(reposted from the comments of the Doumit thread, cause I think it's an interesting question and didn't want it to get buried)

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Today is the 40th anniversary of the game Dock Ellis no-hit San Diego, supposedly under the influence of LSD.
Some people, including Bill James, have questioned whether this actually happened, but to me the amazing thing is there have been several songs written about the supposed feat, including this one:

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg9DXRP4Ywo

And this one:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG2SPjcKM4M

And this one:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYtRZGMpdt0

And probably some more.

It even inspired a Robin Williams routine:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO281JqXQdc&feature=related

It should not go unnoted, is what I'm saying.

Dock Ellis, RIP.

You haven't heard much from me for a week.

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Next Friday I'll be going to see

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I'm sensing some defeatism around these parts for this weekend's titanic series, and I ... WON'T ... HAVE IT!

Sure, we just recently rejoined the majors leagues. But we are playing good ball. We have a fine pitching staff. And it's about damn time we started showing some attitude about it.

So the Red Sox are good. Big fat hairy deal. So are the Phillies, and we took them for two in Our House. Bring it on, Bosox, and we'll show you the same kick-in-the-ass courtesy or die trying.

We shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

Vlad and I got into a debate the other day about the DH.

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Most of you should be familiar with this, so ...

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Watching Maz run the bases on 10/13/60.

Went to the Waterfront last night to see Game 7 on the big screen, and you know what? That's a hell of a
ballgame, especially the last two innings, when everything weird happens.

The DVD goes on sale today and MLB Network shows it tomorrow, and I can't
recommend highly enough that you see it one way or another (especially with
someone you care about; I took my dad, and he told me about being in the
Navy at the time and rigging up a way to pull in the signal to the ship -- 
he was the guy up high adjusting the makeshift "attenna" and he arrived in
front of the screen just in time to see the ball hit Kubek in the throat.
I'm 53 and dad's 72 and I'd never heard that story before.).

Stuff happened that I don't think I knew about or thought much about before. For example, on the pitch before he homered, Hal Smith almost certainly struck out on a checked swing (a sort of rueful chuckle went through the crowd in the theater: "Ooooo -- hahaha!"). But in 1960 the catcher couldn't point to first base and ask that ump for a second opinion. My memory is that few if any checked swings in the game got called strikes, which maybe helps explain something else I don't think I knew: There wasn't one strikeout in the game.

One thing you notice almost immediately is how fast they played the game.
The hitter gets in the batter's box and he STAYS there, no stepping out and
pissing around with the straps on his gloves and checking his cup and all
that stuff everybody does for 30 seconds between every damn pitch now. For
one thing, nobody was wearing gloves (I assume they were all wearing cups).
Face was delivering pitches every 9-10 seconds, and that really, really
served to ratchet up the drama because things keep moving.

The drama ... it's amazing how you can feel the tension build even when
you're certain of the outcome. There are short segments every three innings
or so where Bob Costas talks with several of the players from the game while
they're watching it, and at one point in the eighth or ninth inning they
inset a close-up of Bobby Richardson turning to Dick Groat and, with a big
smile, saying, "This really IS exciting, isn't it?" It sure is.

And if you still need a deal-sealer: 4 1/2 innings of Bob Prince (plus his
postgame interviews, which are priceless) and 4 1/2 innings of Mel Allen
doing play by play, and lots of views of Forbes Field.

I would have been OK with whoever won.

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Bud Selig, to the AP:

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The Mad Capper

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Carlos Marmol

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Joggin' Ronny Paulino

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My last five games at PNC Park:

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It's possible

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This isn't me offering any opinion,

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PHOENIX, Ariz. (AP)

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The season just went into the toilet before it started

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The Associated Press reports:

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The HoF ballot came out recently, which means it won't be long before Dave Parker starts his annual campaign to get himself elected.

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To all my BucsDugout friends:

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I saw yesterday where Mike Tomlin said he took responsbility for the Steelers debacle on Sunday and I thought, "What a guy, huh? The head coach taking responsibility for a loss. How about that? Of COURSE you're responsbile for the loss, jagoff. Who ELSE do you think should be respon ..."

And that's when I remembered Jim Tracy.

And that's when I did a slow clap for Mike Tomlin.

 

*clap ... clap ... clap ... clap ...*

*sigh*

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Done for the year

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I ran an AP story in the paper today in which Dave Parker complains that if Jim Rice can be in the Hall, why can't he? Their offensive stats are somewhat similar, but of course Dave was a far superior defensive player. (I'd argue that if Jim Rice was no better than a guy who threw away five prime years of his career to being a fat druggie he doesn't belong in the Hall, but what's done is done.)

"There are very few who went in recently who were as important to the team as I was. I was always The Guy or one of The Guys ... I was probably one of the most instrumental guys as far as my team having success."

He's right about that, which I'll get to.

Dave's convinced, of course, that his dabbling in drugs is the reason he's being blackballed. I think he's right, but I also think he way understates his involvement. He kind of makes it sound like he was standing on the street one day and someone threw a bag of coke that hit him in the face and he accidentally inhaled.

Not quite. There was an open drug market running in the Pirates clubhouse in those days, and Dave Parker was, in fact, The Guy in that clubhouse. If he gave a sh*t about his career and life and the careers and lives of his teammates, not to mention the integrity of the game and the embarrassment that whole episode caused the team and the game, he could have been "instrumental" in putting a stop to it. He could have gone to management and told them what was going on, rather than facilitating the drug use and setting a fine example for his teammates who didn't have half his talent. He could have been The Guy.

But he didn't because he was right in the middle of it. So: No Hall for you, Dave. I don't care for Jim Rice (see below), who for all I know unloaded the greenie jar down his gullet before he took the field every day, but at the very least he didn't sully himself, his team and his game with the kind of sordid adventures Dave Parker did.

   BBN-NATIONALS-STRASBURG

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- Washington Nationals president Stan Kasten says the team has made
No. 1 overall draft pick Stephen Strasburg a record-breaking contract offer. Kasten
also tells The Associated Press there is a ``very real possibility, with 48 hours
to go, that Stephen may choose not to sign with us.''

Blah blah blah, need to add a bunch more wordfs cause I'm too lazy now to make this a FanShot instead.

"Give me 25 guys who fight. Give me that over talent."

I've seen a hue and cry in some places for the Pirates to keep Minky around as long as they can as a sort of coach on the field, to see if he can impart some of his fire and desire to the other guys on the team, and I'm OK with that, I guess, as long as he's still on the field.

But if he really believes what he said, I don't want him as a coach anywhere else, because he's full of brown stuff. This isn't football, where you can perhaps overcome your physical limitations by being more willing to throw yourself headlong into mayhem than the other guy.

(A side note, I was thinking the other day about a guy I knew in high school who started for our football team as a 5-foot-4, maybe 150-pound linebacker. Like a lot of little guys, he overcompensated: He had a Charles Atlas physique and was one tough sumbitch, but for all that he was never going to win a slam-dunk contest against Julius Erving -- and yeah, I know about Spud Webb, but never mind.)

Baseball's far more subtle than that, and really doesn't call for any physical interaction between opposing players. It requires hand-eye coordination, and timing, and patience, and some thought, and being willing to fight at the drop of a glove means nothing in those areas. There are a million morons in America who think they know how to fight (ask any cop how many he runs into on a weekend), and they can be entertaining to watch, but there are only a few hundred who can hit major league pitching with any consistency.

In short, give me talent, and if we're playing a team full of Minkys we'll kick their asses eight or nine out of 10 times. But I'm not sure Minky understands this. I'd fear that a coach Minky or, worse, a manager Minky would show a preference for guys like him over guys who can actually, you know, play ball well. And we'd have gritty David Eckstein at shortstop.

It's also why I don't get agitated as some of us do when guys like Tracy and Russell never leave the dugout to argue.  When someone can offer me more than anecdotal evidence that this sort of grandstanding actually wins ballgames, I'll join the chorus.

 

Found this in a piece on MLB.com about minor-league baseball announcers. I've often wanted to do this to Littlefield myself:

Landon Sears, the young Hickory Crawdads' announcer, saw his professional livelihood flash before his eyes during a recent game.

"At our home games, we do this between-inning promotion where our game-day employees throw Hamburger Helper into the crowd," explained Sears. "A lot of the time, they'll throw some up to me in the booth, and then I'll toss it back down to the crowd."

"Well, at a recent game we had [Pittsburgh Pirates general manager] Dave Littlefield in attendance, and he was nice enough to come on my broadcast for an interview. So, sure enough, as soon as we come back from break this packet of Hamburger Helper flies into the booth and smacks Littlefield right on the cheek. I just froze. I didn't know what to do. Fortunately, he took it stride. Just picked it up and placed it back up against his cheek. He even posed for a picture like that."