In celebration of the greatest athletic achievement by a man on a psychedelic journey, No Mas and artist James Blagden present the animated tale of Dock Ellis' legendary LSD no-hitter.

In the past few years we’ve all heard a lot about performance enhancing drugs from greenies to tetrahydrogestrinone, and not enough about performance inhibiting drugs. If this 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, you can only guess how many were aided by steroids, but you 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 the artists stumbled across that piece this past June, Blagden and Isenberg were inspired to create a short animated film around the original audio. Amazing.

Thanks to Juxtapoz contributing writer Joey Garfield (who is this month’s Barnstormers featured guest editor) for sending this gem our way.

Tweet

Share on Tumblr