Sunday 18 October 2009

The No-Hitter on LSD

By Luke Ridley

Dock Ellis was not the biggest name in baseball history, but he was a piece of it in 1970 when he fired a no-hitter. This is easily one of the weirder stories in sports history, and if you haven't heard about it before, you're in for a treat.

At the time, no one thought of his no hitter as a big deal. Surely, any no hitter is quite the accomplishment, but this one seemed no different than most. This one was very different though. In 1984, Ellis revealed that he threw his no hitter while he was high on LSD.

Ellis thought he didn't pitch until later in the week, but after taking some LSD with his girlfriend around noon on that day, he picked up a local newspaper and noticed that it was his scheduled day to pitch. He rushed to the field as quickly as he could, all the while tripping off the powerful drug.

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.

The feat will always be more infamous than famous, but this is one record that hopefully will never be broken. I'm not sure if anyone could if they tried.

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