Steve Blass still has the picture. It's an unremarkable one - a Polaroid snapshot of Blass and an old Pirates teammate sitting on a bench at Forbes Field.
He was not sure of the year or why the picture was taken, but it is obvious why he's kept it all these years. The man sitting next to him is Bo Belinsky.
You don't have to be an ex-teammate to understand the mystique of Bo Belinsky, but you probably won't get it if you weren't around for those fabulous few weeks in 1962 when he was as big a sports personality as seemed possible to imagine. When he personified everything everybody ever thought a sports celebrity could be or should be.
As Dean Chance, his former Los Angeles Angels' teammate and frequent partner on late-night escapades, told the Los Angeles Times last week, "Anytime you mention his name, people smile."
On Thursday afternoon at the Stadium Club in Dodger Stadium, they held a memorial service for Belinsky, 64, who died one week ago of a heart attack in Las Vegas. The service was organized by Chance, a pitcher who wound up with 100 more career victories than his late friend.
These days, Chance's name only arises as the answer to a triva question: Who was the major leagues' Cy Young Award winner of 1964⢠In contrast, Bo Belinsky's name never really faded, even though his career went nowhere after about one month of brilliance in 1962.
By the time Belinsky got to the Pirates in 1969, the incandescence from his early playing days had long since dimmed. His notoriety had not.
"He always maintained that stuff kind of followed him," says Blass.
That "stuff" was the stuff of legend. His no-hitter in the fourth game of his rookie season. His whirlwind courtship of actress Mamie Van Doren. His life as a teen-age pool hustler. His friendship with Walter Winchell. His red Cadillac and the Hollywood starlets who rode in it with him along the Vegas Strip.
As Van Doren said last week of their seven-month engagement: "It was a wild ride, but a lot of fun."
After Belinsky started his rookie season 5-0, including the well-publicized no-hitter, he became a national sensation. But bright lights and instant fame proved a bad combination. He finished the season 10-11. He would win only 18 more games the remainder of his eight-year career.
He won no games for the Pirates, going 0-3 in eight games in 1969 before drifting off to the Cincinnati Reds, the last of his five teams.
"He was a great guy to be around," says Blass, who won 16 games in 1969. "We expected Bo to be a flamboyant guy, but he was not someone who came in here to steal the spotlight. He was pretty laid-back."
Not that he was the kind to go unnoticed. He arrived in Pittsburgh with his wife of the time, former Playboy centerfold Jo Collins.
"That created quite a stir," Blass remembers.
Belinsky was an athlete destined for notoriety in the 1960s, the last era of rigid conformity in pro sports. An example of that conformity was the Pirates organization, which every spring had its players fitted for "traveling uniforms" at Larrimor's men's store.
"We got a blazer, two pairs of slacks and a tie," recalls Blass. And they were expected to wear their uniforms every road trip.
Belinsky was too undisciplined to thrive in a world with such limits, even despite his good fastball and (as you might have guessed) outstanding screwball. Buzzie Bavasi, Angels general manager, once said of him: "He had a million-dollar arm and a 10-cent head."
In the tumultous '60s, he was just a bit player, but he made the most of the role. Belinsky once claimed no pitcher ever got more mileage out of 28 career victories and who could disagree⢠"He maxed his time out," says Blass.
His legend endures, in part because of its cautionary nature. Many people dream of living such a life, few can manage it. Belinsky couldn't, we can say now, but we say it with a smile.
