too much typing—since 2003

12.22.2008

the ball is gone...in a flash

A little late...but my previous entry may clue you in to the fact that my plan to post this earlier got a bit derailed...(Oranj is recovering quite well, by the way).

Anyway, I'm probably now the last music blogger to post SF Seals' "Dock Ellis" in memory of the pitcher who died a couple days ago...and who is best known for his claim to have thrown a no-hitter on acid. Barbara Manning is a major baseball fan (SF Seals was her band...named after a minor-league baseball team) who wrote an entire album around baseball, but here she imagines, with brilliant sonic acuity, what it must have been like to have been Dock Ellis that evening.

Manning isn't the only musician to have written a song called "Dock Ellis": here's Lotion (best known for having been blurbed by none other than Thomas Pynchon) with their "Dock Ellis" song.

SF Seals "Dock Ellis" (The Baseball Trilogy, 1993)
Lotion "Dock Ellis" (Full Isaac, 1993)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Any jokes abouot getting throwing advice from his glove?

Unknown said...

Ellis, D.

Anyway, 2fs, Barb didn't write a whole album about baseball, just a three-song single.

2fs said...

"Ellis, D": ha.

Album, shmalbum: who sez what's an album these days? Anyway, she did title an album One Perfect Green Blanket which, while not necessarily about baseball, is a reference thereto. (I will avoid availing myself of a wiggly definition of "around baseball," the phrase I actually used, lest someone confuse me with Bill Clinton.)

Maryland McKennas said...

I really liked the SF Seals version. What a great mix.