Dock Ellis and his hair curlers

There's a lot to love about Dock Ellis -- read Dock Ellis in the Country of Baseball and you'll know what I'm talking about. (Written by Donald Hall, our current Poet Laureate, with Ellis, it's one of the best baseball memoirs of all time.) One of the things I like most about Ellis is that he was a true flake, not in the Bill Lee "look at how big a flake I am" style, but he's just Dock being Dock.

And part of Dock being Dock was wearing hair curlers on the field before a 1973 game. For this, Ellis got a warning from Pirate Manager Bill Virdon. "Ellis had contended that the curlers were necessary tohis Afro coiffure and that the anti-curler order smacked of racism," reported the Associated Press. "Nonetheless, he confirmed Monday that he would sidestep controversy and abide by the management order. 'I just don'w want to have to deal with it,' Ellis said with a shrug." Ellis donated the curlers to The Baseball Reliquary, which has more on the story (with photos).