June 12, 1970 No-Hitter

In the sport of baseball, a “no-hitter“ is a game in which nobatter is able to get on base, in the usual manner. Players may still get on base through a walk, an error or being hit by a pitch, but not by hitting the ball.

The talent to pitch 27 or more outs without surrendering a single hit is nearly as scarce, as hen’s teeth. Nearly a quarter-million Major League games have been played in this country between 1876 and 2021. Only 311 have ended, with no-hitters.

No fewer than six Major League ball clubs have recorded but a single no-hitter, in their entire existence. The number of pitchers to throw more than one, are precious few. Those who did it while tripping on acid number…precisely…one.

_{This is dated. Padres pitcher Joe Musgrove threw San Diego’s first no-hitter in April, this year}

At his best, Pittsburg Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis was one of the best there was. Former ESPN announcer and San Diego Padres infielder, Dave “Soup” Campbell once said “I’ve always been asked who the toughest guy I ever faced was, and I always say Dock. His fastball had such great late movement, always seemed to be in one place when I’d start my swing and then move in another direction. It could sink, move in on my hands, or sail away like Mariano Rivera’s cutter.”

And then there were those times…

Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn repeatedly ordered the man to refrain from wearing curlers, on the field. He once burned a pre-game pitch list in the locker room and set off the sprinkler system. The man literally went ‘hunting’ Cincinnati batters one day in 1974, striking the first three men in the lineup: Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, and Dan Driessen. The next two were a little too quick dodging one head shot after another until Ellis was pulled, from the game.

Lest anyone think that was by accident, permit me to put the matter to rest. He said he’d do it, before the game. I believe Dock Ellis still holds the record for most consecutive batters, hit by a pitch.

Dock Ellis could be one of the best in the game, but never seemed to keep the focus to stay that way. Flamboyant, vocal and quick to anger, Jackie Robinson himself once praised Dock Ellis for advancing the rights of black players and criticized him, for talking too much.

And then there were the drugs. Ever mindful of his “can’t miss” status as a prospect, Ellis was never without a bit of chemical assistance. He later said he never pitched a major league game, without amphetamines.

And those were the days he was working.

June 11, 1970 was a Thursday, the day before a double header between the visiting Pirates, and the San Diego Padres. Ellis wasn’t pitching that day and drove to Los Angeles, to visit a friend.

Father Time moved on. The earth revolved on its axis and night followed day but Dock Ellis, knew none of it. “Two or three” LSD tabs took care of that. And then it was Friday. Game day. Ellis crushed another tablet and snorted the thing. Two hours later his host asked, aren’t you playing tonight? Ellis didn’t believe that it was Friday, asking “what happened to Thursday? She had to show him a sports page with the day’s date. June 12, 1970.

It was 2:00pm. He was scheduled to pitch at 6:08.

The rest of that day? Who knows. There was that frenzied trip to the airport, the flight and the pitcher’s arrival, just in time. Sometimes the ball seemed so big he later said, and sometimes, it was small. There was a plate up there or was it several, and why did it (they) keep moving? Years later he said he couldn’t see the batters, just which side of the plate they were on. Catcher Jerry May had to wear reflective tape on his fingers, so Ellis could see the signals.

At 8:18 it was over, the most unlikely no-hitter, in history. Pitching was so erratic the Padres had a man on base, in every inning.

“I started having a crazy idea in the fourth inning that Richard Nixon was the home plate umpire, and once I thought I was pitching a baseball to Jimi Hendrix, who to me was holding a guitar and swinging it over the plate. I remember diving out of the way of a ball I thought was a line drive. I jumped, but the ball wasn’t hit hard and never reached me.”

Dock Ellis

Manning’s trilogy included a cover of Les Brown’s “Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio,” the “Ballad of Denny McLain” and “Dock Ellis”, the psychedelic ballad of a Major League no-hitter, once pitched while tripping on acid.