The Bases Are Loaded and So Are We
The Bases Are Loaded and So Are We
By Carrie Thornbrugh
“I’m as high as a Georgia pine. I was psyched. I had a feeling of euphoria […. ] 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. Sometimes, I tried to stare the hitter down and throw while I was looking at him. I chewed my gum until it turned to powder…”
— Dock Ellis on his no-no win against the San Diego Padres on June 12th, 1970.
It’s nearing 7 p.m. and 94 degrees on a muggy-ass summer night in Richmond, Virginia and everyone in their right mind is keeping indoors to escape the heat. Nestled between a 147-year-old cemetery and a now-defunct elementary school is a rocky, overgrown baseball diamond and a gang of twenty or so ballplayers, decidedly not in their right mind. Most of the players who will show up tonight have arrived. A few wayward slackers might still make an appearance but it doesn’t matter now that there’s enough for a real ball game.
The ball has been chucked around, the first couple of beers went down pretty easy and Thin Lizzy has been cranked up to eleven by request. It’s time to play ball.
“Remember your numbers this time, cuz I’m not telling you again. Ones at bat, twos in the field, move your asses, the cigarettes can be smoked in the field, you know that,” chides Daddy, an informal team leader who’s slight in frame but considerable in command. His voice carries over the chatter about the merits of micro-dosing, whether or not the town of Thornburg, VA is the worst place on earth, and a confirmation that Kevin Costner is a hunk of a man and it’s a shame the Yankees playing on the Field of Dreams field probably haven’t even seen the movie.
Since it’s Monday, there’s a catcher—on Friday he’ll be replaced with a dusty bucket of tattered, battered, recycled baseballs several swings past their prime. But aren’t we all?
And then we play. We really play. For the next three hours depending on how the used and abused bodies and second-hand equipment hold up—we play. The play is in the form of baseball, because in addition to their shared affinity for hard music and intoxicants, the play is why we’re here—to lose ourselves in the distraction, release, and purpose that baseball provides. Tomorrow we return to the hard slog of work and responsibility, but tonight we play. The game is over when it’s over. When the beers have all been drunk, the joints have been passed around and probably we’ve been playing with one outfielder for long enough we consider packing it up and calling it quits — fuck running that much this is baseball for Christ’s sake. The nail in the coffin tonight is a heroic home run hit over the fence and into a nearby front yard, from the dugout I yell my favorite homer catchphrase that surprisingly still hasn’t caught on, “Hippies use the side doooor!” The ball is outta here, practice is over, now we wait for the weekend game.
This is where it gets really good. The fucking game. You could also call it a party or a celebration because that’s what it truly is. A baseball game in the Dock Ellis League is more like the cosmic clang that happens when play becomes abandon. All the Monday and Friday practices lead to this moment. A drug-fueled, nostalgia-tinged weekend for these punkmetalfreaks to play ball and feel like the only people to ever do so. The excitement and anticipation alone is enough to get you drunk. Taking the field on game day is like stepping into a glass of champagne—effervescent in its possibility and promise for both fun or folly.
It’s important to note these players and this league while the “Sandlot Revolution” is having its moment. Although, back in 2014 when the Dock Ellis League formed, it likely would have considered itself as such—it now occupies a space outside of the current sandlot movement.
Like so many movements before it, the Sandlot Revolution has grown significantly over the last seven or so years. What started as a response to the over-organized, over-regulated, jock-centric adult intramural sports leagues have now become a mainstream, manicured, self-aware brand of baseball with high profile teams like the Texas Playboys out of Austin, TX, a team made up of professional creative types that now boast their own baseball facility, merchandise, and an impressive marketing and production team that has earned itself sponsors and collectively over 10,000 social media followers. The Playboys play other similar teams, most notably Jack White’s own team bankrolled, suited, and booted by Third Man Records and equipped by Warstic.
But it’s not so with the lowly Dock Ellis League. Sure, most of the teams have their own Instagram pages where they share info about practices, retro baseball memes, or shakily recorded videos of someone finally sliding safe into home or making a beautiful catch in the outfield but it’s an afterthought. Really, they just came to play. I’m no exception. But I feel truly lucky to have stumbled upon these “bruised bastards of baseball” at a time in my life when I was desperately in search of a community. I had recently relocated to Richmond from San Francisco and the stars aligned and positioned my house on the very same street as the run-down practice field lovingly known as “The Scrapyard.” The rest, as they say, is history. The healing salve on my lonely, uprooted life was baseball.
The Dock Ellis League is a self-proclaimed punk baseball league named in homage of our collective hero, the late great Pittsburgh Pirate, Dock Ellis who infamously pitched a no-no against the San Diego Padres in 1970 while on LSD. The league got its start in Pittsburgh, PA and spread to Philly, Virgina, and Kansas City. Mostly made up of struggling musicians, artists, bartenders, tradesmen, and other various ne’er do wells—real work hard, play hard types. Along with the palpable rough and tumble vibe the defining characteristic is the open-mindedness, respect, and egalitarian approach to the league. If you came to party, then do so. If you’re a lifelong student of the game and want to play your heart out then have at it. If you’ve never touched a baseball in your life but are curious then give it a try. All are welcome and we mean that. The only things not tolerated are intolerance, managers, and umpires. These players govern themselves. Everyone gets to play no matter how great or shitty you are and the rules are simple:
– Don’t be an asshole
– Everyone bats and you can only strikeout swinging
– No stealing
– Must be at least one female-identifying player in the field (this last rule isn’t hard as the league is made up of men, women, and non-binary folks.)
Other than these exceptions—the game is played exactly as it is meant to be played. The bar for entry is non-existent, the level of play is such that if you make contact with the ball, you’ll likely get on base due to the frequency of error. But this actually works in the league’s favor creating fast-paced, nail biters in which a team leading by ten runs can still easily lose, verifying the famous Ted Williams quote “Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer.” This aphorism has never been more true than in the Dock Ellis League.
The traveling team piles into a convoy of beat-up vans, pickup trucks, motorcycles, and Honda Civics of the 1990s persuasion—whoever’s car can handle the average six-hour drive. The home team labors together with push lawnmowers, rakes, shovels, and bent backs to groom the typically neglected public field and make it as playable as possible. Everyone chips in for hot dogs, veggie burgers, and beer and takes turns housing the visiting team in backyards, couches, and available floor space in their homes.
The game takes on a life of its own sometimes featuring live music, impromptu tattooing, post-game home run derbies, and perhaps an amateur WrestleMania match to add to the festivities. Friends, family, and bemused neighborhood onlookers join the fun, fanfare, and morbid curiosity as these out-of-shape lost boys and girls play ball.
Some teams are more organized than others and uniforms range from thrift store Hawaiian shirts to tie-dyed tees and home screen-printed raglans and jeans, shorts, sneakers, cleats or whatever really. To the untrained eye, the collection of hairy, pierced, tattooed, unkempt 35+-year-olds are indistinguishable from one another, but the teams have been playing together for so long everybody knows each other, which makes the weekend feel more like a reunion than a competition. If a team is down a few players, they’ll borrow some or maybe a brave soul from the crowd will step up to the plate…literally.
To reference the dean of counterculture, George Carlin (another hero of the Dock Ellis League), it makes complete sense to us that baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life. Between April and August, the teams take turns traveling and hosting on weekends when enough people are available and the season culminates over Labor Day weekend when all the teams converge in Marlington, West Virginia for three, raucous, baseball-filled days. Over 100 people camp out at a rented campground in the mountains that are located about 20 minutes from a public baseball park with three fields and a freshwater stream flowing behind it to keep our bodies and beer cool in between games. We play for three days straight, rain or shine, hungover, strung out, or sober if you like. Each team takes turns cooking dinner and breakfast for the entire group and although everyone brings their own supplies, snacks, booze, and class A’s are shared freely.
The last night, a makeshift trophy invented by the previous year’s champion is presented to the new World Series Champs (the team that won the most games that weekend) and the holy ones are anointed with a bonfire fueled by the broken bats the teams have saved throughout the season—a beloved and sacred ritual offering to appease the baseball gods. Come Monday morning, with the bat embers still burning, everyone partied out and worse for the wear, pack up for the long drive home blast the only radio station in reception in the WV mountains playing the old-timey worker’s rights songs of the ‘30s and ‘40s—a fitting farewell to these baseball-loving freaks who work hard and play harder. To keep the metaphors and George Carlin references going, it is no surprise then that the profound poetic beauty of baseball is epitomized in its sole objective: to return home and to be safe.
Carrie Thornbrugh is a collector. She collects ideas, memories, rituals, and people and brings them together to create a better version of herself & her community. She has a predilection for the surreal, offbeat, and like the Meatloaf album, Bat Out of Hell, she could have been born at any time yet would still be out of place. Her personal loves include DJing, cats, the occult, and her punkmetalfreak baseball team, the Richmond Scrappers.
Mike Domina is what you would call a utility player. He’s an illustrator, screen printer, visual designer, and web developer drawn towards anything gritty, psychedelic, and rough around the edges. He also plays a mean left-field for the Richmond Scrappers. You can check out his work on Instagram @the_heavy_press.
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