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For Ellis, a Long, Strange Trip to a No-Hitter

...Forty years ago, Dock Ellis of the Pittsburgh Pirates raised the degree of difficulty to new, well, heights. He threw a no-hitter with Richard M. Nixon calling balls and strikes and Jimi Hendrix, wielding a Fender Stratocaster instead of a Louisville Slugger, digging in at home plate.

Or at least that is what he thought while pitching under the influence of LSD.

Ellis walked eight and hit a batter but beat the Padres, 2-0, before 9,303 fans who turned up at San Diego Stadium on June 12, 1970, for the opener of a doubleheader.

“I do think it’s a singularly majestic feat,” said Chris Isenberg, who last year produced “Dock Ellis and the LSD No-No,” an animated short film by James Blagden on Ellis’s no-hitter. “I have one experience on acid, and it involved staying up 72 hours straight and nearly having a nervous breakdown. I can’t imagine pitching a no-hitter on it. It’s like a perfect game times a million.”...
Read entire article at N YT