Andrew Wolfson

@adwolfson

Dubbed the “Spaceman” for his over-the-top drug use and eccentricity, former major league pitcher Bill Lee once claimed to sprinkle marijuana on his pancakes in the morning as a way to combat bus fumes on his way to Fenway Park.

In contrast, the Bowling Green-based Sporting Times is dedicated to youth sports – in particular the role sports plays in strengthening children, families and communities. And the publication, which hopes to franchise itself in other states, says it enjoys a reputation as squeaky clean, moral and principled.

So the “all positive” high school sports publication, as it bills itself, was not pleased last year when a biopic on Lee released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and Orion Pictures briefly flashed a fictitious story from a fake version of The Sporting Times under a headline that read: “Boston’s Bill ‘Spaceman’ Lee in an orbit all his own.”

The family-owned business says the movie and accompanying trailers falsely portrayed it as venerating Lee’s addictions to drugs and alcohol – “the sort of sensationalist story that it would by all means avoid as it is the antithesis of the clean cut girl or boy next door image it actively promotes.”

In a lawsuit filed last week in federal court in Bowling Green, it is asking for more than $1.8 million in damages, claiming trademark infringement and that its name has been sullied.

A publicist for MGM, Orion’s parent company, declined to comment.

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Claire Feler Cox, a Louisville lawyer for The Sporting Times said in an interview that “Hollywood elites” had “run roughshod” over the tiny Kentucky publication, making it seem as if the publication were “glorifying drug use.”

The movie “Spaceman” depicts Lee following his release from Major League Baseball in the 1980s after a career in which he was known for his outlandish behavior on and off the field.

The 90-minute film, which bombed at the box office, was rated “R” for drug use and language throughout.

The Los Angeles Times in a review called “Spaceman” “blandly pedestrian” and said it seldom delivered “despite an engagingly game performance by Josh Duhamel” as Lee, who during his career championed Maoist China and population control and once threatened to bite off an umpire’s ear for a controversial call in the 1975 World Series.

While other publications are featured in the movie, the suit says, Sporting Times appears first and is the only readily identifiable publication.

It also crops up eight seconds into a trailer that has been seen millions of times on YouTube and other sites, according to the complaint.

Cox said the defendants, which also include Podium Pictures and Rhino Films, cut the offending passage from streaming versions of the film but that it still shows up on DVDs and in some trailers online.

Lee, who once said he was for “everything in moderation – including moderation,” was inducted into the Red Sox Hall of Fame as the team's record-holder for most games pitched by a left-hander (321) and the third-highest win total (94) by a Red Sox southpaw. He also played for the Montreal Expos.

He was a longtime marijuana advocate who wrote openly of his drug use in his 1984 book “The Wrong Stuff” and claimed to have gotten high with future president George W. Bush in 1972 under the Tyrannosaurus Rex at Boston’s Museum of Science.

Lee, whom Newsweek called the most colorful player in the history of the game, signed to play in 2012 at age 65 with the San Rafael Pacifics of the independent North American League and ran for governor last year in Vermont, winning 3 percent of the vote.

The Sporting Times LLC was founded in 2004 by owner and publisher Doug Thompson, according to its website, which claims it is the first publication of its kind to feature student athletes and local youth sports exclusively. In 2007 it says it distributed its first million copies and it has since expanded to cover Elizabethtown and Owensboro and to partner with the Russell Athletic brand.

Its suit says it has suffered at least $400,000 in actual damages through its association with a movie that “promotes drug and alcohol addiction” and a “has-been middle-aged sports figure.”

Reporter Andrew Wolfson can be reached at 502-582-7189 or awolfson@courier-journal.com