Dave Sez

Email Of The Week

A friend of mine (you know him as pope ttb xxx from the Sports Shack) sent me a great story today. I thought I'd share.

I know baseball is not very high on your list, but here's a hardball story even you'll like. Most of us revere Dock Ellis as the man to pitch a no-hitter on acid, but my favorite baseball story is this:

May, 1974 -- Ellis single-handedly decided to break the Pirates out of their emotional slump, announcing that "We gonna get down. We gonna do the do. I'm going to hit these motherfuckers."

True to his word, in the first inning of the first regular season game he pitched against the Reds, Ellis hit leadoff batter Pete Rose in the ribs, then plunked Joe Morgan in the kidney, and loaded the bases by hitting Dan Driessen in the back. Tony Perez, batting cleanup, dodged a succession of Ellis' pitches to walk and force in a run.

The next hitter was Johnny Bench. "I tried to deck him twice," Ellis recalled. "I threw at his jaw, and he moved. I threw at the back of his head, and he moved." At this point, Pittsburgh manager Danny Murtaugh removed Ellis from the game.