Dock Ellis And The LSD No Hitter

Friday Night Trading

Dock Ellis and the LSD No-No

In celebration of the greatest athletic achievement by a man on a psychedelic journey, Artist James Blagden proudly presents the animated tale of Dock Ellis' legendary LSD no-hitter. In the past few years we've heard all too much about performance enhancing drugs from greenies to tetrahydrogestrinone, and not enough about performance inhibiting drugs. If our evaluation of the records of athletes like Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, Marion Jones, and Barry Bonds needs to be revised downwards with an asterisk, we submit that that Dock Ellis record deserves a giant exclamation point. Of the 263 no-hitters ever thrown in the Big Leagues, we can only guess how many were aided by steroids, but we can say without question that only one was ever thrown on acid.

Sadly, the great Dock Ellis died last December at 63. A year before, radio producers Donnell Alexander and Neille Ilel, had recorded an interview with Ellis in which the former Pirate right hander gave a moment by moment account of June 12, 1970, the day he no-hit the San Diego Padres. Alexander and Ilels original four minute piece appeared March 29, 2008 on NPRs Weekend America. When we stumbled across that piece this past June, Blagden and Isenberg were inspired to create a short animated film around the original audio.

---

Update - New Video

No No: A Dockumentary (about Dock Ellis)

Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dock_Ellis

Google Images for Dock Ellis

I was 4 years old when this happened (1970) and my first live game happened to be Cubs vs. Pirates, June 1971 at Wrigley Field with my cool aunt and less cool brother.

Comments

[SKINFLINT]

DB, I remember Doc Ellis on the Pirates when they played against the O's in the 71 series. Seven games and the O's lost 2-1 in Baltimore. Clemente scored the winning run when Boog cut off Frank's throw from right field. My brothers and I were completely crushed as my Grandmother danced around the living room. Her cousin Danny Murtaugh was the Pirates manager. Both teams had real good players. Stargell, Sanguillen, Hebner, Cash, Stennet, Clemente, young Oliver, Blass, Ellis, and the O's had the Robinson brothers, Boog, Buford, Johnson, Grich, Palmer, McNally, Cuellar, Hall, and a center fielder named Blair who pretty much played directly behind second base because he could sure run everything down in center field with an arm like no other. Any way thanks for some respite from the stormy seas with this great story.

[SKINFLINT]

DB, I think I still have that baseball card up in my attic. Har.

[DailyBail]

At the 3:10 mark

"Ooh, I just made a touchdown."

[DailyBail]

Good story, Skin.

To this day, the only ball I've ever caught at a major-league game was in Baltimore, Summer of 1991 (was 25), Veterans Stadium up North By Hopkins, before they built Camden Yard. We were sitting down the 1st base line. Dave Parker, playing for the Brewers at the time, nailed one foul 15 rows below us, then it bounced into our row and right next to me, rolling on the ground beneath a 4 year-old kid. As he was reaching down for the ball I snatched it from between his legs and celebrated. Then this incredibly intense feeling of being a complete asshole overtook my entire body (I'm not kidding, it was like God was introducing Tim Geithner to my colon), so I turned around and handed the kid the ball. His dad bought me a beer, and the O's won. Then we headed home and almost got arrested for climbing an old Baltimore tower, but that's another story, and it made no sense to even tell this one.

[Cheyenne]

Fantastic post that reminds of two baseball players, but for entirely different reasons.

The Dock Ellis acid story reminds me of another player from his era, Bill "The Spaceman" Lee. A Red Sox pitcher, Lee "claimed his marijuana use made him impervious to bus fumes while jogging to work at Fenway Park."

Was Lee's drug use detrimental? I guess not. Who else can claim the following at age 65?

"On August 23, 2012, Bill pitched a nine inning complete game for the San Rafael Pacifics in San Rafael, California, beating the Maui Na Koa Ikaika 9-4. Using a homemade bat in the fifth inning he drove in the first run of the game for the Pacifics," which "gave him the record for the oldest pitcher to make a starting appearance, pitch a complete game and also to earn a win in a professional baseball game."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Lee_(left-handed_pitcher)

The Cubs-Pirates story reminds me of 2nd baseman Rennie Stennett of Pittsburgh, who in one 9-inning game set the modern day record for hits, with 7. And how did he amass 7 hits over the course of 9 innings, you ask? By playing the Cubs and beating them 22-0, that's how.

[DailyBail]

That's some shit on Bill Lee. I remember him. Makes me think of Mark 'The Bird' Fidrych, god rest his crazy ass soul.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3YBTZ3xy1c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMSDo3BX5Ds&feature=related

[SKINFLINT]

DB, Your are talking about Memorial Stadium located on 33rd, St. My family and I lived about 10 blocks from there and we would walk to the games in the evenings and catch the dollar night specials. Some great memories there until Mom moved us out to the country. Best thing she could have done for us as we were rapidly approaching the middle teen years and basically raising hell. They tore down the old stadium and put some track housing up there and bulit Camden. What a waste. Bucket list for me is to catch Boston in Boston and catch a game in Wrigley. That would be the shit. Cheyenne, I thought Satchel Paige was the oldest to win a game in the majors, but obviously I am wrong.

[john]

skin, let me know when you come see the sox at Fenway.

[SKINFLINT]

I'm gonna try next summer. Catch Amtrak and head to the end of the line and take a taxi that way. I will let you know. Thanks.

[Cheyenne]

SKIN--

Paige became the oldest to PLAY a game in the MAJORS (at age 59) by pitching 3 shutout innings in a 1965 game...

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fifty-nine-year-old-satchel-paige-pitches-three-innings

...as opposed to PITCHING a complete game and winning PROFESSIONALLY (albeit in the minors), the distinction Lee achieved just this year.

The Dock Ellis cartoon is just wonderful.

[DailyBail]

When I was in 7th grade, somebody gave me the book Ball Four by Jim Bouton.

I'll never forget it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_Four

http://www.jimbouton.com/ballfour.html

http://www.amazon.com/Ball-Four-Jim-Bouton/dp/0020306652

[DailyBail]

This is good

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRUSLZ9J5c4

Ball Four Jim Bouton Sportscenter Segment 1970s

[DailyBail]

Skin

Yep, you're right of course, it was Memorial Stadium. I went to a lot of games between 90-92. I was working for Alex Brown & Sons, in downtown Baltimore. My first job in investment banking. I did corporate finance and wrote reports on the oil & gas sector, mostly companies that we were bringing public.

I'm guessing few people remember Alex Brown, but they were the biggest investment bank in the US not based in NYC, and their biggest claim to fame was being the lead bank on the Microsoft IPO in 1985 when they were still a tiny and relatively unknown company. Alex Brown eventually merged with Bankers Trust and then were bought by Deutsche Bank. The CEO at the time I worked there was Buzzy Krongard (a descendant of the Alex Brown family) and a few years later he became the executive director of the CIA (the #3 position).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._B._Krongard

[DailyBail]

Krongard's name was brought up in conjunction with investigations into suspected 9/11-related insider trading because of timely Wall Street trades made through the investment bank he used to head, Alex. Brown.

The 9/11 Commission Report stated:

"A single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda purchased 95 percent of the UAL puts on September 6 (2001) as part of a strategy that also included buying 115,000 shares of American on September 10.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/10_09_01_krongard.html

So he bought a ton of puts but then hedged that position by going long a big chunk of American Airlines common stock -- that's not a strategy you would use if you knew an attack was coming. But still it is curious.

[SKINFLINT]

Yea I remember Alex Brown. They had an office out by the Owings Mills Mall, which by the way is set to be demolished for box stores. I wonder what they will do with all that imported pink marble. Anyway, Camden is a nice park, but Memorial was really just a fine stadium for football and baseball. Sorry for the digression on baseball stuff, but I prefer it to football and somtimes gotta escape.

[Cheyenne]

I'm glad you reposted this DB because I've been thinking recently about the dumbest statistic in all of baseball, OPS, which is the sum of on-base percentage (OBP) and slugging percentage (SLG). (OPS = Obp Plus Slugging) Here are the 8 players with career OPS greater than 1 (the first 4 of whom batted lefty, btw):

Babe Ruth 1.1636
Ted Williams 1.1155
Lou Gehrig 1.0798
Barry Bonds 1.0512
Jimmie Foxx 1.0376
Albert Pujols 1.0220
Hank Greenberg 1.0169
Rogers Hornsby 1.0103

Aside from serviing as a way to rank batters, the OPS stat is meainingless. This wastes the informational utility of its constituent stats, which tell us (1) the probability that the batter gets on base (OBP), and (2) the expected number of bases this batter will get in an at-bat (SLG). The blended stat OPS, by contrast, tells us next to nothing.

Now, if you MULTIPLY OBP by SLG (rather than adding them), you'd have a very close approximation of runs that the batter will individually create in an at-bat. Here is the above list of batters in order of OTS (OBP Times SLG):

Babe Ruth 0.3269
Ted Williams 0.3053
Lou Gehrig 0.2829
Barry Bonds 0.2696
Jimmie Foxx 0.2610
Albert Pujols 0.2519
Rogers Hornsby 0.2500
Hank Greenberg 0.2492

I just had to get that off my chest.

[SKINFLINT]

Cheyenne. You are a Chicago guy right? You a Cubs or White Sox fan?

[Cheyenne]

It's a long story, but I was a Cub fan until they stabbed me in the heart when they didn't show up for the 2008 playoffs n Wrigley. I was there and can tell you that the players didn't even show up for the series against the Dodgers. Mentally, they were playing golf in Arizona and committed their 4th error in game 2 right in front of me--I was sitting a few rows behind 3rd base when Ramirez lazily booted a grounder.

I absoultely erupted and had to be escorted out by security.

While it wasn't the last time I went to a game there, it was the last time I paid for a ticket.

It was just as well. It freed me up to follow the best game in town: the Wall Street Kleptocrats vs. the Main Street Victims.

[SKINFLINT]

The Cubs have certainly had a storied past. Loved the late sixty early seventy guys. WIlliams, Santo, Banks. Some great players to be sure. I know a bunch of people did not like Richie Allen back then, but I did. He just pretty much played when he felt like it. Crazy power dude. The O's were pretty much the same way after Weaver left. I would watch them pretty devoutly until the all star break. Just miserable to watch guys boot grounders, miss the cut off guy, not hustle up the line. I am lucky that we have some minor league teams around where the guys play like they got something to prove and pretty family friendly. Nine bucks a ticket and I have seen some of the guys in the majors on the farm. Anyway thanks. Have a DVD ordered up and look forward to watching it.

[SKINFLINT]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/iconoclasts/no-no-a-dockumentary-about-dock-ellis Another piece on Doc.

[DailyBail]

Skin

Thanks for that update. Will add it to the story.

[DailyBail]

"I absolutely erupted and had to be escorted out by security."

Good story. And solid stats work above. When I was a kid I used to play this strange baseball statistic game for hours based on bill james book. I can't remember what it was called.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_James

[SKINFLINT]

Sorry, can't help myself. Machado is a beast. Be a shame to move him to short. Great shortstops are fun to watch. But great third basemen almost always play on instinct, which is something you can't teach. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeQAuAtFnoE

[DailyBail]

SKIN

Great clip. Loved watching that.

[SKINFLINT]

I cain't help it. http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/Orioles-Manny-Machado-turns-in-Brooks-Robinson-like-play-070713?ocid=ansfox11

[SKINFLINT]

This guy is the shit. Seriously, he makes these plays l the time and makes it look easy.http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dAeqrDh-nuA

[skinflint]

I watched Brooks as a kid and Machado is that and then some. Every night he seems to make a highlight reel all by himself. Can't help it guys. This kid is money.
http://m.mlb.com/cutfour/2016/04/23/174131782/manny-machado-makes-throw-to-first-from-his-knees-against-royals

[DailyBail]

I enjoyed the old Orioles ballpark up north, kinda east of the Hopkins area if I remember correctly.. I have never been to a game at Camden Yards. I left Baltimore when they were just finishing it.

That kid Machado can play.

[skinflint]

33rd Street. Used to be lined with Elm trees until they all died off. A few block walk from where we used to live back in the glory days.

[DailyBail]

Yeah, while I was interviewing and trying to get a job at Alex Brown I delivered pizza for 3 months up there for a place called Pizzapeal on the Hopkins campus. I had just turned 23. I remember 33rd street. That was a pretty main thoroughfare. I delevered to some shady-ass neighborhoods to the East.

[skinflint]

Yea, we were probably one of them. We lived South and East of there and the neighbor ladies house was the dividing line between the black and white hood and between Hopkins and our hood was the lavender mob. I'm tellin ya it was good times for everyone. I was mugged on the 27th Street bridge and was told they were gonna throw me off the bridge. And when I strolled to Eddies market for a damned Avengers comic book, I had to go through the gauntlet of gropers and ner do wellers. It was a character building exercise for sure.

[DailyBail]

I lived way way south, down in the city. I was on the edge of the projects, in the old firehouse station just across the bad side of MLK blvd, the first building. Gunshots every night. A 16-year old kid who weighed about 250 demanded my Oakland As hat one night when I walked to the corner store. The kind old guys in the neighborhood intervened and saved my ass, because I wasn't about to give up my fucking hat.

Baltimore in the 1950s was amazing. The black community was incredibly strong, family-oriented and thriving. There were hundreds of successful black-owned businesses. Baltimore is still my favorite city on the East Coast.

[skinflint]

Sounds like Paca Street maybe. When I lived there in the late 80's after my divorce, there were running gun battles across the street by the Church. I parked my bed between the windows in case a stray bullet came flying through the glass. A neighbor down the street actually was hit by a bullet while sitting in her living room.

[DailyBail]

But what about getting thrown off a bridge...?

[DailyBail]

Sounds like Paca Street maybe

---

I lived on the same street that Alex Brown was on, whatever that was. I just lived about 12 blocks due west. The firehouse was the very first building on the other side of MLK on that street.

[skinflint]

I jumped off the MTA on Druid Hill Ave and decided I was going to walk home from there instead of going all the in to the inner city and jumping buses and going north on Charles. It was a shit neighborhood then, by the zoo if you remember. So I walked across the bridge and when I got about half way across, there were two guys coming from the other direction. So I moved to the rail side and the small guy reaches in my pocket, and grabs my money. He was about my size, so I grabbed him and we scuffled when the large guy, I guess it was his older brother, grabbed my and said if I didn't stop fucking with his brother, he was going to throw me off the damned bridge. Dude was over six feet tall and kind of lean, but he didn't look to be a wall flower. So I ran my ass off up to St. Paul Street without even looking back. Don't know if you remember that bridge, but I'd say it's about 100 feet or better to the tracks.

[DailyBail]

Oh hell yeah I know that bridge. My buddy lived on St. Paul and we were always around there.

What is Fells Point like these days...

[skinflint]

I guess sort of like a poor peoples Georgetown. They are in the process of rebuilding some of those old row homes and along the waterfront of that polluted river, and I mean polluted, the home prices are getting pretty steep. They are chasing the old crusty guys out of there and replacing them with the young and up and coming. Affordable housing is further out now. Hopkins purchased Harbor View hospital and is refurbishing all that area and Excelon is getting ready to build a tower over on the east side of the Inner Harbor. FYI, the Sweetheart Cup factory up on Painters Mill is now flatter than a pancake and they are in the process of putting in an upscale shopping center complete with a Wegmans or some other sort of fabulous high dollar grocery store which is where the ball players live near and I guess they will shop there. I've got some pics I'll have to email you to show you just how awful it's gotten. There was a huge tent city down by the end of Harford and Pratt and Lombard where the homeless lived. Jesus Christ it's a sin. Sparrows Point has been razed to the ground and they are looking to put some sort of transport hub there that will somehow replace the tens of thousands of workers that used to work there. I could go on.

[skinflint]

So, this may be the Cubs year. Arrietta is a beast of a pitcher, unfortunately, and I say this as an Orioles fan who watched him come up through the system. They gave up on him and traded him away to Chicago for a blunt and a beer. Wotta ya gonna do?
http://www.si.com/mlb/2016/03/28/jake-arrieta-chicago-cubs-profile
Go Cubs.

[DailyBail]

I am a Cubs fan by birth. Kyle Schwarber played for IU. I used to watch him every week here in Bloomington. I know the head baseball coach, Chris Lemonis, he is a fellow Greek, and so I got to golf with Schwarber once. He hit a drive 371 yards on one hole, with a carry of at least 330. I love that kid. When he blew out his knee earlier this year, I fell into a depression. I will not watch or read about the Cubs until my depression disappears.

[skinflint]

So the O's picked up this Korean player who had been slow out of the gate. Yesterday he hits his first homerun and they give him the silent treatment. Just hilarious.
http://m.orioles.mlb.com/news/article/180892690/hyun-soo-kim-nolan-reimold-homer-in-os-win

[DailyBail]

Nice. Enjoyed that clip.

[skinflint]

So BJ Upton had a great night. Smacked the shit out of the ball to straightaway center. Over 450 ft. Jones stopped chasing the ball and just watched. Then Hardy hits one out. Sort of. Upton grabs the ball as it is fading down over the wall. A sick catch and doubles a runner off of first. Showalter had to be seething after that one. Some great ball though. Upton is a great center fielder.
http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/73955164/v870441683/balsd-upton-jr-robs-home-run-turns-two

[skinflint]

I'm telling you. this guy will be the answer to a trivia question. What Orioles pitchers helped propel the Red Sox and Cubs to winning the World Series after a hundred years. This guy.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/player/_/id/30145/jake-arrieta
And this guy.
http://m.mlb.com/player/121811/curt-schilling
I'm glad the Sox won. I do hope the Cubbies take it this year. If the O's cant.

[john]

Now for the latest baseball "trip"…..


Al Gore Compares His Climate Mission to Jackie Robinson

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/07/05/al-gore-compares-his-climate-mission-to-jackie-robinson/

In a recent interview, former Vice President Al Gore suggested his mission to save the world from Global Warming is comparable to Jackie Robinson‘s achievements.

======

I believe Coach Terry Francona (and MLB) has a message for Al…

http://larrybrownsports.com/baseball/terry-francona-rocks-popeye-blow-me-down-shirt-during-interview-picture/90776

[skinflint]

The first baseball game that my father in laws Dad had taken him to was the Dodgers vs Reds.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/vander-meer-pitches-second-consecutive-no-hitter
He also watched Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and the list goes on.