GO ASK ELLIS

Not long ago, major league baseball player Dock Ellis passed away. His best season was 1971, when he won 19 games for the World Series champion Pirates and was the starting pitcher for the National League in the All-Star Game. Ellis is probably best known for pitching a no-hitter while under the influence of LSD in 1970.

He didn't plan it that way. Ellis had been hanging out with friends in LA and was under the impression he had the day off when he ingested the powerful psychedelic.

"I was in Los Angeles, and the team was playing in San Diego, but I didn't know it. I had taken LSD..... I thought it was an off-day, that's how come I had it in me. I took the LSD at noon." At 1pm, his girlfriend and trip partner looked at the paper and said, "Dock, you're pitching today!"

Ellis boarded a shuttle flight to the ballpark and threw a no-hitter despite not being able to feel the ball or clearly see the batter or catcher.

"I can only remember bits and pieces of the game," Ellis recalled. "I was psyched. I had a feeling of euphoria. I was zeroed in on the glove, but I didn't hit the glove too much. I remember hitting a couple of 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. 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."

autographed ball: Dock Ellis, No Hitter 6-12-70

The dubious achievement inspired several songs, including "Dock Ellis" by Barbara Manning (performed by SF Seals), "Dock Ellis No-No" by Chuck Brodsky, and "America's Favorite Pastime" by folk singer by Todd Snider.

Listen to "America's Favorite Pastime" by Todd Snider, click the button below:

Listen to "Dock Ellis" by SF Seals, by clicking here:


Dock Ellis, American Hero

THE BIG SPEECH FOR THE BIG GAME

A mash-up of inspirational speeches, in and out of the locker room

Part of football mythology is the inspirational locker room speech. You know the one, where the coach rallies the troops at halftime to win the game for God, Country and the Gipper. Here are a few good ones jammed together in two minutes.

The best inspirational speech of all time--at least my favorite--didn't echo in some locker room reeking of sweat and Phiso-Hex--in fact, it wasn't even given by a coach. The best inspirational speech was delivered far from the jockstraps and Jacuzzis and hampers of damp dirty towels in a wild green patch of Northern France just before the Battle of Agincourt, on Saint Crispin's Day in 1415.


Henry V (played by Kenneth Branagh) rouses his exhausted troops with the stirring St. Crispin's Day speech (touched up a bit by William Shakespeare), a speech that changed the course of the Hundred Years War, and successfully destroyed the French home team advantage.

ROOFBALL

Roofball -- a combination of freestyle kicks and tricks mixing soccer and gymnastics and breakdancing. This is another sport I won't be playing. Just watching this clip is all the excercise I need. Maybe this video has been doctored, but I don't think so. Kudos to these roofball locos.

Here's a link to the Roofball Federation of America. Click here.

Thanks to Tommy for sending this my way.

SUPER BOWL SUNDAY

So tomorrow is Super Bowl Sunday. Get ready for the Pats/Giants game, with all the slow-mo instant replays of the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat -- sandwiched between extremely expensive beer commercials. Cool. And heart attacks; they seem to go up astronomically during the game, according to numerous news stories. Go easy on stress, and don't try those all-American scrimmages at home. Those guys are well-paid, highly-trained, steroid-enhanced, drug-filled professionals, and they're used to that kind of violence. Your wife is not -- or shouldn't be, anyway. Chill, dude. It's just a fricking game!

Perhaps unrelated to Super Coronaries, are Super Snacks. Owen, my research assistant, came across this statistic: If you took all the guacamole devoured on Super Bowl Sunday, and poured it on the football field it would be waist-high. That would certainly make the game more interesting, since it appears to be a Patriots blowout in the making. Actually, with all the computer enhancement, maybe they could simply reduce the patriots to three-quarter size, and have a fair fight. That would be cool. By the way, if you hate avocados, or think guacamole is too ethnic for your taste, any fried carbs will do, as long as you wash them down with sufficient quantities of beer. Here's a good sportsman's platter.

Of course, the commercials are where the money is. Corporations pay billions of dollars for spots on the Super Bowl broadcast, and unveil advertisements designed specifically for drunken sportsfans. Enjoy the game!