There was even a petition demanding that Major League Baseball release footage of the game.
Hruby notes that the Ellis no-hitter has been used by comedian Robin Williams during a stand-up routine, an art gallery displayed a baseball coated with acid, and that it has been the subject of paintings, T-shirts, and surfboard designs. The mere notion of an LSD no-hitter stands as the counterculture answer to Babe Ruth’s called shot. He might have said that just to jerk somebody off.”
Hruby quotes Pirates trainer and Ellis’s friend Tony Bartirome, as saying, “Dock only gave up one hard hit that night, on a ball fielded by Mazeroski. For everyone else, the game is far out, man, a funky bit of sports folklore, appropriated and embellished, passed around like an old baseball card.” “For the psychedelically inclined, the mere notion of LSD no-no stands as the counterculture answer to Babe Ruth’s called shot, the pinnacle of mastering one’s high. That much is certain.” And little else about the events of that day are certain. Hruby cooly and cleverly refers to the game as an “Electric Kool-Aid No-No.” This is an allusion to Tom Wolfe’s 1968 book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, a non-fiction novel that chronicles the doings of novelist Ken Kesey (author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) and his band of Merry Pranksters. Journalist Patrick Hruby wrote “ The Long, Strange Trip of Dock Ellis” for ESPN’s Outside the Lines in August 2012. The feat remains a bone of contention forty-five years later! But not any no-hitter: Ellis claims to have been under the influence of LSD when he did what relatively pitchers have ever done. On June 12, 1970, Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis pitched a no-hitter against the San Diego Padres. Well, how about LSD and baseball? And rather than answer that question, take a few minutes out of your day and watch this brief, entertaining, enlightening video about just that topic. They sponsored the broadcast of the games because and what goes better together than beer and baseball? Ballantine was a local brewery and its beer was very affordable and very popular.
I GREW UP HEARING the refrain “Baseball and Ballantine” sung on endless commercials while watching Phillies games on television in Northeastern Pennsylvania in the early ’60s.