Atomic bombs, carcinogenic threats, the futility of state, mechanical efficiency--the entire decadence of human life in 20th century America--whittles reality into an apocalypse; and America needs and loves her tragic heroes more than ever.

Ever since small-town American families abandoned their farms so they could become appendages to machines in the city--experiencing at the same time the isolation and overshadowing loneliness of the city--this country has found her heroes in professional sports. Where participation in daily physical activity once precluded mere observations, most Americans today experience the joy of movement through the vicarious thrill. Many become heroes only in their hopes and dreams.

Forget about your troubles and your cares. Go watch a ball game. And somehow, baseball is the easiest sport--excuse me, pastime--in which to lose yourself. It is not the national sport, as any good baseball man will tell you, it's the national pastime.

"Baseball's more grass, passivity...time," number 37 of the Boston Red Sox says. It can go on forever. No clocks. Forget about the time, and watch a ball game.

And every spring all the fans in Boston stand in lines that stretch sometimes for blocks. They needle through thickening mobs of vendors, salesmen, religious prophets, politicians and pushers which gather around Fenway Park like bees to a hive.

The team is their double-identity. It is the only event in town which can take them out of time, back to the hot, dusty days spent on weedy, glass-splintered sandlots--even to an America where people never had to punch in or punch out for lunch.

But there is something very exceptional about Boston baseball fans, as any New Yorker will note. The Red Sox boast the second highest attendance in baseball and have always been the biggest attraction in Boston, despite winning only one World Series and five pennants in their history. They are always flawed, never quite able to transcend the whims of fate and injury. Despite their competence, they have arguments, make stupid business deals and stupid strategical decisions. They have been accused of racism, choking and mediocrity down the stretch. But every year the fans keep coming.

"It's a vicarious thrill they get out of the game," number 37 said. "They have expectations of players, and you have to be careful not to let their expectations affect your playing because then you'd be negating your principle in life because you're playing for them and not for yourself." Number 37 was speaking during spring training last March.

"It's a kind of reverse psychology," he said, but if you try too hard for the dangling carrot out in front of you, all you do is spend your energy too fast too soon; and when it comes time to get the carrot, you can't do it. You just gotta learn to have patience," he explained.

Number 37 is William Francis Lee III, alias "Spaceman." During spring training, Lee was healthy and "hot," entering his ninth year with the Red Sox. He is the second most successful southpaw in the team's history.

At the time, Lee's words, unbeknownst to him or his much-maligned manager, were more than prophetic; they defined the basic, time-hankering flaw of the Boston Red Sox: They are an obsessive team, so narrowly focused on winning an elusive pennant that they are too inflexible to cope with sudden injuries, slumps and clubhouse conflicts. They are tragic heroes in a city full of tragic heroes. And so, for Boston baseball fans, the Red Sox are true heroes, the perfect cast of real-life drama.

"We win 97, 98, maybe 99 games a season and we still don't win a pennant," Don Zimmer moaned after the 161st game of the season. "What can we do about it?"

"You could have been pitching Bill Lee," I said to him.

Zimmer's paunchy face contracted and his eyes dropped to his feet as he pulled his pants up. He had just towelled off after a cold shower. "I don't want to talk about him. I don't know anything about it. Go ask somebody else," he said very, very drily.

So I asked Lee.

"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.