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''My breaking pitches were breaking way out''


Lucy in the Strike-zone, with Diamonds



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item posted 11:29:56: 04-01-05 by kyle.

dockellis_1.jpgWhile the rest of American roils in indignation over 'roiding of our National Pastime, let us pause for a moment this April Fools Day to remember Dock Ellis, June 12, 1970, and The Greatest Baseball Performance Enhancing Drug Story of All Time:

Knowing he didn't have to pitch until Friday, but not realizing he'd slept through Thursday, Pittsburgh Pirates rhp Ellis and his girlfriend planned to spend a lazy L.A. day dropping acid. It wasn't until things had already got a wee bit transcendental that Dock's girl looked at the paper and said "Uh, Dock, you're pitching today." In San Diego.

[Ed: A frantic, three-hour flight that probably deserves its own story, he makes it to the ballpark, and the mound, just in time.] As Ellis later remembered the game in a 1993 interview with the head-zine Lysergic World (via Erowid Psychoactive Vaults):

I was zeroed in on the (catcher's) glove, but I didn't hit the glove too much. I remember hitting a couple of batters and the bases were loaded two or three times. The ball was small sometimes, the ball was large sometimes, sometimes I saw the catcher, sometimes I didn't. Sometimes I tried to stare the hitter down and throw while I was looking at him. I chewed my gum until it turned to powder. They say I had about three to four fielding chances. I remember diving out of the way of a ball I thought was a line drive. I jumped, but the ball wasn't hit hard and never reached me.

In nine innings, Ellis struck out six, hit one, allowed three stolen bases and walked eight, including future ESPN analyst Dave Campell. He put runners on base in five of the first six innings. He got the win, though: In a 2-0 no hitter.

Ellis says he quit drinking and drugging more than two decades ago ("I got sick and tired of being sick and tired.") He now lives in California and volunteers as a drug treatment counselor.


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