when Pittsburg Pirate pitcher Dock Ellis pitched a no-hitter while
tripping on acid. To me, it is the greatest sports feat of all time.
Posted on 05/25/2010 3:36:04 AM PDT by ICAB9USA
You are too kind.
You are excellent.
Please tell anyone near you.
;-)
The Kitten was a great pitcher.Until his leg injury (Stan Musial was cited elsewhere on this thread about that), Haddix was a good pitcher who broached greatness, mostly in his full rookie season (1953), though the only category in which he led the league was shutouts (six).
People look at the 1960 World Series and think that the Pirates were so overmatched by the Yankees. However, the Pirates had a really good pitching staff with the likes of Haddix, Vernon Law, Bob Friend and Elroy Face.The Pirates were overmatched by the Yankees in that Series---they were badly outpitched (the Pirate ERA for the set: 7.11, against the Yankees' 3.54), and they were rather well outhit (the Pirates: .256 team batting, .301 team on-base percentage, .355 team slugging percentage; the Yankees: .338 team batting, .383 team on-base percentage, .525 team slugging).
You couldn't blame Haddix for it, however. After a regular season in which he finished one game over .500 with an ERA near four (the league ERA was several points below his), he pitched well enough in the World Series. He won his only start (Game Five) and picked up the win (Game Seven) after working a very skittish ninth in relief. The inning began with Bob Friend working in relief and giving up back to back singles to Bobby Richardson and pinch-hitter Dale Long, before Haddix came in. Haddix got Roger Maris to foul out before Mickey Mantle drove in Richardson with a base hit; and, pinch-runner (for Long) Gil McDougald came home on a Yogi Berra ground out, tying the game at nine all before Haddix got Bill Skowron to hit into an inning-ending force out.
Haddix finished the Series with a 2-0 record and a team-leading 2.45 ERA while rolling a 1.09 WHIP; the only Pirate pitcher who was better in terms of what he gave up per inning pitched was Elroy Face's 1.06 WHIP. The team WHIPs:
Pirates: 1.76. Yankees: 1.18.
Vernon Law, who had his career year in 1960---and would win a Cy Young Award in a season in which a) the award went to one pitcher across the board, and b) Law didn't lead either his league or the Show in any significant pitching category beyond his three-way tie (with Warren Spahn and Lew Burdette of the Milwaukee Braves) for the most complete games in the majors (18; Glenn Hobbie of the Cubs and Law's teammate Bob Friend tied for second, with 16)---got the other two Series wins, in three starts, but he rolled a 3.44 ERA and a 1.36 WHIP. Law won Games One and Four and was pitching well enough in Game Seven (the Pirates staked him to a 4-1 lead after five) until he ran into trouble enough in the Yankee sixth---he opened the inning by surrendering a leadoff single to Bobby Richardson and a walk to Tony Kubek before yielding to Elroy Face, who got Roger Maris to foul out to third before the ace reliever (who does deserve to be elected to the Hall of Fame, by the way) surrendered an RBI single (to Mantle) and a three-run bomb (to Berra) and the lead, the Yankees finishing the inning up 5-4.
You are a genius!!!
I love you, Jeff , and you know that ...... but that actually was Rosey Rosewells's original happiness.
You 'da man.
Pleasde say "hi" to martin_fierro (an old Pittsburgher).
I heard him talk about that game, and he said that sometimes when the catcher threw the ball back to him, it looked like a beach ball. Other times it looked like a pea.
He said at some point late in the game, his teammates started whispering around him about "the no-no" and he thought they were all saying that it was a "no-no" to pitch on acid! He thought they were on to him.
Seriously, how did he deal with the sizzling green grass or the demon-faced batters without falling completely apart?
but that actually was Rosey Rosewells's original happiness.In which case I sit corrected. That one's my second favourite home run call. Ralph Kiner, long with the Mets, had my favourite: Going, gone, forget it, goodbye, which he eventually modified to Going, going, going, it is gonnnnnne, goodbye!
And even then, he once modified it when Darryl Strawberry hit a monstrous shot that even Stevie Wonder would know was going to go: This one's gone---goodbye!, practically at the minute the bat hit the ball.
Then, there was Steve Zabriskie, calling Strawberry's once-famous shot off the Busch Stadium digital clock on the upper deck rim: Oh, baby, that one is way out of here!
And, Vin Scully, calling Strawberry's leadoff bomb in the eighth against Boston's Al Nipper, Game Seven, 1986 Series, when the Mets were up a mere 6-5 and needed a little insurance (which is why I could never understand everyone calling this blast "meaningless"): High fly into deep right center field, Evans to the track, at the wallllll----gone!
Scully, of course, topped himself a few hitters later, when Met reliever Jesse Orosco was in the rare position of batting, with Ray Knight on second, Joe Garagiola saying, "I'd bet the house---he's got to bunt," and the Red Sox putting the rotation play on and off to guard against the bunt. Finally, the Red Sox put the play on . . . and Orosco, showing bunt, pulled his bat back and gave it just enough swing to make contact. Here was Scully's call as Wade Boggs and Bill Buckner came charging down the lines, shortstop Ed Romero (spelling Spike Owen) broke toward third, and second baseman Marty Barrett broke toward first, leaving the middle as wide as an airplane hangar as Orosco pulled back his bat to begin his swing:
Swinging! and a ground ball into left center field . . . in comes Knight, it is 8 to 5, Mets, and Joe, you just lost your house!They should have passed a law that Vin Scully would call the World Series until he retired or died---whichever one came first.
My point exactly. After committing a balk on the very first pitch, I would have walked off the field being thoroughly convinced that everyone in the stadium knew I was tripping. But doing that for nine innings? No freaking way.
The greatest game ever pitched was on June 12, 1970 . . . when Pittsburg Pirate pitcher Dock Ellis pitched a no-hitter while tripping on acid. To me, it is the greatest sports feat of all time.
I'll see and raise: 9 September 1965---Sandy Koufax's perfect game.
Because, on the flip side of that game, while Koufax was finishing with the flourish of striking out the final six batters he faced (including the same man whom he got out to end his 1963 no-no against the Giants, Harvey Kuenn), Chicago Cub starter Bob Hendley damn near had a no-hitter of his own. Hendley surrendered only one hit all game long, a bloop double to Lou Johnson in the seventh inning, after which Hendley got three more outs to strand Johnson. The Dodgers got the game's only run two innings earlier, when Johnson drew a walk, was bunted over to second, stole third, and came home on a throwing error by young Cub catcher Chris Krug.
Years later, Koufax would be surprised to receive in his mail a photograph of Hendley (long since a college baseball coach) with a note from Hendley's son. Koufax replied with a pleasant note ending with, "Say hello to your father for me." A short while later, on the thirtieth anniversary of the perfecto, Bob Hendley received a small package---a 1965 National League ball inscribed on the meat, WHAT A GAME!, and a small handwritten note: WE HAD A MOMENT, A NIGHT, A CAREER. I HOPE LIFE HAS BEEN GOOD TO YOU. SANDY.
That is why, to this day, whenever he's asked how it felt to be on the losing side of that game, Bob Hendley invariably replies, "It's no disgrace to be beaten by class."
LOL
It's all about the firing of the optical nerve .......... and ........... USING JUST A LITTLE LSD/Peyote/MESCALINE.
Too much of the drug can cause "a seeming perseption chaos", but, using just a little is fantastic.
Read the entire thread if you feel like it. If you do THAT, you will see more of what I speak!
......... please tell my darling wife (of 36 years).
;-)
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