Posted on 12/19/2008 8:51:41 PM PST by EveningStar
Dock Ellis, the former major league pitcher best remembered for his flamboyance and social activism as a member of the great Pittsburgh Pirates teams of the 1970s, died Friday of a liver ailment in California, his former agent, Tom Reich, confirmed. Ellis was 63.
Ellis spent 12 years in the majors with Pittsburgh, the New York Yankees, Oakland, Texas and the New York Mets. He retired in 1979 with a record of 138-119, but was best known for several colorful incidents on and off the field.
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I cannot believe he pitched a baseball game under the influence of a strong dose of high quality LSD much less a no hitter. It would be just as likely to think third base was the plate under such conditions.
Not true. Everything was on the line. National League pride was on the line. That's the problem with All Star games nowadays. The players really don't care.
Yeah, him!
Luke Walker was also on there.
Psychoactives affect different people in different ways. An experienced user would be less likely to decompensate. Who knows, maybe the laser beam told him where to throw, lol.
According to the online Baseball Almanac his last season was 1979. He played for the Rangers. Mets and Pirates.
More info here:
http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_history3.shtml
He may have been the first person to refer to a no hitter as a “no no”, and he did it at the game piched while on LSD.
piched = pitched
No don’t that there are differences but if everything dissolved into white light there isn’t anyone who can even see the plate much less hit it. Now a light dose is a different matter.
Willie Stargell is welcoming him in Baseball Heaven...
Follow the link in #27, I was pretty close to being right. No talking laser beam, but he did have a trail to follow.
Chicago’s West Side here. Red Sox fan since 1949, Cubs fan since 1950.
You can see my pain.
Used to sit out in the bleachers in left field and harass Sid Gordon of the Braves. He became a friend and tossed a ball to us.
That was when you could actually speak to the players in left field.
Skipped school at Oak Park River Forest High School in 1950 for opening day. It was a rain out. Sat in the dugout and walked on the field at Wrigley. Saw Smokey Burgess’ signature in the dugout. The conductor on the Lake St. El looked exactly like Jimmy Durante. He knew we were skipping school. We, and he, were regulars on the Lake St. El.
My first major league game was at Wrigley in 1949, but I grew up within three blocks of Fenway.
OK this was about 6 hrs after taking it. No one could do that 2 hrs after ingestion. He was off the peak and coming down.
I bet that was one heck of a plane ride, though. He probably enjoyed watching the clouds through the floor.
No kidding.
I spent a couple of years as a sports reporter in Seattle, and knew guys like that. They were the cream of the crop. Real guys. Real men.
Thanks for your memories, norge, Well done!
For all of us suffering under winter storms, pitchers and catchers report for spring training in less than two months!
I loved Dock Ellis.
A friend of mine and I went to see the Yanks play the O’s in 1976. After the game, we were waiting at the pass gate as the Yankee players came out to board the bus.
Ellis walks out and my friend yells, “Hey! Doc Medich!” (He’d just gotten the last name confused - and Medich had previously pitched for the Yankees.)
Anyway, Ellis looked at us smiled and pointed at himself. Then he said something along the lines of “Me? No, man, I’m the REAL Dock...and I’m Ellis!” It was great.
We all laughed like hell - and we both got his autograph out of it.
I believe it. Our high school star basketball player took LSD for every game. He hit nothing but net from center court all the time.
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