Worst Time of the Year

With the NBA season over and the NFL yet to start back up, it's officially the worst time of the year. Baseball dominates SportsCenter making for the most excruciating television known to sports fans around the globe. Shit, I would even settle for some soccer but the World Cup has already come and gone. Even NBA free agency is boring now, as Matt Barnes remains the most intriguing player on the market outside of washed up superstars like Shaq, Iverson and T-Mac.

And so, I've decided to post something baseball related. I know, I know. It goes against the Dank Game Manifesto (still in progress, by the way) to write about baseball, unless of course we are discussing how it's inherently boring, but I've come across an animated short from No Mas and artist James Blagden about baseball that's actually worthwhile. It's about a pitcher named Doc Ellis, who supposedly threw a no-hitter while tripping on LSD in 1970. So escape the throes of baseball season by sitting back and enjoying the coolest thing to ever happen in baseball other than Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier.

From No Mas:

In celebration of the greatest athletic achievement by a man on a psychedelic journey, No Mas and artist James Blagden proudly present the animated tale of Dock Ellis' legendary LSD no-hitter. In the past few years we've heard all too much about performance enhancing drugs from greenies to tetrahydrogestrinone, and not enough about performance inhibiting drugs. If our evaluation of the records of athletes like Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, Marion Jones, and Barry Bonds needs to be revised downwards with an asterisk, we submit that that Dock Ellis record deserves a giant exclamation point. Of the 263 no-hitters ever thrown in the Big Leagues, we can only guess how many were aided by steroids, but we can say without question that only one was ever thrown on acid.

Sadly, the great Dock Ellis died last December at 63. A year before, radio producers Donnell Alexander and Neille Ilel, had recorded an interview with Ellis in which the former Pirate right hander gave a moment by moment account of June 12, 1970, the day he no-hit the San Diego Padres. Alexander and Ilels original four minute piece appeared March 29, 2008 on NPRs Weekend America. When we stumbled across that piece this past June, Blagden and Isenberg were inspired to create a short animated film around the original audio.