So Bill "Spaceman" Lee was this huge stoner, professional pitcher in the 70s. Dude once pitched a no-no on acid. Then he became a cult figure. Appeared on the cover of High Times while still an active player. Here's an insightful reader's review of the High Times profile of him. Fans used to throw dimebags at him. He loved it.
http://thegoldensombrero.com/archives/5834
I thought Doc Ellis pitched the no hitter whilst taking the electric koolaid acid test? I didn't read this article yet though so I guess I will find out shortly. On that topic though - I think Ellis either walked or hit 8 batsmen in the course of his no-no. A few wild pitches are obviously forgivable when you consider the guy had a head full of acid and later admitted he thought he was pitching to Warner Brothers cartoon characters through the first few innings, but it seems to me that while still technically a no-hitter its not really in the spirit of the term. Its not like he was perfect and through no fault of his own an error was committed by the shortstop on a routine grounder which allowed a runner to reach first base. The dude was throwing bean balls at Bugs Bunny which seems like less of an accomplishment for a pitcher then when he fools a batter on a pitch and gets a dribbler down the line that the runner beats out for an infield hit. But for some reason the rules make unintentional wildness "good" because it preserves the no-hitter while intentionally inducing a ground ball that can be fielded can be "bad". It just seems like when pitching errors are present (and in Doc's case are rampant) there needs to be a new slightly less esteemed title to bestow upon a box score which contains 2 and 2/3 innings worth of batters reaching first base. But I'm on a whole bunch of mescalin right now so I have no idea what I'm saying.
ReplyDeleteThat's some in-depth-ass commentary! I like it. Yeah you're right it was Dock Ellis, not Spaceman Lee. I'm cool with wildness by the way, when I was 10 I threw a pitch over the backstop. Think about that. That's not easy to do.
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