John Cahill, whose Halos are battling the Red Sox in the playoffs, will appreciate this quote from Angels legend Bo Belinsky:

"You can't beat the piper, Babe," he once told Pat Jordan, the pitcher turned journalist, while he still had some borrowed time and friends to live on and hadn't yet landed under the bridge. "I never thought I could. But I'll tell you who I do feel sorry for. I feel sorry for all those poor bastards who never heard the music."

Remembered as a wild-child womanizer and pool-hustling playboy, Bo Belinsky was nothing if not colorful. He threw a no-hitter as a rookie, dated Ann-Margret and Tina Louise, carryied on a much publicized romance with Mamie Van Doren and married a Playmate of the Year.

After his 15 minutes were up, he had a bit part as a go-go club owner in the movie C'mon, Let's Live a Little.

Via Corbis: Belinsky admires a picture of his intended, Mamie Van Doren. * He is named to the Most Wanted Bachelors Club – with J. Edgar Hoover!

His 1962 no-hitter is recalled on his Las Vegas headstone.

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Belinsky's Alabama-Florida League roommate and partner in dissipation phenom Steve Dalkowski is recalled by former teammate Steve Barber:

“He and Bo roomed together. Bo wasn’t really as bad as everyone thought. He was very conscientious about getting eight hours of sleep a night. He just didn’t get the eight when they wanted him to. But I remember one night, Bo and I were together, and we went into this place, and Steve’s there, and he says, ‘Hey, guys, come over and look at this beautiful sight’—twenty-four scotch and waters lined up in front of him. And he was pitching the next day. Then he stopped on the way home and bought a gallon of wine and killed that, too. The next night they just carried him off the mound in the fourth inning.”

A minor-league legend considered by some the hardest thrower ever, but also the wildest, Dalkowski inspired the character of Nuke LaLoosh in Bull Durham.