Now I Know by Dan Lewis

turn to pitch. So he spent the day prior in Los Angeles with some friends, relaxing—and dropping acid. It was not until the morning of the 12th that his friend’s girlfriend told him that the Pirates had a doubleheader in San Diego that afternoon and, because of the extra game, Ellis was expected to take the mound. He hopped onto a shuttle and made it to the ballpark in time to start his game. Through the nine innings he pitched, he struck out six batters, walked eight, but gave up no hits—and won, 2–0. (Who knew LSD could be a performance-enhancing drug?)
    In the book
The Harder They Fall: Celebrities Tell Their Real Life Stories of Addiction and Recovery
, Ellis recounted his LSD-addled view of the historic game:
    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.
    Ellis retired from Major League Baseball after the 1979 season and turned over a new leaf: He became a drug addiction counselor. He passed away in December of 2008 at age sixty-three.
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    BONUS FACT
    Major League Baseball pitcher Jim Abbott was born without a right hand. Nevertheless, he had a ten-year career in the league, and on September 4, 1993, threw a no-hitter.
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PERFORMANCE ENHANCING INJURIES
CAN INJURIES MAKE YOU A BETTER ATHLETE?
    In recent years, competitive sports have been marked with athletes using performance-enhancing drugs (PED) to gain advantages, Lance Armstrong, perhaps most famously. But drugs aren’t the only way to get ahead. For some—paralympians, specifically—there’s something called “boosting,” no drugs required.
    Only a broken toe here or there. On purpose.
    The body handles a bunch of functions seemingly by itself, such as breathing, digesting, sweating, and regulating blood pressure and heart rate. All these things happen in a way that we can’t truly control—try and get your brain to convince your body to stop sweating or speed up your heart rate and you’ll almost certainly fail. This is true whether you’re a paralympian or a paralegal.
    But people who have suffered spinal cord injuries often find their bodies no longer appropriately regulate their blood pressure or heart rate. Because of this, when they exercise or compete in athletic competitions, their bodies do not adapt properly to increase the flow of oxygen available to the lungs and other organs. Without an increased oxygen supply, their bodies tire more quickly than a typical athlete’s would. But because this affects most of them, the playing field is level.
    Until they bring the pain. Literally.
    People with certain spinal cord injuries may be susceptible to something called autonomic dysreflexia. Autonomic dysreflexia occurs when something below the point of the spinal injury becomes irritated, and, because of the spinal injury, the brain isn’t notified about the irritation and therefore cannot act. Instead, reflex takes over, and the person’s pulse increases and blood pressure rises. Usually, this is very dangerous and at times life threatening. But for these athletes, it gives a boost in the areas where they need it most.
    Autonomic dysreflexia can be self-induced in various ways, such as