Dock Ellis: Part II

Like I alluded to in the other post, Ellis was essentially chased out of Pittsburgh. A lot of that had to do with race and racial politics. The fact that Dock wasn't winning, at least like Dock and everyone else THOUGHT he should have been winning, provided an opening. The book Dock Ellis in the Country of Baseball ends with Ellis's trade to the Yankis.

Now, the book is one of the better baseball bios I've read, but it's most interesting for what it tells us about ourselves, as fans. Donald Hall, the former Poet Laureate, wrote the book, and for all the flowing prose it reads as though it were written by a talented school boy. Hall gives us fairly uncritical looks at Ellis and the Pirates of the early '70s behind that scenes which, while commendable insofar as he is "non-judgmental," teeters into a strange form of enabling. Hall, more than a reporter, more than a fan of the game, is someone enthralled by Dock Ellis. The portrait we get is more of a mis-understood anti-hero than the youth of a man who would go on to die of a "liver ailment" (also seen: cirrhosis). It's strange how, even in death, we clear the house of all the mirrors to keep our heroes from seeing themselves as they are: multifaceted and as flawed as the rest of us, as if our mutual non-recognition of who they are somehow made them who we want them to be.

In the early 1960's, an old man came in to my grandfather's barbershop lamenting that he'd never been to a MLB game even though he'd been a fan all his life. That Saturday my grandfather closed the shop so he, my dad, the old man, and another customer who'd been in the shop at the time could drive down to Atlanta to catch a Braves/Giants game. That's just the kind of guy my grandfather was. It was also my dad's first game and he still recalls that Juan Marichal was on the hill that day.

My grandfather, like Dock Ellis, was also an alcoholic most of his life, with everything that entailed. In fact, one of my father's earliest memories of my granddad is overhearing a conversation he was having on the phone with one of his "other women." He could also be spectacularly violent, so much so that on one one occasion my grandmother started shooting at him to get him out of the house.

And believe me when I say that all of these things had a profound effect on my dad, even though he never talks about any of it. It explains a lot about who he is. His struggles are his father's struggles, and if he has failed in different ways over the years I know, for a fact, that as his son I never went through what he went through.

At the point I'm sure you're asking what any of this has to do with baseball, much less Dock Ellis? Well, reading the book, and reading the silences Hall would interject about certain subjects like the undoing of Dock's first marriage (wife couldn't take 'it'), I couldn't help but wonder if they, the people most dependent on Dock, would have told a different story? One not about a pitcher always on the brink who loved the good life and was an important political activist, but about an absent father or unfaithful husband and the pain that comes from those relationships. Good people, even great people, can also be very bad people who make very poor decisions. There is no line, no contradiction.

It makes me wonder if, when our heroes are dead, how else are we to make sense of things other than by sanding off the jagged edges of their stories so they can RIP and the rest of us begin to forget what we can't forgive?

The Passion of Dock Ellis: Part 1

It's almost a year now since Dock Ellis passed away, so recent that BB Reference hasn't yet updated his stats page with the date he passed (12/19/2008). The lifetime stats are right at league average (ERA+ 104) so it's easy to forget the player he was and focus on his outsized personality. HIs best year was 1971, when he went 19-9 with a 3.06 ERA, 11 CG, and 2 shutouts, and that was during a 5-year run when he was one of the better pitchers in the game. He made his only AS appearance that year, and according to his bio (up to 1975) Ellis played the media a bit to get the NL start against the AL's Vida Blue. On June 12, 1970 he no-hit the Padres in a game most famous for reasons other than being a no-hitter.

Ellis is the kind of player we should refer to as a "stuff" guy, one who has immense talent, flashes of utter brilliance, who constantly turns corners and begins to cash in on his potential only to remain tantalizingly, amazingly, almost but not quite great. In short, the only thing a guy like that doesn't have is the results.

None of that is to take away from Ellis's career, which was solid. He is, after all, a player I collect. It's just that, even in the bio, he himself says over and over that the elusive 20+ breakout season is up ahead, right around the bend...only it never materializes. Tomorrow I'll go into the bio a bit, but for now wanted to get to these:

1975. One this that's evident is that Dock Ellis had a rare, under appreciated sense of humor. You've seen this spring training, behind the removable batting cage shot on baseball cards since the 1950's, but check out Dock's right hand. Isn't that a batting glove!? These shots tend to be so over posed and odd that I've often wondered if players would exaggerate their follow thoughs and swings on purpose. Dock Ellis's batting glove suggests that Ellis relishes the artifice of it all, and genuinely enjoys tossing in a wink that, apparently, no one caught or decided to remove.

1976, the year Ellis was traded to the Yankis. I imagine the Topps people wasted hundreds on paint airbrushing his Pirates uni into Yanki pinstripes. And it's sad, really. Dock was pretty much run out of town. Through his poker face on both cards you get a sense of anxiety, and none of the playfulness of the year before. The stadium is empty, the fans have gone home (or not shown up, or not shown up yet?) and Dock Ellis is virtually alone with his worry amidst the echoes.

These three are the only Docks I have, so I'm obviously open to trades.

Have a great one!

We interrupt the CC lovefest for more '76 Topps

I've fallen way behind on posting highlights from the '76 Topps set and Bruce Kison is not amused. What's more he's a pitcher who's put on a batting helmet, so we know he means business. Seriously, have you ever seen a pitcher wearing a batting helmet look so menacing on a card? They usually look like someone put a dead fish in their hair. Kison looks like he's questioning your right to exist in his space.

Luis Tiant wrote in to say the earth is off its axis (link to project 1976). My lord, why didn't they make Dock Ellis's card look like this? Or even better, put Doc Ellis on this card and say he's Luis Tiant. I mean, if there's one pitcher I associate with the bending of space and time, aside from Charles Bender, it's Dock Ellis. If you don't already know, click the last "Dock Ellis" to find out. Say "hi" to Alice for me, and stay away from that rabbit.

And Dave Winfield is here to save us all. He's larger than life, and making sure the monsters off to the right stay where they are supposed to. See monsters? Dave has a bat and a mean homerun swing. He looks more Capt'n America than Mr. May. He's the only thing standing between us and a deep blue apocalypse. Thank you Dave! And if you go on to be a Yanki, well, I guess no one's perfect.