Friday, June 25, 2010

Dock Ellis's No Hitter On June 12th, 1970

Oops! I forgot to honor the 30th Anniversary of Dock Ellis's amazing no-hitter in San Diego some 30 years ago, June 12th 1970. I'm 13 days late. Damn it. I guess I've been doing too much non-blogging this past month. Too much sunshine. On June 12th, I was in Milwaukee, watching Tenement (www.myspace.com/tenementwi) knock 'em out. Also, I ate a giant chorizo burrito from El Corazon, Riverwest's newest Mexican restaurant. I won't say taqueria... but it was a damn good (and damn huge) burrito nonetheless.

But back to Dock and his no-no. For those of you who don't know exactly what I'm talking about, Mr. Ellis pitched a no-hitter against the San Diego Padres to win the day game of a Jack Murphy Stadium day/night doubleheader.

And, as many of you know, Dock Ellis claims he was tripping on LSD at the time.

Do the stats back up his outrageous and hilarious claim? Well, he walked eight guys, and struck out six. That would seem to be the kind of BB:K rate that you could achieve while under the influence of a hallucinogen. (This is, of course, more proof of what I've been saying all along: Nolan Ryan pitched every game of his career while high on PCP.) The game took two hours and a lucky thirteen minutes to complete (As you may be aware, 213 was Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment number, for the record. Just sayin'.)

He was interviewed about this on NPR a few years back, and some enterprising animator created this great work of audio/visual genius: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vUhSYLRw14

Anyway, as I type this, an Arizona Diamondback named Edwin Jackson has just completed his own no-hitter against the Tampa Bay Rays. He threw 149 pitches, walked eight men, and struck out six. THE SAME NUMBER OF WALKS AND STRIKEOUTS AS DOCK ELLIS ON JUNE 12TH, 1970.

Edwin Jackson, congratulations on becoming the second pitcher in Major League history to throw a no-hitter while under the influence of LSD. The lizard people will eat your brains in gratitude.

(RIP Dock Ellis)

2 comments:

  1. I was tripping with Edwin before the game yesterday and when he realized he had to pitch we were just laughing and laughing, rolling around on the floor, and he's like "No seriously, I have to pitch, I'm so fucked up." God, it was hilarious.

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  2. I wish I'd been there, Kyle.

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