Stan Papi
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Stan Papi was a major league baseball player best remembered for being traded by the Montreal Expos to the Boston Red Sox for Bill Lee (MLB pitcher) during the 1978-79 off-season.
A free-spirit known as "The Spaceman," Lee was unpopular with the Red Sox manager, Don Zimmer, and with Red Sox management. Zimmer had, Lee felt, misused him during the 1978 season in which the Red Sox had led the American League East for most of the season, only to lose the title to their great rival, the New York Yankees, in a one-game playoff. A talented left-handed pitcher who won 17 games for three years straight from 1973 to 1976, Lee was left benched against teams with a preponderance of left-handed hitters, like the Yankees, due to his falling out of favor with Zimmer.
The Red Sox had a Gold Glove caliber shortstop in Rick Burleson, and the trade for a light-hitting utility shortstop (Papi) for a left-handed pitcher of some quality was denounced by fans and even questioned by Red Sox team captain Carl Yazstremski, the future Hall of Famer.
In Montreal for the 1979, Lee went on to win 16 games while Papi proved a bust in Boston. Lee was instrumental to the team's achieving their first winning record (95–65) under manager Dick Williams, Lee's first manager. With a 16-10 won loss record, 3.04 earned run average and three shutouts, Lee proved very valuable to Montreal. Papi appeared in 50 games and hit .188 with one home run and six runs batted in 117 at bats. After appearing in one game in 1980, he was traded to the Detroit Tigers, where he ended his career in 1981.
In his six major league seasons, Papi hit .218 with 7 home runs and 51 RBIs in 225 games.
STAN PAPI STATISTICS:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/p/papist01.shtml
BILL LEE STATISTICS
