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Dock Ellis and the Legend of the LSD No-hitter · Ridiculous History

0:12
Speaker 1: Yea quick bait and switch at the top of the show,
0:27
Speaker 1: Ladies and Gentlemen, friends and neighbors. You may have thought
0:31
Speaker 1: you are tuning into a podcast, but for the moment,
0:34
Speaker 1: you are at a baseball game. Here the crowd, smell,
0:37
Speaker 1: the popcorn, the hot dogs, the distant crack of a
0:41
Speaker 1: baseball bat, the stale urine, the sale you're in, the
0:45
Speaker 1: the beer that somehow smells both like beer and stale.
0:49
Speaker 1: You're a sort of a Milans. Really, it all sort
0:51
Speaker 1: of comes together. And what's the word mi asthma, my asthma,
0:55
Speaker 1: A collage for the senses, a cavalcade need of experience. Hello,
1:01
Speaker 1: my name is Ben, my name is Nolan. We love words.
1:04
Speaker 1: We love words almost as much as we love our
1:08
Speaker 1: super producer, Casey batter Up pegrum No. I was wondering
1:14
Speaker 1: now that we're at this hypothetical baseball game. Uh, were
1:19
Speaker 1: you much of a baseballer? Yeah? And I played the
1:21
Speaker 1: outfield when I was like in elementary school. But I
1:24
Speaker 1: was you know, I was a turn rested development. Yeah,
1:28
Speaker 1: I was no good and I just looking around, you know,
1:32
Speaker 1: just smelling the p not really being a very effective
1:37
Speaker 1: part of the team. Wait, you were in uh stale
1:40
Speaker 1: urine soaked little league. They all they all smelled like that, Ben,
1:44
Speaker 1: from the little leagues to the minor leagues to the
1:46
Speaker 1: major leagues, they all smell like p Well, we did
1:50
Speaker 1: grow up. I do love that unintentional ryme. We did
1:53
Speaker 1: grow up in different towns. I associated with the smell
1:56
Speaker 1: of pe nuts. I was also an outfield guy, so
1:59
Speaker 1: maybe that's what I'm peanuts. Peanuts. There we go. I'm sorry,
2:03
Speaker 1: I was confused. No, no, not at all. So it's
2:06
Speaker 1: strange because one of the most uh one of the
2:10
Speaker 1: most beautiful series of memories that I have from growing
2:14
Speaker 1: up is that in the early nineties you could get
2:17
Speaker 1: very very cheap field side seats and that was my
2:22
Speaker 1: primary informative experience with baseball until we started doing ridiculous
2:28
Speaker 1: history and exploring some of the strange baseball stories, most
2:33
Speaker 1: particularly Curse of the Colonel. But even if you haven't
2:37
Speaker 1: played baseball, or even if you hate baseball ridiculous historians,
2:41
Speaker 1: you have probably experienced one of the most amazing cognitive
2:45
Speaker 1: things that humans are capable of experiencing. Dropping acid. I
2:49
Speaker 1: was gonna say flow state cool. It's one of those too. Yeah,
2:55
Speaker 1: there are many roads to the room known as the
2:58
Speaker 1: flow state meditation in exercise LSD. And today today our
3:05
Speaker 1: story encounters all three baseball LSD and the flow states true. Uh,
3:14
Speaker 1: at least it is commonly accepted it is true. Right,
3:17
Speaker 1: So well, could you could you set the scene? Could
3:19
Speaker 1: you take us there? Yeah, I will take you there. Um.
3:22
Speaker 1: It was a Friday on June twelfth of nineteen seventy, Um,
3:28
Speaker 1: right on the tail end of you know the rule
3:31
Speaker 1: in sixties. That's not what they were called. That was
3:33
Speaker 1: the twenties. What were the sixties. What's a good adjective
3:36
Speaker 1: for the sixties? Uh, the vibrant, the vibrant, unbridled, unhinged,
3:42
Speaker 1: tune in, free, long, dropout, free, love, free, free, free,
3:47
Speaker 1: all that stuff. Um. And you know a big part
3:50
Speaker 1: of that was a guy named Timothy Leary who was
3:55
Speaker 1: he worked at Harvard in the laboratories there, but he
3:58
Speaker 1: researched with the effects of psychedelic drugs on the mind,
4:04
Speaker 1: and he became this kind of uh Sevengali of the
4:09
Speaker 1: sixties and of psychedelic experiences. Guru figure, that's true. And
4:14
Speaker 1: there was another guy named Doc Ellis on that day,
4:18
Speaker 1: June twe who was a fantastic pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates,
4:24
Speaker 1: and he had just arrived at the stadium in San Diego, California,
4:30
Speaker 1: to be the starting pitcher for a game against the
4:34
Speaker 1: San Diego Padres. But here's the problem. He got there
4:38
Speaker 1: just an hour and a half, ninety minutes before he's
4:41
Speaker 1: supposed to be on the field, and he is not
4:45
Speaker 1: sober because he's coming in and he had no idea
4:50
Speaker 1: that he was supposed to play today. In fact, he
4:53
Speaker 1: has partied to a cartoonish degree the night before, right,
4:57
Speaker 1: he's dropped acid. He drank like a fish. Uh. And
5:03
Speaker 1: he woke up the same day and I think it
5:06
Speaker 1: was about what what about noon that he took another
5:10
Speaker 1: hit of acid. Yeah, he was in Los Angeles, it
5:12
Speaker 1: was his hometown. The game was in San Diego. He
5:14
Speaker 1: thought he had a day off. He did have a
5:16
Speaker 1: day off, but he burned through that day off, um,
5:19
Speaker 1: as you just described. And then he woke up at
5:21
Speaker 1: around noon after having taken another hit. Uh. And it
5:25
Speaker 1: was a friend, a girlfriend of one of his childhood
5:27
Speaker 1: friends who he was hanging out with and then crashed
5:29
Speaker 1: over there with UM showed him the newspaper the day's newspaper,
5:35
Speaker 1: the sports page more specifically, which said, hey, you're the
5:40
Speaker 1: starting pitcher for this game that's about to happen today
5:43
Speaker 1: in San Diego. So he got all this stuff together
5:47
Speaker 1: right into the airport while tripping on LSD. Mind you
5:52
Speaker 1: caught an afternoon flight and a cab directly to the stadium.
5:57
Speaker 1: And here's the there's this great article on ESPN by
6:01
Speaker 1: Patrick Ruby that explains it this way. And this is
6:06
Speaker 1: according to doc Ellis himself. He landed in the San
6:09
Speaker 1: Diego airport, he hopped in a cab outside, and all
6:13
Speaker 1: he said was, Casey, can you beat me on this?
6:16
Speaker 1: Get to the stadium? I got a pitch, Yeah, and
6:19
Speaker 1: pitch he did. Um. You know what's funny. I'm thinking
6:22
Speaker 1: about all this, and I'm thinking about just the stress
6:25
Speaker 1: of going to the airport in general, and like being
6:29
Speaker 1: on a tight timeline and being worried about missing your
6:31
Speaker 1: flight or being worried about missing your appointment or whatever.
6:34
Speaker 1: Can you imagine that with the added stress of uh,
6:37
Speaker 1: you know, being in an altered state. Yeah. I was
6:41
Speaker 1: thinking about this because you know, stress can be such
6:44
Speaker 1: a personal thing, you know. I was wondering how much
6:47
Speaker 1: would it stress him out? To me, being late for
6:49
Speaker 1: something is more stressful than going to an airport. I
6:53
Speaker 1: hate being late for stuff, But regardless of which way
6:56
Speaker 1: you look at it, compounding that with a altered state
7:00
Speaker 1: of consciousness, and then also compounding that with the fact
7:04
Speaker 1: that you are a public performer. You're an athlete, right,
7:08
Speaker 1: who's going to be performing in crowd. It's not like
7:11
Speaker 1: you're late to your job as an archivist in a
7:15
Speaker 1: basement where no one will see you for eight hours.
7:18
Speaker 1: He was also twenty five years old, known for his
7:20
Speaker 1: curveball and his partying days. That's that's another thing that
7:25
Speaker 1: makes me wonder about his state of stress in this
7:28
Speaker 1: moment was because it wasn't like this was his first bender,
7:33
Speaker 1: not at all, not at all. And we will get
7:35
Speaker 1: to that, but let's let's hear a little clip that
7:38
Speaker 1: does a really good job of summing up how it
7:40
Speaker 1: might have felt to be standing in that particular situation,
7:44
Speaker 1: in that particular state of mind. There was one guy,
7:47
Speaker 1: one guy who had an amazing claim to fame in
7:50
Speaker 1: terms of drugs in sports. His name was Docullis, and
7:54
Speaker 1: doc Ellis did an incredible thing. The one person who knows,
7:57
Speaker 1: thank you, duc Ellis pitched a no hitter on LSD.
8:04
Speaker 1: Those who have taken LSD tell the others how hard
8:06
Speaker 1: that might be. If I took LSD, I'd be talking
8:10
Speaker 1: to every blade of grass like sorry, sorry, sorry for
8:15
Speaker 1: walk into a Major League Baseball stadium, like the whole
8:21
Speaker 1: fields like okay, so your little creative license there from
8:26
Speaker 1: Robin Williams um. But he did tip us off to
8:30
Speaker 1: the outcome of this, this this thing that duc Ellis did.
8:34
Speaker 1: He pitched a no hitter. Yes, and this is an
8:39
Speaker 1: incredibly rare feat and a hundred and thirty six years
8:42
Speaker 1: of baseball history, only two hundred and seventy six no
8:45
Speaker 1: hitters have ever been recorded, and as far as we know,
8:49
Speaker 1: this is the only one that occurred under the influence
8:53
Speaker 1: of LSD. And it's strange because you would expect maybe
8:57
Speaker 1: he would call out of the game, made he would
9:00
Speaker 1: show up and have an abysmal performance, But he played
9:06
Speaker 1: on acid not only well but spectacularly. He also did
9:11
Speaker 1: walk quite a few batters, but no one hit a
9:14
Speaker 1: ball that he threw. And additionally, no one knew that
9:18
Speaker 1: he was on LSD, or virtually no one. It wasn't
9:21
Speaker 1: until fourteen years later that Ellis confirmed to a reporter
9:26
Speaker 1: at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette that he had played the
9:29
Speaker 1: game on acid. And the reporter, Bob Smithic, brought this
9:35
Speaker 1: up because he was working off a tip somebody had
9:41
Speaker 1: told them there was a rumor. Also, Ellis didn't just
9:45
Speaker 1: say that he took acid. He said he took acid
9:49
Speaker 1: that he received from Tim Leary, the guru himself. He
9:52
Speaker 1: did say that thing. Then it's very true, um, and
9:56
Speaker 1: it's it's a problematic story, um. For a few reasons
10:00
Speaker 1: come from that ESPN article that we talked about earlier.
10:02
Speaker 1: But it's called the Long Strange Trip of Doc Ellis.
10:05
Speaker 1: But it wasn't Smizic that Doc told that particular part
10:09
Speaker 1: of the story too. It was later when he was
10:12
Speaker 1: inducted into something called the Baseball Reliquary Shrine of the
10:17
Speaker 1: Eternals that was in Pasadena, California, and he was talking
10:21
Speaker 1: to the executive director named Terry Cannon, who he told
10:26
Speaker 1: that Leary, that former Harvard psych professor, had given him
10:31
Speaker 1: the drug because he wanted to see he wanted to
10:35
Speaker 1: test how it would affect a professional athlete. That's a
10:39
Speaker 1: weird claim, though, isn't it. It's a very weird claim,
10:41
Speaker 1: a claim that has several serious problems that are outlined
10:45
Speaker 1: beautifully in this article. One of the big ones right
10:48
Speaker 1: off the bat was that during this time Leary was
10:50
Speaker 1: in fact incarcerated, and that comes from his biography Robert Greenfield. Yeah.
10:56
Speaker 1: And then another thing is he said that he got
10:58
Speaker 1: the acid from U c l A laboratory and also
11:03
Speaker 1: people on Leary's side I don't agree. Yeah. Leary actually
11:07
Speaker 1: has a personal archivist, a guy named Michael Horowitz, that
11:11
Speaker 1: said this was just almost definitely focus based on, I
11:14
Speaker 1: think probably most specifically the fact that he was in jail.
11:16
Speaker 1: But he did say that Leary knew about the new
11:19
Speaker 1: hitter and found out about it, and that he had
11:22
Speaker 1: purchased Leary uh some of Doc Ellis's baseball cards, and
11:26
Speaker 1: that Leary carried one around with him for the rest
11:29
Speaker 1: of his life to show off to fans of psychedelics
11:32
Speaker 1: and sports. Right, So if we look at the timeline here,
11:37
Speaker 1: that makes it sound much more likely that Leary, while
11:41
Speaker 1: a fan, learned of this experience afterwards rather than beforehand.
11:48
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, I do know what you mean.
11:50
Speaker 1: And it's it's interesting too, because Ellis had, as you said,
11:54
Speaker 1: been a reputation that it was not only about partying,
12:00
Speaker 1: but was it just about being kind of his own
12:02
Speaker 1: kind of free spirit in general. He kind of did
12:05
Speaker 1: things his own way, marched to his own drummer, and
12:09
Speaker 1: you know, you get the gist. Yeah. Yeah. He described
12:13
Speaker 1: himself as arrogant, flamboyant, and controversial. There's an article from
12:18
Speaker 1: The Washington Post by Matt Shootel that explains some of
12:23
Speaker 1: Ellis's erratic behavior, or at least depicts it. He was
12:26
Speaker 1: known for throwing balls directly at batters, arguing when managers
12:31
Speaker 1: and players from other teams, and he even chased Heckler's
12:35
Speaker 1: in the stands. So you know, there are a lot
12:37
Speaker 1: of fans of sports who will heckel the opposing teams players.
12:41
Speaker 1: This was a guy who would come after you, oh
12:44
Speaker 1: big time, which is crazy. And he came up in
12:47
Speaker 1: the minors like he was like, I think eighteen years
12:49
Speaker 1: old when he got recruited, maybe nineteen when he first
12:52
Speaker 1: started playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates, and this was during
12:55
Speaker 1: a time of horrible racial inequality in the United States.
13:00
Speaker 1: He refused in many ways to fit in that stereotypical
13:04
Speaker 1: cookie cutter image that mass media and the culture of
13:09
Speaker 1: the time would try to force people into based on
13:14
Speaker 1: what they perceived as what this person should be like
13:17
Speaker 1: or what they were doing. One of my favorite examples
13:19
Speaker 1: he once showed up in the Pirates bullpen wearing hair
13:22
Speaker 1: curlers because he said that the resulting moisture on his
13:26
Speaker 1: head would help him throw his signature and illegal spit ball, yeah,
13:30
Speaker 1: very illegalist pitball is an illegal pitch um where the
13:34
Speaker 1: picture actually changes the way the ball contacts the hand
13:40
Speaker 1: by putting spit or some kind of like foreign substance
13:43
Speaker 1: like petroleum jelly or in this case the sweat off
13:46
Speaker 1: of the back of his neck. Um. But yeah, he
13:48
Speaker 1: actually got issued a letter from the commissioner of Major
13:52
Speaker 1: League Baseball ordering him not to wear hair curlers. Um.
13:56
Speaker 1: And the thing with him was he just didn't like
13:59
Speaker 1: being told what to do. And he might have come
14:01
Speaker 1: off as erratic or um just willful, but he kind
14:06
Speaker 1: of knew what he was doing. According to a lot
14:09
Speaker 1: of his childhood friends, people that have known him his
14:11
Speaker 1: whole life that were interviewed in a really cool movie
14:13
Speaker 1: called No No, a documentary d O c K d
14:17
Speaker 1: O c K, which is excellent and a really good
14:20
Speaker 1: deep dive into this very divisive and interesting man's life. Um.
14:27
Speaker 1: So in the film, another picture named Steve Blasts said
14:31
Speaker 1: that in those days, which was the sixties, they were
14:34
Speaker 1: playing a lot of day games, so everyone was showing
14:37
Speaker 1: up completely hungover UM, and one way that you dealt
14:42
Speaker 1: with that was by taking amphetamines. Yeah. See history today
14:48
Speaker 1: remembers doc Ellis primarily as the guy who pitched a
14:53
Speaker 1: no hitter while he was on LSD. But there are
14:59
Speaker 1: a couple of things are misremembered there. One is the
15:03
Speaker 1: nature of LST or acid and how high he would
15:07
Speaker 1: have been actually, And then the second thing is that
15:11
Speaker 1: was not the normal thing. It was much more normal
15:15
Speaker 1: for players to be consuming amphetamines. Yeah, several players from
15:20
Speaker 1: that era were interviewed for this film, and I think
15:23
Speaker 1: the number got as high as like nine percent. These
15:26
Speaker 1: guys are obviously, you know, um editorializing here a little bit.
15:30
Speaker 1: There's no poll that was taken. But they were in
15:32
Speaker 1: the game, you know, they were around these guys and
15:34
Speaker 1: they knew what UM was done. And it wasn't like
15:38
Speaker 1: people weren't juicing in those days. They weren't taking steroids necessarily.
15:42
Speaker 1: They were popping Benny's and greenies or deximill right, which
15:46
Speaker 1: was drug of choice. And this was kind of before
15:50
Speaker 1: the era of widespread steroid use. So one thing we
15:59
Speaker 1: have want to do in the exploration of this story
16:03
Speaker 1: is established that, yeah, Doc Ellis may have been the
16:06
Speaker 1: only person on the field on LSD, but that doesn't
16:10
Speaker 1: mean he was the only person on the field on
16:12
Speaker 1: drugs in an altered state. In an altered state, right,
16:15
Speaker 1: because I mean the thing about you know, those kinds
16:18
Speaker 1: of amphetamine is the kind of stuff that fighter pilots
16:20
Speaker 1: would take, you know, during World War Two, Um Hitler
16:23
Speaker 1: was quite fond of them. Not to equate baseball players
16:26
Speaker 1: from the sixties with Adolf Hitler, but it was certainly
16:28
Speaker 1: a tool of war, and sports are nothing if not
16:33
Speaker 1: organized war where nobody dies. You know. That's one of
16:37
Speaker 1: the more popular philosophical interpretations of athleticism that goes back,
16:43
Speaker 1: you know, into ancient days, right, right, we're at the
16:46
Speaker 1: chop heads. Although people might die of like heat stroke
16:49
Speaker 1: or you know, uh, some sort of traumatic brain injury
16:52
Speaker 1: over time, but typically you would not see people carried
16:56
Speaker 1: off of the field of baseball in a stretcher. And
16:59
Speaker 1: there was also a pro cannabis culture at the time, Right,
17:02
Speaker 1: it was not uncommon for athletes to also smoke weed.
17:06
Speaker 1: It's true, and I'm wondering, Ben, I couldn't quite find this.
17:08
Speaker 1: But when when did it? Like if this was such
17:10
Speaker 1: common knowledge or it just seems so obvious. I did
17:13
Speaker 1: see a trainer saying I didn't want this in my
17:15
Speaker 1: locker room. Don't let me see you doing it. But
17:18
Speaker 1: certainly seemed quite pervasive. Um, when was it that, like
17:22
Speaker 1: widespread drug testing became a thing in Major League baseball? Yeah,
17:26
Speaker 1: you have to wonder if it was a result of
17:30
Speaker 1: widespread drug test policies. Maybe players only stopped doing this
17:36
Speaker 1: stuff when it became a fiable or find herble offense, right,
17:40
Speaker 1: other than someone writing a angry letter to you. There's
17:45
Speaker 1: also a question about how much drug use really has dwindled.
17:50
Speaker 1: According to an article by Huffington's Post written by Andy
17:54
Speaker 1: Martino in current and former baseball players have said as
18:00
Speaker 1: many as twenty of Major League baseball players have used cocaine.
18:05
Speaker 1: So is it a situation where there are fewer altered
18:08
Speaker 1: states or is this situation where the type of drug
18:11
Speaker 1: changes but drug use still exist. Yeah, I'm not quite sure.
18:15
Speaker 1: I'm not quite sure either. But it's mystifying because as
18:18
Speaker 1: a fairly square person myself, I would just imagine that
18:22
Speaker 1: these all have radically different effects, right, I would think so, Ben. Um.
18:28
Speaker 1: Here's the thing too about Doc ellis he you know,
18:30
Speaker 1: we talked about the drug use, we talked about him
18:32
Speaker 1: being a bit of a loose cannon, but he was
18:35
Speaker 1: described by a lot of his friends in this documentary
18:38
Speaker 1: as being uh controlled crazy. They called him controlled crazy.
18:42
Speaker 1: He knew how to keep his wild behavior in check
18:46
Speaker 1: and to do it just enough so that it could
18:49
Speaker 1: make him money, like Dennis Robin style. Right, so there
18:52
Speaker 1: might be some marketing there, some focused application of eccentricity
18:56
Speaker 1: or insanity. That's right, because you have to think too.
18:58
Speaker 1: In those days, especially during There's no Hitter, African American
19:01
Speaker 1: pop culture had really infiltrated the mainstream, and Doc was
19:06
Speaker 1: a flashy guy. He had fashion sense. He liked to
19:09
Speaker 1: wear big, loud colors and big, you know, clinky clogs
19:12
Speaker 1: and bell bottoms, and he was like one of the
19:14
Speaker 1: first guys to wear an earring. Um very ahead of
19:17
Speaker 1: his time culturally, at least in terms of baseball. Because
19:21
Speaker 1: he actually was quoted as saying when talking about Um
19:25
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventy one All Star Game that baseball was
19:30
Speaker 1: pretty backwards when it came to black players, and there
19:34
Speaker 1: was a controversy because he really liked to stir stuff up,
19:37
Speaker 1: and in the press he came out and said, you
19:40
Speaker 1: were not gonna put two brothers against each other in
19:43
Speaker 1: this All Star Game, meaning they had already said that
19:47
Speaker 1: they were going to start the American League team with
19:51
Speaker 1: Vida Blue, who was a black pitcher, and Doc thought
19:55
Speaker 1: that he was gonna not get to start for his
19:57
Speaker 1: league because a guy named Sparky Anderson, a white guy, UM,
20:00
Speaker 1: was probably gonna get that privilege. So he got the
20:03
Speaker 1: media all stirred up and was kind of able to
20:05
Speaker 1: bait them into getting him exactly what he wanted, and
20:08
Speaker 1: he was He started in the All Star Game, right Yeah.
20:12
Speaker 1: And it's strange because looking back and in his later
20:17
Speaker 1: interviews when he sobered up, Ellis said that he did
20:23
Speaker 1: not remember a lot of these activities. Not only did
20:26
Speaker 1: he not remember a lot of the details of his
20:29
Speaker 1: legendary no hitter run, he also said he didn't remember
20:34
Speaker 1: much of nineteen sixty nine and nineteen seventy in general.
20:38
Speaker 1: It's like, what is it Matt LeBlanc and Friends. He
20:41
Speaker 1: said he couldn't remember like a whole season of that
20:43
Speaker 1: show because he was on so many pills the whole time.
20:46
Speaker 1: I can't imagine not remembering like a whole year, I mean, did.
20:49
Speaker 1: It could happen for a number of reasons. I've got
20:51
Speaker 1: a I got a few fuzzy ones. I think I'm
20:53
Speaker 1: gonna take us down a really brief side trail here
20:56
Speaker 1: that listeners from some of our other shows are familiar with.
21:00
Speaker 1: Regardless of what sort of substances you may or may
21:02
Speaker 1: not take throughout your life, your memory is treacherous and
21:05
Speaker 1: works against you. But for sure because every time you're
21:07
Speaker 1: remembering something, you're not remembering the event, you're remembering the
21:11
Speaker 1: last time you remembered it. So you're playing a game
21:13
Speaker 1: of telephone with yourself. That's why you will see, uh,
21:17
Speaker 1: even an accounts we've presented in this show. That's why
21:20
Speaker 1: we'll see people who years later claim that a myth
21:24
Speaker 1: about them is true, even when it is demonstrably not
21:27
Speaker 1: the case. And I had a question with Ellis. I
21:33
Speaker 1: don't know how you feel, Noll, but I believe the
21:35
Speaker 1: LSD story. I think it's true. Yeah, in fact, you
21:38
Speaker 1: can hear Doc himself describe all of this in a
21:42
Speaker 1: really cool um animated short by an outfit called No
21:46
Speaker 1: Moss that's illustrated by a guy named James Blagden and
21:50
Speaker 1: has audio from an interview that Ellis did in two
21:53
Speaker 1: thousand eight on NPR with Donell, Alexander and nigli illell
21:59
Speaker 1: Um and a really really cool video. And when we
22:01
Speaker 1: play a little clip of that audio right now, I
22:04
Speaker 1: didn't see the hitters. All I could tell was if
22:08
Speaker 1: there was on the right side or the left side
22:11
Speaker 1: the catch you put tape on his fingers so I
22:14
Speaker 1: could see the signals. We had a rookie on the
22:17
Speaker 1: team with that particular tim named Dave Cash, and he
22:20
Speaker 1: kept saying after the first in it, he said, you
22:23
Speaker 1: gotta know no going no hitter said yeah, right, yeah,
22:28
Speaker 1: I don't know, Ben, But hearing him tell that story,
22:30
Speaker 1: it sure sounds like, uh, somebody telling a story they
22:34
Speaker 1: actually believe happened. Um, but it's hard to say. We
22:36
Speaker 1: also know that he was probably not telling the truth
22:39
Speaker 1: about the whole Timothy Leary thing, So you know, I
22:42
Speaker 1: guess the jury is out, but I would like to
22:44
Speaker 1: believe that it happened So I don't know about you,
22:46
Speaker 1: fellow ridiculous historians, but I largely believe the bones of
22:52
Speaker 1: this story, the structure of it. However, I have some
22:56
Speaker 1: some pretty pertinent questions, one being the degree of alteration
23:02
Speaker 1: that applied. If you look at the timeline of the
23:04
Speaker 1: LSD was taking the way LSD works, was he taking
23:08
Speaker 1: a larger hit, you know, was he off his cantaloupes
23:13
Speaker 1: or was he experiencing the equivalent of what Silicon Valley
23:18
Speaker 1: and Burning Man fans would call a micro dose? Yeah,
23:21
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, from hearing him tell her this
23:23
Speaker 1: was his second tab that he had taken, and in
23:25
Speaker 1: those days, that stuff probably would have been pretty potent.
23:28
Speaker 1: So I would lean more towards the what the kids
23:31
Speaker 1: called trip and balls. So this LSD probably would have
23:36
Speaker 1: come from a source similar to Owlsley, the legendary LSD supplier,
23:41
Speaker 1: and the recent I'm wondering about the micro dosing is
23:44
Speaker 1: because preliminary studies, which have only occurred quite recently UH
23:50
Speaker 1: seemed to indicate that there may be some sort of
23:53
Speaker 1: relationship between what we call the flow state and the
23:57
Speaker 1: use of small amounts of hallucinogens just LSD. But psilocybin.
24:03
Speaker 1: So without getting two into it, I have some I
24:06
Speaker 1: have some pretty fascinating studies, but I'd like to hear
24:09
Speaker 1: from you folks. Do you think that there was a
24:12
Speaker 1: relationship between the L S D that doc Ellis consumed. Uh?
24:17
Speaker 1: Did it put him in a flow state similar to
24:19
Speaker 1: the experience people would have when they practice, uh, the
24:22
Speaker 1: use of transcranial direct current simulation or meditation or what
24:27
Speaker 1: have you. Or do you think it was a coincidence.
24:31
Speaker 1: Do you think he succeeded in spite of this? You know,
24:38
Speaker 1: I did here or I read uh that the that year,
24:42
Speaker 1: the Padres were not particularly good. They had lost like
24:45
Speaker 1: ninety thumping games in that season, so you know, it
24:49
Speaker 1: could have just been a bad performance on their part
24:51
Speaker 1: um that. Either way, it's it's it's pretty impressive that
24:54
Speaker 1: a a guy could perform that well under the influence
24:58
Speaker 1: of such a mind altering substance. Yeah, and Ellis's um.
25:02
Speaker 1: Ellis's importance and his influence were not just confined to
25:05
Speaker 1: the field of play. He was influential and important on
25:10
Speaker 1: the US cultural stage, and other people acknowledged this right
25:15
Speaker 1: very much. So, I mean, we talked about how he
25:17
Speaker 1: was able to influence that decision of starting two black
25:21
Speaker 1: pictures against one another in the ninety one All Star Game.
25:26
Speaker 1: Also that year, he went on to win the World
25:29
Speaker 1: Series with the Pirates um and one of his mentors
25:35
Speaker 1: was a Puerto Rican player, also black, by the name
25:38
Speaker 1: of Roberto Clemente, who was himself an outspoken opponent of
25:44
Speaker 1: racism in baseball, and he and Ellis ended up being
25:49
Speaker 1: on a version of the Pirates that had nine black players,
25:54
Speaker 1: and it really kind of was right on this turning
25:56
Speaker 1: point of culture where black culture became much more mainstream,
26:00
Speaker 1: like we talked about earlier, and players on the team
26:04
Speaker 1: talk less about this being a historic thing and just
26:06
Speaker 1: being about the fact that everyone was fantastic baseball players.
26:10
Speaker 1: So he really helped turn that conversation around to the
26:13
Speaker 1: point where he actually got a very important letter um
26:18
Speaker 1: from Jackie Robinson. And actually here's a clip of doc
26:22
Speaker 1: reading a bit of this letter from that documentary called
26:25
Speaker 1: No No, I read your comments in our paper the
26:28
Speaker 1: last few days and one, you don't know how much
26:30
Speaker 1: you appreciate your courage and honesty. In my oprainion, progress
26:35
Speaker 1: for today's players will only come from this kind of dedication.
26:39
Speaker 1: I'm sure also you know some of the possible consequences.
26:43
Speaker 1: The news media, while knowing full well you're right and honest,
26:47
Speaker 1: will use every means to get back at you. That
26:52
Speaker 1: will be times when you will ask yourself is worth
26:56
Speaker 1: it all? I can only say that it is. And
26:59
Speaker 1: even though you will want to yield in the loan room,
27:03
Speaker 1: your own feeling about yourself will be most important. Trying
27:07
Speaker 1: to have to be left alone. So he goes on
27:10
Speaker 1: to say, try to get more players to understand your
27:12
Speaker 1: views and you will find great support. You have made
27:14
Speaker 1: a real contribution. I surely hope your great ability continues.
27:19
Speaker 1: That ability will determine the success of your dedication and honesty.
27:23
Speaker 1: I again appreciate what you're doing. Continued success, Jackie Robinson
27:28
Speaker 1: and you can read the full letter on various sites online.
27:34
Speaker 1: Just search for Jackie Robinson and doc Ellis. This leads
27:38
Speaker 1: us to perhaps one of the most important points of
27:42
Speaker 1: the story, which is the following. It is very easy,
27:46
Speaker 1: it is tempting, and it is guess fun to think
27:50
Speaker 1: of doc Ellis solely as a guy who said I
27:54
Speaker 1: started having a crazy idea and the fourth inning that
27:57
Speaker 1: Richard Nixon was the home plate umpire I thought I
28:00
Speaker 1: was pitching a baseball to Jimmy Hendrix and so on.
28:03
Speaker 1: But that is a mischaracterization. We're defining an entire person
28:08
Speaker 1: by one afternoon in their life. And as Brittany Dela
28:14
Speaker 1: Kritaz argues in a Rolling Stone article, how Doc Ellis,
28:18
Speaker 1: player who pitched a new hitter on LSD, has misremembered,
28:21
Speaker 1: it is better, and more importantly, it is more accurate
28:25
Speaker 1: to remember him as an outspoken advocate not just for
28:30
Speaker 1: racial equality, but also for sobriety. Doc Ellis retired from
28:35
Speaker 1: baseball in nineteen eighty, and he didn't have some egregious
28:41
Speaker 1: injury that rendered him physically incapable of playing the game.
28:45
Speaker 1: According to him, he lost interest in the game and
28:48
Speaker 1: in that same year he entered rehab. He stayed for
28:51
Speaker 1: forty days at a location in Wickenburg, Arizona, known as
28:56
Speaker 1: the Meadows, and it wasn't until night or that he
29:01
Speaker 1: revealed he had pitched this no hitter under the influence
29:05
Speaker 1: of LSD, and once achieving sobriety, he spent the rest
29:10
Speaker 1: of his life helping other people escape drug addiction, which
29:15
Speaker 1: is which is commendable, you know, And he's he spent
29:19
Speaker 1: twenty eight years doing this. Yeah, he was no joke
29:23
Speaker 1: about it either. I mean he brought that same bravado
29:26
Speaker 1: and intensity that he brought to the game um and
29:31
Speaker 1: that he used to not take any crap from anybody
29:34
Speaker 1: in terms of the way he dealt with racism. He
29:37
Speaker 1: brought that same energy to helping people escape their demons
29:41
Speaker 1: and their addictions and not um taking no for an
29:44
Speaker 1: answer and not putting up with anyone making excuses for themselves. Yeah.
29:50
Speaker 1: And he had worked as a counselor in Beverly Hills.
29:54
Speaker 1: He had worked in jails and institutions and juvenile detention
29:59
Speaker 1: center ers. And you know, you kind of have to wonder,
30:03
Speaker 1: And I don't know whether there's an answer to this,
30:05
Speaker 1: but you kind of have to wonder why, out of
30:08
Speaker 1: the almost three decades of work he did helping people
30:12
Speaker 1: achieve sobriety, he is still known for one, granted, one
30:17
Speaker 1: amazing game, but one LSD influenced game in I don't
30:24
Speaker 1: know what the answer is, I mean, from his own mouth.
30:28
Speaker 1: Apparently one of his favorite phrases around the house was
30:32
Speaker 1: f baseball Um. He apparently, according to this fantastic ESPN article,
30:38
Speaker 1: felt very used up and abused by it, having started
30:42
Speaker 1: at it at such a young age, and despite achieving
30:45
Speaker 1: such a great success, it being a very big part
30:49
Speaker 1: of his young adult life that possibly led to some
30:54
Speaker 1: of these substance abuse problems to help deal with pain
30:57
Speaker 1: that he had in his arm from the ring the
31:00
Speaker 1: ball so hard all the time, from traveling around, being
31:03
Speaker 1: constantly on the road, feeling a little uprooted and isolated.
31:07
Speaker 1: And this is these are his own words from the documentary.
31:10
Speaker 1: Uh So, you know, I could see how that would
31:12
Speaker 1: be a complicated relationship. It's something that gave him much
31:15
Speaker 1: success and accolades, but he never played a game sober.
31:22
Speaker 1: He did tried to one time in nine gave it
31:25
Speaker 1: a shot and started warming up in the bullpen, only
31:27
Speaker 1: to realize that he had quote forgotten how to throw.
31:31
Speaker 1: It's interesting because it ties into something that people call
31:34
Speaker 1: state dependent learning. Have you heard of this? I have.
31:37
Speaker 1: It's the idea that the substances influencing your body when
31:43
Speaker 1: you are learning or engaging in a certain skill then
31:48
Speaker 1: have an effect on your performance and that skill. So,
31:51
Speaker 1: for instance, a more wholesome version of this would be, uh,
31:55
Speaker 1: the idea that when you drink coffee and you're studying
31:59
Speaker 1: something then you are going to be more likely to
32:02
Speaker 1: successfully recall it when you are drinking coffee again. Right,
32:06
Speaker 1: that's a very at base explanation, but it can extend
32:10
Speaker 1: to other substances as well. Oh, I should also mention
32:14
Speaker 1: he was he was an advocate for the treatment of
32:18
Speaker 1: sickle cell that's right. He was able to get funding
32:22
Speaker 1: and somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred and forty
32:24
Speaker 1: million dollars for that disease that was largely misunderstood and
32:29
Speaker 1: a huge problem for the African American community. In sort
32:33
Speaker 1: of returned to baseball when he served as a player
32:36
Speaker 1: and coach for the St. Petersburg Pelicans of the Senior
32:40
Speaker 1: Professional Baseball Association, but that was I think more for
32:43
Speaker 1: the love of the game. He also had a little
32:46
Speaker 1: stint in acting, I think, where he was in a
32:48
Speaker 1: movie with Michael Keaton, Yeah, Gung Ho, which was directed
32:52
Speaker 1: by Ron Howard. In two thousand and seven, Doc Ellis
32:57
Speaker 1: was diagnosed with cirrhosis and was placed on the list
33:01
Speaker 1: for a liver transplant, and he did pass away in
33:04
Speaker 1: two thousand because unfortunately he had already sustained some damage
33:07
Speaker 1: to his heart and it was too risky to do
33:10
Speaker 1: a liver transplant, and yeah, you can't help it. I
33:14
Speaker 1: think that that liver problems like that were the result
33:18
Speaker 1: of a lifetime of that substance abuse. Despite having dealt
33:22
Speaker 1: with that and been a huge beacon of hope for
33:25
Speaker 1: others that we're dealing with those problems, that stuff does
33:28
Speaker 1: catch up to you. It's It's absolutely true, and it's
33:31
Speaker 1: a shame that he was not around to see No No,
33:35
Speaker 1: a documentary which came out in two thousand and fourteen,
33:38
Speaker 1: a few years after his passing. UH He was interred
33:43
Speaker 1: at the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California. And although
33:47
Speaker 1: doc Ellis may have physically left us today, his legacy
33:51
Speaker 1: continues on. And it's not just a story about again
33:57
Speaker 1: an amazing afternoon in Bay s Ball. It's a story
34:01
Speaker 1: about a man who struggled first two save himself, then
34:08
Speaker 1: to improve society, and then ultimately to save others that
34:13
Speaker 1: he met in similar situations. That's beautiful, it really is,
34:16
Speaker 1: and we hope that you think so too. This is
34:18
Speaker 1: a fun one to look into. UM cannot recommend enough
34:22
Speaker 1: that ESPN article from Outside the Lines called the Long
34:25
Speaker 1: Strange Trip of doc Ellis, Meet the man behind Baseball's
34:28
Speaker 1: most psychedelic myth. You can find that online in full
34:32
Speaker 1: by Patrick Kruby. Um. It's also got some fantastic photos
34:36
Speaker 1: and illustrations by Joe Ciardello. UM also cannot recommend enough
34:41
Speaker 1: the documentary No No a documentary. UM. You can stream
34:46
Speaker 1: that on Amazon Prime. I think it's like a couple
34:49
Speaker 1: of bucks and well worth it. It's money well spent
34:53
Speaker 1: in the meantime. Although the podcast is over for today,
34:57
Speaker 1: if you have a hankering to encounter more his story
35:00
Speaker 1: of the Ridiculous Variety, you can find us on Instagram.
35:03
Speaker 1: You can find us on Facebook. You can find us
35:05
Speaker 1: on Twitter. We'd especially like to recommend our community page,
35:08
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Historians, where you can interact with your fellow listeners,
35:14
Speaker 1: all of whom, as far as I have found, are witty,
35:17
Speaker 1: funny and insightful. It's true memes a plenty, a lot
35:21
Speaker 1: of fun to be had there, So check it out
35:23
Speaker 1: and also do us a solid and leave us a
35:25
Speaker 1: nice review on iTunes because it makes us feel good
35:28
Speaker 1: in our tuppies. And stay tuned when we return very
35:31
Speaker 1: soon in our next episode to crack the case for
35:34
Speaker 1: a question you might not have known you had When
35:38
Speaker 1: did Fido become a stand in name for dogs? Here boy,
35:42
Speaker 1: here boy, while you're waiting for a dog that heard
35:46
Speaker 1: that through your headphones to run towards you. We would
35:49
Speaker 1: like to thank super producer Casey Pegram. We would like
35:52
Speaker 1: to thank our research assistant Christopher hassi Oders. We'd like
35:55
Speaker 1: to thank Alex Williams, friend of the show, who composed
35:58
Speaker 1: our theme, and most importantly, we'd like to thank you
36:01
Speaker 1: for for hanging out with us and being a lot
36:04
Speaker 1: of fun. We'll see you next time. M