Dock Ellis pitched 10 seasons in the major leagues. He won 138 games, struck out 1136 batters, was an all-star and a World Series champion. He was the Charles Barkley of his day, outspoken, beloved by fans and despised by baseball traditionalists. He was flashy, an athletic “Super Fly” who drove a red Cadillac with trim on the outside and a vanity plate reading “DOCK.”
Ellis grew up in Los Angeles and began drinking and using drugs at age 14. He attended Gardena High School and tried out for the baseball team. One of the players, a white pitcher, called Ellis “a spearchucker.” Ellis knocked the guy out and then quit baseball to play basketball. In his senior year, Ellis was caught smoking marijuana in the bathroom. The school agreed not to punish him if he joined the baseball team.
He was named all-league and was signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1964. During his first minor league game, a white fan called him “Stepin Fetchit.” Ellis grabbed a bat and chased the fan through the crowd. He was considered a can’t miss prospect. This contributed to his fear of failure. In 1966, he began taking amphetamines before games. He took Dexedrine (greenies), a central nervous system stimulant used to treat ADHD and narcolepsy. It allowed him to throw faster, have better control and garner the confidence to throw pitches he’d never tried.
“You’re more in tune with what you’re doing, you’re zeroed in and you’re like what they call in the zone.” He started out with one greenie, then two. “I used to take ’em, shake ’em, throw ’em. If they’d fall down, I wouldn’t take ’em. If they stood up, I did. I would try to out-milligram any opponent. Before a game I’d take a maximum of 15 or 17 pills. Not to say I didn’t have the stuff to pitch in the major leagues, I was trying to get an edge.”
Years later Ellis told reporters that he pitched every game under the influence of drugs. In 1968, the Pirates promoted Ellis to the majors. He pitched in relief and earned a 6–5 record. He made the starting rotation a year later. He was named an all-star in 1971 with a record of 19–9. What he’s most remembered for is a feat no other pitcher has achieved.
On June 12, 1970 the Pirates were scheduled to play a double-header in San Diego against the Padres. The day before the game was an off day. Manager Danny Murtaugh gave the team a day off. Ellis opted to take a $9.50 flight to his home in Los Angeles. At the San Diego airport, Ellis dosed himself with LSD. He rented a car at LAX, hit the 405 Freeway then drove to the home of an old girlfriend named Mitzi. They smoked weed, drank screwdrivers and partied through the night.
Ellis told the Pittsburgh Press in 1984, “I woke up the next day and she tells me ‘you gotta pitch today.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about? I pitch tomorrow.’ And she says, ‘Oh no.’ And I look at the schedule and see my name and say, ‘What happened to yesterday?’” It was noon and the game was scheduled for 6:05. Ellis took another tab of acid then boarded a plane back to San Diego. He hailed a taxi at the airport and told the driver, “Get me to the fucking stadium. I got to pitch.” He arrived 90 minutes before game time just as the acid was kicking in.
“I only remember bits and pieces of the game,” Ellis told USA Today in 1985. “I had a feeling of euphoria.” Early in the game, Ellis told Pirates catcher Jerry May that he couldn’t see the pitch signals due to blurry vision. May put reflective tape on his fingers to help Ellis focus. Ellis was wild. He walked eight batters and hit one with a pitch. One fastball crossed up May so bad, it struck him in the mask. Twice, Ellis stumbled after his follow through and nearly fell. Somehow he survived the early innings without allowing a hit. “I didn’t see the hitters,” Ellis told NPR in 2008. “All I could tell was if they were on the right side or the left side.” Ellis obsessively cleaned mud from his spikes between innings. “The opposing team and my teammates knew I was high, but they didn’t know what I was high on. I had acid in me and I didn’t know what I looked like. I lost all concept of time.”
Ellis told High Times Magazine in 1987 that he “saw a comet tail behind his pitches and a multicolored path” to the catcher. In 2010, The New York Times quoted Ellis as saying, “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.”
Ellis told Lysergic World Magazine, “I was zeroed in on the (catcher’s) glove, but I didn’t hit the glove too much. 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. They say I had about three to 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.”
Ellis told NPR’s Donnell Alexander, “I was high as a Georgia pine. It was easier pitching with LSD because I was so used to medicating myself.” Ellis confessed to Alexander that he obtained the acid from a UCLA research laboratory
Bill Mazeroski made a great play in the seventh inning to keep the no-hitter alive. Willie Stargell hit two solo homers to account for the only runs of the game. The final out was a lazy fly ball to center fielder Mark Williams. Teammates mobbed Ellis which must have been terrifying for someone frying on acid.
Ellis never used LSD again while playing though he continued using amphetamines. He regretted taking acid on the mound since it tainted his greatest athletic accomplishment. His psychedelic feat became the stuff of pop culture legend. Poet Laureate Donald Hall wrote a book about the event, Robin Williams turned it into a comedy sketch and the game inspired a 2014 film called No No: A Dockumentary.
After retiring, Ellis got sober and became a youth counselor helping troubled teens overcome drug abuse. Ellis died in 2008 at 63 from complications of liver disease.