[stylin19a]

What a bunch a weenies

this is how it's done

Doc Ellis sensed the Pirates had lost the aggressiveness that drove them to three straight division titles from 1970 to 1972.

Furthermore, the team now seemed intimidated by Cincinnati's "Big Red Machine." "Cincinnati will bullshirt with us and kick our a*s and laugh at us," Ellis said.

"They're the only team that talk about us like a dog." Ellis singlehandedly decided to break the Pirates out of their emotional slump, announcing that "We gonna get down. We gonna do the do. I'm going to hit these m**********rs."

True to his word, in the first inning of the first regular season game he pitched against the Reds, Ellis hit lead-off batter Pete Rose in the ribs, then plunked Joe Morgan in the kidney, and loaded the bases by hitting Dan Driessen in the back.

Tony Perez, batting cleanup, dodged a succession of Ellis' pitches to walk and force in a run. The next hitter was Johnny Bench. "I tried to deck him twice," Ellis recalled. "I threw at his jaw, and he moved. I threw at the back of his head, and he moved." At this point, Pittsburgh manager Danny Murtaugh removed Ellis from the game. But the strategy worked: the Pirates snapped out of their lethargy to win a division title in 1974, while the Reds failed to win their division for the first time in three years.

better umpires back then....

[demlosers]

LoL! Yeah, it works.

Reminds me of the story about Don Drysdale who was told to walk Frank Robinson. Don walked him all right after he made Frank hit the deck three times and beaned him on the forth ball.

Leo Durocher, the Manager, went to the mound, 'Didn't I tell you to walk Robinson?'

Drysdale snarls back at Durosher 'What are you complaining about he's on first.'

[big'ol_freeper]

Ah, those were the days (when Pittsburgh was more than a double-A team)!