Sunday, October 18, 2009

The Chronicle of Doc Ellis

By Luke Ridley

You've probably never even heard of him, even if you know about baseball pretty well. If you have heard of him, then you've most likely heard about this story already. What's interesting is that most people are completely unaware that this ever happened. Dock Ellis's no hitter in 1970 was one of the more unique things to ever happen in baseball.

It wasn't until 1984 that Ellis shared his secret with the world, so none of his teammates had even known that he was on LSD during this game. Still, this is something cray that people had a hard time believing after he revealed this.

Ellis by no means took LSD on purpose before the game. Had he known he was scheduled to start that day, he never would have taken the drugs. However, Ellis thought that it was his day off, and had decided to take the drugs with the knowledge that he wouldn't pitch until later that week. This was a major blunder, as he soon learned that it was his day to pitch.

He would later say he remembers very little about the game. He focused solely on the catcher's glove, and was pretty wild the entire game. He had numerous walks and hit batters, but no one could actually hit him.

Teammates had to let him in on the past actions of the hurler. He had a few fielding chances, but jumped out of the way. Sometimes he said the ball looked very small, while other times it was big.

There's no doubt that LSD is a drug that should never be taken. Ellis's accomplishment is still extremely weird and intriguing though. No one would ever expect someone to pitch so well under the influence of such a powerful drug.

Ellis holds a record, but it's a notorious one. While the idea of it is amusing, we should all hope that nothing like this ever happens again.

About the Author:

0 comments:

Post a Comment