and tells everybody that he doesn't have anything against me."

It is likely that Bill Lee will not be here next spring. In fact, it seems that he may be traded, sold, or mysteriously banished within a month. More than anyone else on the team, Lee's situation is symbolic of the inflexibility of Zimmer and the Boston management.

After winning seven straight games and mixing in some bad starts, culling a 10-10 record by August, Lee was not allowed to pitch at all, except for two very short relief appearances in two hopeless games.

"There's nothing wrong with my arm right now," Lee said after the last game of the season, in the midst of a subdued celebration. "He just hates my guts and he won't let me pitch. If I bail him out like I bailed him out last year then he won't be able to trade me, and he'll look like an idiot besides."

Lee's is not a routine player-manager conflict. Then again, Lee is not a routine ballplayer. "It's a shame he's not out there pitching for us," Carlton Fisk said. Fisk first caught Lee when they both started for Boston's Bristol, Conn., farm club. "He was always a great competitor on the mound," Fisk said. "He was always intense during a game. And he was rebellious. Bill just wouldn't accept authority. He never liked people telling him how to live or what to think."

Zimmer did not approve of Lee's thoughts and comments about him, especially after a photograph of Zimmer which appeared in Sports Illustrated was captioned, "Being called a gerbil is O.K. if you win." Lee was accused of smoking marijuana on the team plane by various members of the press. He refused to "dress up" when the team appeared publicly, and he did a lot of strange things. Flaky things.

The Sox management traded away his best friends on the team, and they sold his very best friend, Bernie Carbo--who was also the best pinch-hitter on the bench--to Cleveland. The Red Sox got nothing but money in exchange for Bernie Carbo, the co-spaceman who was known as one of the best pinch-hitters in baseball. Lee quit the team for three days in protest. "It's time we started talking about the earth," he said upon returning.

So Bill Lee never got back into the rotation; he never even got another nine innings over the rest of the season. Instead of using veteran Lee, who had a 12-5 lifetime record against the Yankees, during the two four-game duels with the New Yorkers, Zimmer went with John LaRose and Bobby Sprowl, who were brought up from Boston's Pawtucket, R.I. farm team just for the occasion. They were making their major league debuts, and they both were sent to the showers early.

Zimmer's judgment was based largely on his own feelings toward Lee, for Lee was no more incompetent than Mike Torrez, who lost eight starts in a row, many of them decided in the first three innings. But Torrez remained in the rotation.

Zimmer again demonstrated his inflexibility and imprudence in the handling of reliever Bill Campbell, who was the biggest reason the Red Sox were in first place at last year's all-star break. Zimmer used the sore-elbowed Campbell incessantly; and since last August, Campbell has never had his stuff. The Red Sox paid millions of dollars for a relief pitcher who lost his arm halfway through his first season with the club.

And as if to add the last big push, the injuries came along. Burleson. Hobson. Scott. Yaz. Evans. Remy.

Carlton Fisk, despite a variety of minor pains, started all but eight games this year, something that no other catcher has ever done, anywhere. Butch Hobson led the league in errors, trying desperately to play in spite of his aching elbow. He couldn't bring himself to sit out, and Zimmer didn't have the courage to take him out--for Hobson's sake, as well as for the team's.

When Hobson finally did ask to be taken out, Jack Brohamer came in and helped to mend the defense. The Red Sox went on to win nine of their last 11 games to tie the Yankees for first place.

The case was made during those last days of the season: They never paced themselves, they never resolved their clubhouse conflicts--they just locked them in the bullpen. And Yaz sat in front of his clubhouse stall with his head in his hands, eye grease hiding his modest tears. There was nothing he or his team could do. The Yankees had to lose, and the Cleveland Indians had to beat them. In the middle of the summer the Red Sox were winning in spite of themselves, and now they were losing in spite of themselves. Yaz has seen disappointment come again and again. And two days later, after Yaz and his team finally did catch the Yanks in a tie, it returned one last time.

"They treat the fans like shit in this town," Lee complained last August. "I'm the Jiminy Crickett of the team--the moral conscience. I got down on them for throwing this vendor--a gypsy--in jail because her vending cart didn't have wheels. They accused her of loitering. I accuse them of assing."

There is no doubt that Lee has an opinion on the Red Sox' recent decision to raise the aggregate cost of bleacher seats, and to make them reserved seats. But regardless of the Spaceman, the Bostonhordes will stream into Fenway Park as usual next spring, with the same hopes--and a little more skepticism.