DOC ELLIS PITCHES A PSYCHEDELIC SHUTOUT! JUNE, 12 1970

Okay, so it’s 1970, the month of June, one month after the Kent State killings which left four students dead, gunned down by National Guard soldiers during campus protesting of President Richard Nixon’s decision to bomb Cambodia,thus extending the Vietnam war, two months before Jimi Hendrix was to perform his final concert in his native United States, a July 4th concert in Atlanta,Georgia,and four months before his tragic death...and Doc Phillip Ellis Jr. (March 11, 1945 - December 19, 2008) pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates, pitches the seasons first no-hitter, under the influence of LSD!

1970 was a turbulent time; The Summer of Love was over, closing with the “Aquarian Explosion” that would forever be known as “The Woodstock Music & Art Fair” in 1969. The counterculture was still going on strong, and so was Baseball. In 1984, Doc Phillip Ellis Jr., explaining to the press about the reason for his lack of pitching control on June 12th, 1970,blew the minds of the Baseball world by telling them that he was under the influence of LSD! Now, pitching a no-hitter is no easy feat for any pitcher, let alone one who is “flying high in the friendly skies”under the influence of LSD. I wonder how many could relate?...err..ah...I digress.

A WILD GUY WITH A SHORT FUSE

Doc Ellis was a wild guy; a regular free spirit (if you can call free spirits regular). He was one of baseball’s more evocative,or should I say, provocative stars? Often having run-ins with baseballs authority,while becoming a proverbial thorn in their sides,there were other players in MLB during the early 1970’s that possessed a lot more talent than Ellis and proved to be even bigger thorns in the side of baseball’s authority. Curt Flood, with his rally cry for free agency in 1970,and Reggie Jackson,for well...being Reggie Jackson. Doc Ellis did his fair share of rabble-rousing,Ellis had a very low tolerance for what he perceived to be racism directed at him.It has been documented that he declined to play on his high school baseball due to the teams “racist” coach.As with most African American players of his day, Ellis was no stranger to racially-motivated verbal abuse at the hands of spectators,and while in the minor leagues, he took to the stands, bat in hand, to take care of an annoying heckler.

WILD PITCHING, and MACING

One of Doc’s highest career point was that he was the 1971, Pittsburgh Pirates,world Series championship team’s winningest pitcher, winning 19 games. His 19 wins and world Series championship title also earned him a spot on the 1971 National League All-Star team as a starting pitcher,where he has the notoriety for having given up a famous bomb of a home run to Oakland A’s slugger, Reggie Jackson, a ball that was hit off of the Tiger Stadium light tower. Five years later,in an apparent retaliation for the 1971 All-Star Game light tower home run bomb, Ellis, then pitching for the New York Yankees, beaned Jackson in the face while batting for the Baltimore Orioles.The following year, on May 5, 1972, Ellis was maced by a security guard at Cincinnati’s River Front Stadium after getting into an argument with the guard because he would not let Ellis enter the stadium through the players’ gate. According to the guard, David Hatter, Ellis refused to satisfactorily identify himself and that he,”made threatening gestures with a clenched fist.” Hatter also claimed that Ellis was carrying a half-empty bottle of wine. Ellis denied the wine, and claimed that he had no intention of hitting Hatter, he said he was maced in spite of showing his 1971 World Series Championship ring as proof of identity.When the case made it to Cincinnati Municipal Court a few months later, Ellis was looking at disorderly conduct charges, though charges were dropped after Ellis’s attorney claimed that the two settled their differences.

HAIR CURLERS?

In 1973, after being featured in Ebony magazine sporting a variety of stylish hairstyles, Ellis started to wearing hair curlers to the ballpark, wearing them during pre-game warmups. This sparked the ire of management who ordered him to remove the curlers before stepping onto the field.Ellis claimed that this was a discriminatory order sent down by commissioner Bowie Kuhn, and he made it known to the press. Ellis pointed out that there were several players who were coming onto the field wearing articles of clothing that were not consistent with the overall team uniform. Some players were wearing white shoes, jackets, and some not wearing their hats. He even went onto say that, “They didn’t put out any orders about Joe Pepitone when he wore a hairpiece down to his shoulders.”

“GETTING DOWN”

In 1974, Ellis had a new strategy on how to deal with what he perceived to be his teammates lack of aggressiveness, and killer instinct. He decided to put his strategy into action against the Cincinnati Reds, in retaliation for the Reds come back from a one run deficit as the result of a wild pitch at the bottom of the ninth inning in the final play-off game of a pennant race in 1972. In a May 1st game against the Cincinnati Reds, Ellis made an announcement, “ We gonna get down. We gonna do the do. I’m going hit these motherfuckers.” Ellis started off hitting the leadoff batter Pete Rose in the ribs; he proceeded to hit the next batter Joe Morgan, in the side; then he hit the next batter Dan Dreissden in the back; loading the bases.He had a difficult putting his plan into action with Tony Perez; Perez had dodged his attempts, and as a result, he was walked. Ellis then decided that he was going to attempt to hit hall of fame catcher Johnny Bench in the head, he was then quickly relieved from his pitching duty; pulled from the game by Pittsburgh manager Danny Murtaugh. Ellis’s box score for the game reads: 0 IP, 0 H, 1R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 0 K.

THE "NO-NO"

With all of Ellis’s shenanigans, he is best known for his pitching a psychedelic shutout on June 12, 1970. According to Ellis, he had spent the fateful morning of June 12, 1970 relaxing in his hometown of Los Angeles mistakenly believing that that Pirates had the day off. At about 12:00 noon, Ellis ingested the LSD, an hour later his girlfriend informed him that the Pirates were playing that day and that he was due to pitch the first game of a twilight double-header in San Diego against the Padres after reading about it in the newspaper. She quickly hustled him off to the airport by 3:30 PM for the $9.50 fight to San Diego, where he arrived at 4:30 PM, just in time for the 6:05 PM start.

Ellis states: “ I can only remember bits and pieces of the game. I was psyched.I had the feeling of euphoria.
I was zeroed in on the [catcher’s] glove, but I didn’t hit the glove too much. I remember hitting a few batters and the bases were loaded two or three times.

The ball was small sometimes, the ball was large sometimes, sometimes I saw the catcher, sometimes I didn’t. Sometimes I tried to stare the hitter down and throw while I was looking at him. I chewed my gum until it turned to powder.
I started having a crazy idea in the fourth inning that Richard Nixon was the home plate umpire, once I thought I was pitching a baseball to Jimi Hendrix, who to me was holding a guitar and swinging it over the plate.

They say I had about three or four fielding chances. 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.” The Pirates won the game 2-0, with Ellis walking eight batters.”

There is a certain understood superstition in baseball when it comes to a pitcher who seems to be approaching a no-hitter. It has been long established, that when a pitcher is nearing a no-hitter, his teammates are to leave him alone, they are not to mention the idea of what is going on, and what could possibly go down. There are rumors that rookie teammate Dave Cash commented to Ellis that he was on the verge of a no-hitter. Since the game was the first game of a double-header, Ellis was forced to keep track of the pitch count for the night game.

Ellis had a strategy when it came to his pitching style, he was going to pitch wild, as long as he was hitting you, or keeping the ball away from you, you were not going to get a hit off of him, as he states in a post-game interview, attributing his wildness to the feeling that he was going to pitch a no-hitter from the fourth inning on: “ I know guys who don’t want to talk about it, but if you are going to throw[a no-hitter], you’re going to throw it. The ball I was throwing was moving. I was keeping the ball away from the hitters. That’s why I walked so many.”

RETIREMENT WITH A TWIST OF IRONY

On December 11, 1975, Doc Ellis was traded to the New York Yankees in a trade that included Willie Randolph and Ken Brett, in exchange for Doc Medich. He went on to play for the Oakland Athletics, Texas Rangers, New York Mets. He ended his career back in Pittsburgh with a lifetime record of 138-119 and an ERA. of 3.46. He went on to Victorville, California to become a drug counselor. Doc often referred to his antics as him just being stupid and crazy, and later on, he said something to the effect that he was still stupid and crazy, just not on drugs anymore. Ellis’s psychedelic shutout and crazy antics overshadowed some of the more charitable things he was doing on and off the field for the community; he worked with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections to help rehabilitate black prisoners, and he helped to start the Black Athletes Foundation for Sickle Cell Research, as well as serving as the coordinator of a Los Angeles anti-drug program.

In 2007, Elllis, an alcoholic, was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver, and he passed away on December 19, 2008 at USC Medical Center in Los Angeles awaiting a liver transplant. That day, baseball lost one of its most colorful and controversial characters. He was 63.

CELEBRATING THE URBAN LEGEND IN SONG

Doc Ellis’s psychedelic shutout is urban legend and has been celebrated in pop culture. There were a few songs written to celebrate the odd feat “Doc Ellis” by indie rocker Barbara Manning, “America’s Favorite Pastime” by folk singer Tom Snyder, “Doc Ellis No-No” by Chuck Brodsky, and “LSD (The Ballad of Doc Ellis)” by Boston rockers Random Road Mother.