In 1970, Pittsburgh's Dock Ellis threw a no-hitter on LSD

100 moments that shaped baseball history

Published in 2018 by baseball historian Jacob Kornhauser, this list examines the defining moments throughout more than a century of play on the field, from Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis purportedly throwing a no-hitter while on acid to Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier.

In 1985, one player said 40% of his colleagues used cocaine

The 1985 Pittsburgh Drug Trials found over a dozen MLB players taking the stand to testify about drug use around the league. Mets star Keith Hernandez, who was given immunity, testified 40% of players used cocaine. The trial led to seven convictions.

LSD was discovered accidentally after its inventor touched his face and hallucinated

Unlike many drugs, the first time a human ever tripped on acid was recorded first-hand by a scientist. Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann, curious about the "not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition" that overcame him after an accidental exposure, set up a rigorous experiment to test the drug's effects on himself.

Before 1920, a single baseball was used throughout a game

During the Deadball Era, pitchers doctored a baseball with spit, nail files, and licorice for a competitive edge, leading to discolored, mangled, and lopsided baseballs by the game's end. This concluded in 1920 when Cleveland Indians star shortstop Ray Chapman was hit in the head by a ball too dirty to see and died. The rules were changed to require an umpire to replace a dirty baseball and outlawed the spitball.

An eephus pitch catches batters by surprise

The specialty pitch—rarely used by starters—is unexpectedly slow and thrown with an abnormally high arc, often catching batters off-guard. Below is one famous example from 1981: Yankees pitcher Dave LaRoche striking out the Brewers' Gorman Thomas with an eephus that fans called the "La Lob."

How to make LSD

Lysergic acid diethylamide, often shortened to LSD, comes from ergot, a parasitic fungus that can be found in grains. Chemists rearrange the fungus' chemical structure or the structure of an ergot derivative through complex chemical reactions, transforming it into the hallucinogenic bicycle-shaped LSD crystal. Due to the partially synthetic drug's criminalization, many of the details of modern LSD crafting honed by "underground chemists" are kept secret.

The psychedelic playlist inspired by a Johns Hopkins experiment

Dating back to 1967, the playlist is over seven hours long and organized in such a manner as to echo users’ experiences as their trips rise, crest, and fall. According to the initial creator of the playlist, the music is a “nonverbal support system” that keeps users from prematurely returning to normal consciousness.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

A psychedelic hamburger led one member of the Manson Family, the murderous cult led by Charles Manson, to testify against the group's leader.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

Little League sensation Danny Almonte was two years older than his competitors

The New York pitcher was a hotshot pitcher in the 2001 Little League World Series, catapulting his Bronx team to a third-place finish thanks to a no-hitter and a perfect game. Sports Illustrated eventually reported that Almonte was 14, not 12, and that his coach and father had knowingly misled Little League. They were both banned, though Almonte himself was cleared of all wrongdoing.

The world's longest-running science experiment aims to prove if pitch is a liquid

Having run continuously since 1927, the pitch drop experiment is designed to show that the seemingly solid derivative of tar is a liquid by watching to see it drip through a tunnel. From 1930 to 2025, the substance has only produced nine drops, such that its viscosity—resistance to flow—is about two million times more than honey.

In 1984, Dylan began experimenting with punk

When Bob Dylan was asked to appear on David Letterman’s relatively new late-night show, he decided to call an audible. He’d been intrigued by LA’s exploding post-punk scene and had spent time jamming with one of its bands, the Plugz, whom he decided to bring to Letterman as his backing band. The appearance sounds unlike anything else in his catalog and is one of his more fascinating creative reinventions in a career loaded with them.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

Bob Newhart was the first comedian to have a chart-topping album

In 1960, “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart” reached the top of the Billboard charts and stayed there for 14 weeks. A few months later, a sequel, “The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back!,” was released. Both records occupied the top two spots for 30 weeks, a record that stood until 1991, when Guns ‘n’ Roses released their “Use Your Illusion” albums.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to a health condition

Gehrig's diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a disease that now bears his name, forced him to retire early. Weeks later, he spoke with gratitude and stated, "For the past two weeks, you have been reading about a bad break. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth." Gehrig died at the age of 37, about two years later.

The story behind the greatest outburst in sports history

It's a line that's still perplexing all these years later: "Who do you think you are? I am!" Those words were uttered by Pete Weber, an iconic bowler who was somewhere between John McEnroe and Happy Gilmore. This oral history from the Ringer provides some context for the bizarre insult and a backstory that turns what appears to be a non sequitur into a triumphant celebration.

After her fellow cult members tried to kill her with an LSD-infused hamburger, one member of the Manson Family, the murderous cult led by Charles Manson, decided to testify against the group's leader.

Dangers of a record-breaking, sleep-skipping stunt

In 1963, 17-year-old Randy Gardner decided to stay awake for as long as it took to break the current world record. He managed to stay awake for 11 days. In 2017, the then-71-year-old Gardner told NPR that his experience had come back to haunt him as insomnia. The challenge has since been removed from the Guinness Book of World Records due to its dangerous consequences.

Lenny Bruce was arrested for obscenity seven times

The first was in 1961, after performing at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco. Subsequent arrests were in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. He died of a morphine overdose in 1966, a year and a half after being found guilty of his New York charge.

Listen to Jimi Hendrix’s mind-bending cover of the national anthem

Towards the end of his Woodstock ‘69 set, the legendary guitar whiz went in an unexpected direction with an instrumental cover of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Hendrix’s version, though, was dissonantly deconstructionist, which many critics believed was a commentary on the ongoing US involvement in Vietnam.

Watch one of the greatest live TV shots ever

While James Burke was filming the 1978 docuseries "Connections" at the site of a rocket launch, he pulled off a perfectly-timed gesture without use of a green screen. Some say its the greatest live shot ever in TV history.

Can microdosing improve mental health?

Animal studies involving microdoses of psilocybin, the psychoactive component in magic mushrooms and ketamine, found it helped to alleviate anxiety and inflammation, an immune response that can cause damage when chronically active. Human studies are ongoing. In at least one double-blind study, where researchers and patients don't know who got a placebo versus the real thing, about half of the participants incorrectly guessed they had been given placebos.

The 1904 Olympic marathon was a bizarre spectacle

When the Olympics first came to the US, the race was still a fringe event with few established rules. That led to an absurd comedy, with competitors ingesting poison, hitchhiking 11 miles of the course, and occasionally sipping brandy.

How is the climate like baseball?

A two-minute video taking a lighthearted look at an unexpected analogy, explaining why some people call carbon dioxide (and the other greenhouse gases) the steroids of the climate system.

Relive Bobby Fischer’s Cold War victory with 'Drunk History'

Comedy Central’s "Drunk History" retells Bobby Fischer’s 1972 win over Boris Spassky with irreverent humor. The sketch hilariously highlights how a chess match became a Cold War spectacle, turning Fischer into an unlikely American celebrity.

Historians theorize Vincent Van Gogh suffered from Ménière's disease or epilepsy

A century after researchers suggested he suffered from epilepsy, some researchers in the 1990s began to support an alternate diagnosis: Ménière's disease, since he had suffered from severe, repeated attacks of disabling vertigo. Still, some researchers remain skeptical of the Ménière's diagnosis. One posits that Van Gogh had temporal epilepsy complicated by his absinthe consumption.

When Magic Johnson and Larry Bird faced off in the 1979 NCAA final

Michigan State's Magic Johnson topped Indiana State's Larry Bird 75-64 in the 1979 NCAA final with a record 35.1 million watching. Aired on NBC, the duel of future NBA icons ignited college basketball's TV boom. This article revisits the rivalry's roots, the Sycamores' Cinderella run, and a prime-time leap that turned March Madness into a national frenzy.

One NHL team tosses salmon to its fans

Detroit Red Wings fans have thrown octopuses on the ice since 1952, and fans of other teams have tried their own hand at tossing things in the rink ever since. It's now become a calling card for the Seattle Kraken, whose fans nod to the city's Pike Place Market by tossing salmon onto the ice.

The US first hosted the World Cup in 1994, a tournament that lives in soccer infamy for its poor planning and the murder of Colombian player Andres Escobar, who'd accidentally scored on his own net.

A pickleball's loud 'pop' sound can reach 120 decibels, which is equivalent to a hammer hitting a nail

Apollo astronauts left items in the moon's 'toss zone,' including golf balls, family photos, and bags of human waste, to make room for lunar rocks.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

Learn more about the history of fireworks, which dates back to an accidental invention during an alchemist's quest for information about immortality.

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

Listen to an in-depth conversation on the links between Parkinson's disease and herbicide exposure and the challenging pace of scientific investigation.

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

The 1987 Nintendo video game 'Stadium Events' isn't known for being particularly fun, but its scarcity has made it a highly sought-after item that has sold for up to $35K at auction.

70 years ago today, city officials in Santa Cruz, California, banned rock 'n' roll to protect its youth from corruption after witnessing a 'provocative' concert the night before.

Massive blooms of microscopic plankton called dinoflagellates produce the neon blue light seen in glowing tides.

Elk Cloner, the first computer virus to spread in public, was written as a practical joke by Richard Skrenta, a Pittsburgh high school student.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

One disco producer saw 'Star Wars' four times on its opening weekend and was so inspired that he recorded the album 'Star Wars and Other Intergalactic Funk,' which produced a chart-topping single.

Abraham Lincoln was almost assassinated weeks before his inauguration as he traveled from Illinois to DC through Baltimore in 1861; it took two independent claims for Lincoln to be convinced the threat was real

In 2009, the nation was gripped by the story of a missing young boy who was believed to be floating over Colorado in a homemade balloon, until it was revealed that he was at home the whole time.

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

Existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre coined the famous phrase 'Hell is—other people' in his play 'No Exit'

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.