For many years, my close friend Marv Foley and I have loved to laugh and discuss the infamous no hitter that Pittsburg Pirate Doc Ellis pitched while tripping on LSD.
In my book, this might well go down as the greatest feat in baseball history.
According to Doc:
“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.”
What’s not mentioned in the interview excerpted above was that Doc said he saw flames shoot out of the ball each time he threw it.