Manuel Rafael Mota Geronimo, more commonly known as Manny Mota (born on February 18, 1938, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) was a Major League Baseball Outfielder for the San Francisco Giants, Pittsburgh Pirates, Montreal Expos. Mota was a pinch hitting specialist with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

He has been a coach for the Dodgers since 1980, making the 2012 season the 33rd consecutive year in which Mota has coached for the team. He is thus the longest-tenured coach in Dodger history, and his 33 consecutive years as a coach with the same team is the second-longest such streak in MLB annals to Nick Altrock, who spent 42 straight seasons listed as a coach for the old Washington Senators.

Playing career[link]

At the age of 19, Mota demonstrated his hitting abilities when he first played in the minor leagues with the Giants, then based in New York. At the end of his rookie 1962 season, the Giants traded him to the Houston Colt .45's for infielder Joey Amalfitano (who later was Mota's 16-year colleague as a Dodgers coach). But before he ever appeared in an official game with Houston, he was dealt to the Pirates for OF Howie Goss and cash on April 4, 1963, and he quickly established himself as one of the league's premiere hitters. In the following years with the Pirates, Mota had over a .300 hitting average.

In 1969, Mota was the first player selected in the National League expansion draft by the Montreal Expos. Later that same year, Mota returned to the West Coast via a trade with the Dodgers. Once in L.A., Mota became the number one pinch hitter there and hit over .300 during the next five seasons.

On May 16, 1970, Mota hit the only batted ball in major league history to cause a fatality. In the bottom of the third against the Giants at Dodger Stadium, Mota fouled one off of Gaylord Perry along the first base line. The ball struck 14-year-old Alan Fish in the left temple. Four days later, Fish died of an inoperable head injury.^[1]

In 1973, Mota was selected to the National League All-Star team after leading the league in batting average. From 1974 through 1979, Mota was continuously called upon for late inning heroics, where he averaged 10 pinch hits for 6 straight seasons. The Dodgers appeared in the 1974, 1977, and 1978 World Series. In 1979, Mota established his place in the record books by becoming the all-time leader in Pinch Hits. He had a compact swing and often half-swung just to push the ball beyond the reach of the first baseman for a hit.

In 1981, Manny appeared in his fourth World Series, this time mostly as a coach but only to be activated later in the year for the stretch drive. Mota retired as a player from the Dodgers the following year. Mota left a career holding the all-time major league record for career pinch-hits (150), which has since been broken by Mark Sweeney and Lenny Harris, and an overall lifetime batting average of .304 and a .297 pinch-hitting average. His .315 batting average is second best (1,800 or more at bats) in Los Angeles Dodgers history, trailing only Mike Piazza.

Post-playing career[link]

Mota served as a player-coach for the Dodgers during his final seasons as a player, and remained as a coach after retiring as a player. Mota again participated in a World Series as a coach for the Dodgers in 1988, making this a total of five World Series appearances.

More than 40 years after joining the Dodgers, Mota remains an active part of both the coaching staff and his community. In the off-season, Mota and his wife Margarita reside in the Dominican Republic, where they run the Manny Mota International Foundation. Established over 30 years ago, this humanitarian organization provides needed resources and other assistance to disadvantaged youth and their families in both the Dominican Republic and the United States.

Mota was inducted into the Hispanic Heritage Baseball Museum Hall of Fame on August 23, 2003, in pregame on field ceremony at Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, CA.

Mota worked as a color commentator on the Fox Sports en Espanol television broadcast of the 2007 World Series.

Cultural references[link]

As one of the all-time great pinch hitters and a Los Angeles staple in the 1970s, Mota was referenced in a joke in the movie Airplane! As we hear Ted Striker's inner-dialogue echo in his mind, it resembles a stadium public address and we hear him think "Pinch hitting for Pedro Borbón... Manny Mota... Mota... Mota..." Curiously, Mota and Borbon never actually played on the same team.

Family[link]

Two of Mota's sons, Andy and José, also played in the Major Leagues.

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or The Baseball Cube, or Baseball-Reference (Minors)

Dock Phillip Ellis, Jr. (March 11, 1945 – December 19, 2008) was a professional baseball player who pitched for the Pittsburgh Pirates, among other teams in Major League Baseball. His best season was 1971, when he won 19 games for the World Series champion Pirates and was the starting pitcher for the National League in the All-Star Game. However, he is perhaps best remembered for throwing a no-hitter in 1970 and later stating that he had done it while under the influence of LSD.

Playing career[link]

Dock Ellis is best known for several incidents during his career:

Beaning Reggie Jackson[link]

Ellis beaned Reggie Jackson in the face, in apparent retaliation for Reggie's monstrous home run off of him in the 1971 All-Star Game in Detroit.^[1]

June 12, 1970, no-hitter[link]

Ellis pitched a no-hitter against the San Diego Padres on June 12, 1970. He would admit in 1984 to being under the influence of LSD throughout the course of the game.^[2] Ellis had taken the drug under the impression that he had the day off. Ellis boarded a shuttle flight to the ballpark and threw a no-hitter, despite not being able to feel the ball or see the batter or catcher clearly.^[3] Ellis said that catcher Jerry May wore reflective tape on his fingers, which helped Ellis to see his signals. Ellis walked eight batters and struck out six, and was aided by excellent fielding plays by second baseman Bill Mazeroski and center fielder Matty Alou.^[4] Because the no-hitter was the first game of a double header, Ellis was forced to keep track of the pitch count for the night game.^[5]

As Ellis recounted it:

I can only remember bits and pieces of the game. I was psyched. I had a feeling of euphoria. 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. 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. I started having a crazy idea in the fourth inning that Richard Nixon was the home plate umpire, and once I thought I was pitching a baseball to Jimi Hendrix, who to me was holding a guitar and swinging it over the plate. 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.^[6]

The incident inspired the songs "Dock Ellis" by indie rock singer Barbara Manning, "America's Favorite Pastime" by folk singer Todd Snider, "Dock Ellis' No-No" by Chuck Brodsky,^[7] and "LSD (The Ballad of Doc Ellis)" by Boston rock band Random Road Mother. Robin Williams has incorporated the tale into a standup routine for HBO.^[8] An animated short film about the game, "Dock Ellis and the LSD No-No", features narration in Ellis's own voice, taken from a 2008 radio interview.^[9]

May 5, 1972, macing incident in Cincinnati[link]

Ellis argued with—and was maced by—a Riverfront Stadium security guard on May 5, 1972. The guard said that Ellis did not identify himself and "made threatening gestures with a closed fist." Ellis countered that he was showing his World Series ring as evidence of his affiliation with the Pirates.^[10]

May 1, 1974, game against Cincinnati[link]

Ellis attempted to hit every batter in the Cincinnati Reds lineup on May 1, 1974, as retaliation for the macing incident in Cincinnati two years earlier. Ellis hit Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, and Dan Driessen in the top of the first inning. Cleanup batter Tony Perez avoided Ellis's attempts—instead, drawing a walk; and, after two pitches that he aimed at the head of Johnny Bench, Ellis was removed from the game by manager Danny Murtaugh. Ellis's box score for the game reads as follows: 0 IP, 0 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 0 K.^[10]

Later career[link]

On December 11, 1975, Ellis was traded to the New York Yankees, along with Ken Brett and Willie Randolph, in exchange for Doc Medich. Ellis also played for the Oakland Athletics, Texas Rangers, and New York Mets. While with the Rangers, Ellis led a player insurrection against manager Billy Hunter's authoritarian style, declaring that Hunter "may be Hitler, but he ain't making no lampshade out of me."^[11] In 1977, the Rangers won 94 games and finished eight games out of first place. Ellis ended his career back in Pittsburgh. He finished with a lifetime record of 138–119 and an ERA of 3.46. Ellis collaborated with future U.S. Poet Laureate Donald Hall on a book, Dock Ellis in the Country of Baseball (ISBN 0-671-65988-X), which was published in 1976. Although Hall knew of the LSD incident, he did not include it in the first edition of his book.

Retirement and death[link]

Ellis retired to Victorville, California, and began a career as a drug counselor.^[12] He was diagnosed with cirrhosis in 2007 and was on the list for a transplant at the time of his death.^[13] ESPN.com reported on December 19, 2008, that Ellis had died at USC Medical Center in Los Angeles, CA, due to "a liver ailment." ^[14]

See also[link]

	Biography portal
	Baseball portal

• List of Major League Baseball leaders in career wins

References[link]

External links[link]

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference
• From Getting High to High Art: The Strange Journey of Dock Ellis Independent Film Channel feature article on Dock Ellis documentary
• How to throw a no-hitter on acid, and other lessons from the career of baseball legend Dock Ellis. By Keven McAlester
• Weekend America Interview with Ellis: Pitching on LSD by Donnell Alexander and Neille Ilel
• Obituary in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette