Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

'Dockumentary' goes beyond Ellis' LSD no-hitter

Dock Ellis’ story is one of a flamboyant baseball star in the 1970s, how he misbehaved, and how he redeemed himself in the end.

THEY JOSTLED Dock Ellis awake around noon, the story goes, their voices shrill with anxiety. He was in Los Angeles and his team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, was in San Diego, playing that night.

"You're pitching today," they yelped.

"Noooo," Ellis moaned. "What happened to yesterday?"

Yesterday was an off day, so he'd gotten permission to go home, to Gardena, Calif. Took some LSD, hopped into a rental car, knowing the drug would kick in when he got to Los Angeles.

Took some more when he got there, making everything seem kinder, gentler, swirling in a technicolor glaze. And now, yesterday was gone, wiped from the blackboard of his mind by the seductive drug the Beatles called Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

It was Friday, June 12, 1970. Ellis sprinted to the airport, flew to San Diego, scurried to the stadium. Got there at 4:30. Game time was 6:05. Pitched a no-hitter, an ugly no-hitter. Walked eight, hit one in a 2-0 win.

"Out there, high as a Georgia pine," Ellis confessed. "Didn't see the hitters. All I could tell was if they were on the right side or the left side. My teammates, they knew I was high. But they didn't know what I was high on."

"No No: A Dockumentary" is playing at the Roxy. It begins with that no-hitter Ellis pitched while tripping on acid. It's a fascinating look at baseball in the '70s. It's a gaudy portrait of that Pittsburgh team featuring Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell and Dave Parker. It ends with a life redeemed. And, oh yeah, there are elements of domestic abuse that make the film painfully timely.

Ellis pranced to the tune of his own brass band. Wore curlers in his hair. Different colors. The commissioner threatened a 10-day suspension, then relented. Ellis reveals the method to his madness. The perm allowed him to reach back and grab a handful of sweat. That made the baseball do unpredictable things, a sanitary spitball.

Ellis talked eloquent trash. Called himself "the Muhammad Ali of baseball" until Ali showed up one day in the Pirates' clubhouse. Ellis shuffled and jabbed and jabbered. Ali was content to float, bemused, just barely out of reach.

"And then," teammate Al Oliver recalls, "Ali flicked that one punch, that one left jab, to Dock's chest. Folded him."

In the film, Ellis justifies the drug use, saying, "That's the way I was dealing with the fear of failure." He says he'd gulp a fistful of "greenies" before a start. The amphetamine of choice was Dexamyl, groping for an edge in a pill bottle.

By 1971, Ellis was a vital part of the rotation. Was 14-3 at the All-Star break. Knew that Vida Blue would be starting the All-Star Game for the American League. Painted the National League manager, Sparky Anderson, into an uncomfortable corner, yelping that he'd never start "two brothers" against each other. Ellis got the start.

Didn't like the arrogance of the Big Red Machine. Interrupted the Reds' batting practice with a warning, said he'd hit every one of them his next start. Hit Pete Rose, hit Joe Morgan, hit the next guy. Did not hit Tony Perez, out of respect.

Felt he owned the inside part of the plate, maybe 66 percent. Next 14 percent was community property. The hitter could claim the outside 20 percent, but if he started leaning that way he might find a Bowie Kuhn-autographed baseball lodged in his ribs.

On Sept. 1, with Ellis pitching, the Pirates started nine black and Latino players, first all-minority lineup in big-league history. Scored eight runs in the first two innings and beat the Phillies, 10-7.

Beat Baltimore in the World Series with sparks seeming to flare from Clemente's cleats. And then Clemente died a year later, on that mercy mission to help earthquake victims in Nicaragua. Ellis' drug use apparently escalated.

The film tells of how he tried to choke his first wife, Paula, who left him. And how he terrorized his second wife, Austine, thrusting a pistol into her mouth. She fled, never to return.

Soon after, he walked into a rehab center. Walked out clean and sober. Became a drug- and alcohol-abuse counselor. Died, of liver disease, at 63. It is a good story, well-told, worth seeing.