06-24-2005, 12:55 PM
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#1 (permalink)
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No-hitter thrown by Pirates pitcher in 1970 on LSD (add your own sports lore)
pretty interesting/unconventional sports feat...new to me, so perhaps some of you will enjoy it
http://www.dallasobserver.com/Issues...ure_print.html
the article seems to stop early, but here is a good chunk of it:
Quote:
Thirty-five years ago, on June 12, 1970, Pittsburgh Pirate and future Texas Rangers pitcher Dock Ellis found himself in the Los Angeles home of a childhood friend named Al Rambo. Two days earlier, he'd flown with the Pirates to San Diego for a four-game series with the Padres. He immediately rented a car and drove to L.A. to see Rambo and his girlfriend Mitzi. The next 12 hours were a fog of conversation, screwdrivers, marijuana, and, for Ellis, amphetamines. He went to sleep in the early morning, woke up sometime after noon and immediately took a dose of Purple Haze acid. Ellis would frequently drop acid on off days and weekends; he had a room in his basement christened "The Dungeon," in which he'd lock himself and listen to Jimi Hendrix or Iron Butterfly "for days."
A bit later, how long exactly he can't recall, he came across Mitzi flipping through a newspaper. She scanned for a moment, then noticed something.
"Dock," she said. "You're supposed to pitch today."
Ellis focused his mind. No. Friday. He wasn't pitching until Friday. He was sure.
"Baby," she replied. "It is Friday. You slept through Thursday."
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Here's what Ellis remembers about the trip from Los Angeles to San Diego: not a goddamn thing. Apparently he got to the airport, boarded one of the San Diego shuttles that left every half-hour, flew for 22 minutes and landed. The first thing he recalls is sitting in a taxi, telling the driver to "get to the fucking stadium. I got to play." Next thing, he's sitting in the locker room. 5 p.m. By that point, Ellis had enough experience with LSD to know that it wouldn't be wearing off anytime soon; as a, uh, "precautionary measure," he took somewhere between four and eight amphetamines and drank some water.
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After that, it's impressions, mostly. The bullpen. Throwing. No idea how that felt, but he can remember being there. Next: the dugout. Sitting. Looking up and seeing drizzle. Not really how it looked or felt or any of that; just hoping to shit the game would be canceled. Just before 6:05 p.m., the umpire emerged, wiped off home plate and did a quick and basically ceremonial examination of the drizzle situation and signaled to the Pirates' bench. The national anthem began. "Damn. Looks like I'm gonna have to pitch." At this point, the thing in his hand felt, more or less, like a very heavy volleyball.
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EDIT: since there isn't a lot to discuss about this, feel free to add your own interesting stories to this thread
Last edited by trickyy; 06-24-2005 at 07:19 PM..
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