Bill 'Spaceman' Lee is running for governor of Vermont

Bill Lee (with beard) and other former teammates during a celebration of the 1975 American League Champions before a game between Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays

It is morning in Vermont, the light is hitting the goldenrod-hued trees just-so and Bill "Spaceman" Lee has got to be one of the most content human beings on the planet.

"It's friggin' just gorgeous here," he tells the BBC over the phone from his home in the town of Craftsbury.

It had snowed the night before and so he has warming himself up with a plate of "free-range" bacon that is nothing short of the "best in the world," an easy superlative for a man who at 69 is still as amazed by everything around him as he was when he was a mouthy left-handed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox.

Back then, Mr Lee earned himself the nickname "Spaceman", in part because of his outrageous statements on everything from marijuana to solar apocalypses. Now, he is taking his rambling philosophising to the polls on 8 November, when he runs for governor of Vermont.

His inclusion in the gubernatorial debates has become somewhat of a sticking point in his home state, with Lt Governor Phil Scott, the Republican candidate, refusing to participate unless all candidates were invited, included Mr Lee.

When he does show up, Mr Lee sticks out amongst the suits, strolling in a few minutes late wearing a tropical shirt, and seems a bit more comfortable spouting philosophy than policy points.

Bill 'Spaceman' Lee is taking a colourful run in the race to be Vermont's governor.

"I always speak in metaphor, and that's why people call me, because I'm kind of a cross between Will Rogers and Huey Long," says Mr Lee, referencing both the American vaudeville star and the former senator of Louisiana who tried to implement a guaranteed minimum income and was later assassinated.

It is not the first time Mr Lee has run for public office. In 1988, he ran for president as the candidate for the Rhinoceros Party, a Canadian party not recognised in the US.

His running mate: Hunter S Thompson.

As the candidate for the socialist Liberty Unity Party this time around, Mr Lee is stepping into shoes once filled by Bernie Sanders, who ran as the party's gubernatorial candidate in 1972 and 1976.

Senator Bernie Sanders was also once a gubernatorial candidate for the Liberty Unity Party

A lefty through and through, he is as likely to name-drop Buckminster Fuller as he is Jim Morrison and he believes most of the state's problems, such as a flagging economy and growing heroin addiction, could be solved by a long run and a return to cottage industry.

"Show me a long-distance runner who's a heroin addict and I'll show you a freak," he says.

Although he claims he's never voted, Mr Lee felt he was the only one clear-headed enough for the job, which he has said he would only do part-time if elected.

"I didn't want to [run], but it was just a necessity to tell people you're doing it all wrong," he says.

Born in California, Mr Lee's maintained strong ties to Canada ever since he played for the Montreal Expos baseball team in the early 1980s. He now spends much of the year running a cultural exchange that brings Cuban baseball teams to Canada and now the US, a project he says he started as a way of preventing nuclear war.

Bill 'Spaceman' Lee played baseball for the Boston Red Sox and the Montreal Expos

"There's no clock involved, the innings are in thirds so you can't cut a game in half, there's no such thing as half a game," he says wistfully. "That's what makes baseball so great."

For him, the game is a religious experience when it is played right, and as in politics, he feels compelled to speak up when he sees it being played wrong. Mr Lee chastised his former Red Sox team for their "premature" celebration in the playoffs this year and for not taking rival Cleveland seriously, a grave error the Toronto Blue Jays repeated. He also hates Toronto's AstroTurfed stadium.

"You feed Christians to the lions in stadiums, and you play baseball in elysian fields and parks," he chastises.

Regarding Liberty Unity Party member Mr Sanders and his failed bid for the presidency as a Democrat, Mr Lee says Americans are now stuck with the choice between "status quo" Hillary Clinton and the "radical change" offered by Donald Trump.

"Well, we need radical change but we don't want that messenger. That's the problem: his music is correct, but his lyrics are terrible," he says.

If Mr Trump wins and Mr Lee loses, he says he will happily pack his bags and head north to Canada, where he is delighted to hear marijuana may soon be legal.

"I've done what I can, I've spoken, and I'm out of here," he says.