America's Favorite Pastime

(album: The Excitement Plan - 2009)

Dock Ellis didn't think he was pitching that day
Back in 1970
When he and his wife took a trip to the ballpark
A little bit differently
So by the time that he hit the bullpen
Half the world had melted away
That's about the time coach Murtaugh came and said
Doc, you're pitching today

Taking the mound, the ground turned into
The icing on a birthday cake
The lead off man came up and turned into
A dancing rattlesnake
The crowd tracked back and forth
In waves of color underneath the sun
That ball turned into a silver bullet
His arm into a gun

I took a look all around the world one time
I finally discovered
You can't judge a book

Three up, three down for three straight innings
In a zero-zero tie
As all those batters names come ringing
From a voice out of the sky
Hallucinating Halloween scenes
Each new swing of the bat
His sinker looked like it was falling off a table
But nobody was hallucinating that

I took a look all around the world one time
I finally discovered
You can't judge a book

By the top of the seventh, he was up one-to-nothing
And giving them Padres fits
By the bottom of the eighth, he was up two-to-nothing
And they still hadn't got any hits
With one out left to go in the game
The batter looked like a baby child
That birthday cake was shaking
Them waves of color was going wild

By the time that he mowed the last man down
He was high as he had ever been
Laughing to the sounds of the world going around
Completely unaware of the win
And while the papers would say he was scattered that day
He was pretty as a pitcher could be
The day Dock Ellis of the Pittsburgh Pirates
Threw a no hitter on LSD

I took a look all around the world one time
I finally discovered
You can't judge a book