Dock Ellis, RIP: The Edges

What you probably remember is the militant stare down from the mound, the strangling slider, the no-nonsense posture — against batters, against managers, against, well, just about everyone he thought stood athwart his mission — and the mammoth bomb off the Tiger Stadium light tower he surrendered to Reggie Jackson in the 1971 All-Star Game.

You might also remember that, five years later, wearing an American League uniform, he drilled Jackson upside the head as payback for that All-Star ICBM. Not to mention decking Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, and Dan Driessen in the first inning in a 1974 game, before throwing behind Tony Perez's and Johnny Bench's heads ... because he took umbrage over the Reds' speaking less than respectfully of the Pirates in spring training — and over what he thought was too much lack of life on that Pirate team.

You might remember above all his confession (in his autobiography) — and to this day there are those who debate whether he spoke the truth or whether he exaggerated just a tad — that he no-hit the San Diego Padres in 1970 while under the influence of LSD.

You might even remember his first season as a Yankee, swapped there in the deal that also made a Yankee out of a kid named Willie Randolph, because the Pirates had finally had it with his act, climaxed by a nasty clubhouse scrum with manager Danny Murtaugh that got him a siddown-and-shaddap for the rest of 1975.

Everyone who thought he'd be vapourised under the Billy Martin regime got a shock when he thrived under it. They had in common being men under the influence who hated losing even more than they could stand facing the days or nights stone cold sober. He put up one of his best seasons, beat the Kansas City Royals in an American League Championship Series, and scrummed with George Steinbrenner over what he thought was overdoing the leaning upon Martin.

Now, here's what you may not remember about Dock Ellis, who died at 63 of liver failure (he was actually due for a May 2009 transplant) 19 December: he left an awful lot of people surprisingly warm by the man he actually was beneath the drug addling and away from the heat of the mound.

"Dock Ellis was my first client in baseball, and he gave me as much joy as anybody outside of my family," said his longtime agent, Tom Reich. "He was so unique. He was viewed by some people as an outlaw, but he was far from that. He was so ahead of his time. He was so intuitive and smart and talented and independent. And he wasn't about to roll over for the incredible prejudices that existed at the time. He was a very special person and he had an absolute army of fans and friends. He was at the cutting edge of so many issues, and he never backed down. I was proud to be his friend and stand with him."

Dick Young of the New York Daily News called him "irreverent," writing it as though it were a terrible crime.

He turned up for one last try, in the short-lived Senior Professional Baseball League. I couldn't possibly improve upon Peter Golenbock, writing in The Forever Boys: The Bittersweet World of Major League Baseball as Seen Through the Eyes of the Men Who Played One More Time, a book that shouldn't be lost.

One of the most dramatic moments of the season occurred early in the season, in Dock Ellis's first game. As he had against West Palm Beach, he had come into the game in the ninth inning against the Orlando Juice to try to save it.

Dock Ellis alone was aware of the drama. For the first time in his entire professional pitching career, going back to 1964, Dock was pitching straight, without the influence of alcohol or drugs. Mortals don't scare Dock Ellis. But the possibility of using drugs or alcohol again scares him to the bone.

To the fans who came to the games, Ellis had appeared to be the old Dock. He pitched deliberately, taking his time between pitches, glaring like Malcolm X, acting as though he hated the world. He would turn and stare out toward the outfield, holding the ball, making the batters wait on him.

After getting two outs, Elis temporarily lost control, walking two batters, but he threw a nasty slider past the next batter to end the inning. In his first drug-free inning, his first opportunity to pitch in anger since 1979, he had been a success.

... "When I first went into the game, I didn't know what was going on. The thought was there: I'm going in, and I'm not going to be high. The adrenaline was flowing, and my mouth was dry like it was when I was high. My whole body was like that. I'd wipe my head and my lips because when I was high my lips were dry, and I used to have to rub my lips on my arm because I got a dry mouth. So my body was reacting like I was high, but I knew I wasn't high. So I acted like I was high. I was walking around the mound, not doing nothing. I was looking over here, looking over there, which is what I used to so. It was strange."

After the game, Ellis went to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting in the Tampa-St. Pete area. He said, "It doesn't look like anybody here knows anything about baseball, but I play baseball. I used to, and now I'm back at it again," and he started talking about what was bothering him. He told the gathering, "I'm afraid."

Dock said later, "In the meeting fear is okay. But that fear was only because I was remembering the old times. It's like saying, 'I'm going to go into a room where they're doing cocaine.' Sure, I can go in, but I'm going to be frightened."

An addiction counselor in Los Angeles and, for several years, for the Yankees; and, and a transition counselor for Pennsylvania inmates about to leave prison, Ellis — who also helped launch the Black Athletes Foundation for Sickle-Cell Research — probably needed more courage to admit fear than he ever needed on the mound. That he found it says more than any of his prime-time act could have said.

***

Something else you probably don't know or remember about Dock Ellis: he's the only player in major league history to play for seven managers in a single season. It happened in 1977. The play-by-play:

* April 27: Ellis opened with the Yankees under Martin, made three starts, and was swapped to Oakland in the deal that made a Yankee out of Mike Torrez.

* June 9: Oakland owner Charlie Finley fired manager Jack McKeon and replaced him with Bobby Winkles.

* June 15: Then the non-waiver trade deadline. Ellis was sold to the Texas Rangers, managed at the time by Frank Lucchesi.

* June 22: Lucchesi was fired to be replaced by Eddie Stanky.

* June 23: After managing the Rangers to a 10-8 win over the Twins, Stanky quit in an unexpected bout of homesickness. (He'd been hired by the A's from the University of South Alabama.) The A's replace him with Connie Ryan.

* June 28: Ryan having expressed that he didn't want the job on a full-time basis, the Rangers replaced him with Billy Hunter.

Seven managers in one season? How does seven managers in three months grab you?