You’d Hope One Big No-No Is Enough

The people who run major league baseball are hoping A.J. Burnett’s no-hitter last Saturday passes into history more quietly than did the only other no-hitter pitched in San Diego.

On June 12, 1970, Dock Ellis of the Pittsburgh Pirates pitched a no-hitter against the Padres.

Ten years later, he said he was so high on LSD that night that he needed help finding his locker before the game.

“I was really out to lunch that night,” Ellis said in a 1990 interview.

“Sometimes I saw the catcher, sometimes I saw the hitter, sometimes I didn’t see either one.”

Ellis said he and his girlfriend were dropping acid the afternoon of the game when his girlfriend, who was reading a sports section, said, “Dock, it says here you’re pitching tonight.”

After a stint at an Arizona rehabilitation facility in 1980, Ellis said he’d had a drug problem since he was a 14-year-old at Gardena High School.

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Trying again: Filming has begun in Berlin for “Joe and Max,” a movie about the 1938 rematch between heavyweight boxers Joe Louis and Max Schmeling. Til Schweiger plays Schmeling, Leonard Roberts has the Louis role.

Let’s hope this movie turns out better than the last one on the subject. In 1978, Stephen Macht played Schmeling and Bernie Casey, the former 49er wide receiver, was Louis in a film called “Ring of Passion.” It was widely panned.

Wrote one reviewer: “The film is too preachy and hasn’t enough fight scenes.”

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Trivia time: Why should collectors be wary of Babe Ruth “autographed” baseballs?

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NBA bound? Euroleague.net columnist Dan Peterson, on two up-and-comers:

“7-1 Pau Gasol is a new Toni Kukoc in every way and 6-3 Juan Carlos Navarro is the Allen Iverson of Europe.”

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Old-school guy: Former heavyweight champion Larry Holmes blames money for Oscar De La Hoya’s last two defeats.

“De La Hoya can come back and beat those guys [Felix Trinidad and Shane Mosley],” he said. “All he’s got to do is make up his mind he wants to do it.

“See, the thing about these guys--they make a lot of money. And they don’t want to do it the way they used to do it. What got them there was hard work and they get there and they don’t think they have to work that hard anymore, because they’re there.”

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Trivia answer: Many of them were signed by 1920s Yankee trainer Doc Woods, who learned to imitate Ruth’s signature.

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And finally: After interviewing Jose Canseco, who’s trying to bat his way out of the minor leagues--he plays for the Bridgeport Bluefish--at 36, writer Tom Keegan wrote of him: “Think of him as a recording star who used to pack stadiums and who now works Holiday Inn lounges.”