Because I Got High
I rarely participated in sports while growing up - too small, too slow, too scared. I did try a couple of years of organized baseball while in junior high, and while I was a borderline defensive liability in the outfield, the thing that made me give it up was that I just could not hit those pitches. So while pronouncing my sports-realm "expert" pronouncements from the safety of my futon or barstool, a favorite cliche of mine is the belief that: "hitting a baseball at the major league level is the toughest feat to accomplish in all of sports." If I - awkward, yes, but with a bit of hand-eye coordination - couldn't hit the twelve-year-old meat back in the day, getting a hit off of the likes of Roger Clemens must be nigh impossible.
Now I'm even more convinced. There is the revelation in David Wells' autobiography that he pitched his perfect game while "half-drunk." Wells has since changed his story, saying he: "went out the night before. I took some aspirin and had a headache the next day." I'm guessing he had a king-sized hangover, the effects of which I am told leave the victim feeling half-drunk.
And back in 1970, Dock Ellis pitched a no-hitter while high on LSD. As he told Lysergic World:
"I was zeroed in on the (catcher's) glove, but I didn't hit the glove too much. I remember hitting a couple of batters and the bases were loaded two or three times. The ball was small sometimes, the ball was large sometimes, sometimes I saw the catcher, sometimes I didn't ... They say I had about three to four fielding chances. I remember diving out of the way of a ball I thought was a line drive. I jumped, but the ball wasn't hit hard and never reached me."
A perfect game while battling a hangover. A no-hitter while tripping on acid. Guess I better change my mantra to: "hitting a baseball off of a chemically-impaired pitcher at the major league level is the toughest feat to accomplish in all of sports."
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