BO LIVED LIFE TO BOTTOM OF THE NINTH.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

Old teammates and friends gathered Thursday afternoon to raise alcohol- free glasses and swap stories in memory of Bo Belinsky, the Angels no-hit pitcher and all-star carouser who died Friday at age 64 after battling cancer.

Gosh, one or two of the stories had something to do with baseball.

``My locker was next to Bo's,'' said Buck Rodgers, the catcher for Belinsky's 1962 no-hitter against the Baltimore Orioles. ``I'd come in and put on my uniform and, of course, I'd put on my cup. You all know what a cup is. Bo never even wore underwear! I said, `Bo, maybe - maybe - you want to borrow this and protect yourself. You've got a lot more things to do after the ballgame than I do.' ''

One by one, old Angels poured out stories, many of which are printable, to about 80 listeners at Dodger Stadium, which was the club's home for four seasons before the move to Anaheim.

``He wore no jock, no underwear,'' said Jay Johnstone, picking up on Rodgers' revelation. ``One day, I got up the nerve to say, 'Why don't you wear a jock?' Bo said, `Kid, if I'm not quick enough to catch the ball, I'm not good enough to be out there.' ''

In these stories, the characters often were underdressed.

A sportswriter talked about interviewing Belinsky in a hotel room as Mamie Van Doren, one of the player's Hollywood squeezes, sat naked next to him. ``Greatest interview I ever had,'' the writer said.

Another sportswriter related that years later, Belinsky phoned him on the writer's birthday and invited him to dinner. ``Bo showed up with my birthday present on his arm,'' the writer said.

Among the former major-leaguers present at the memorial, organized by Dean Chance, former Angels clubhouse man Bob Case and former Angels publicist Irv Kaze, were Chance, Albie Pearson, Tom Satriano, Clyde Wright, Ed Kirkpatrick, Al Downing and Darrell Evans.

``This is a celebration of his life,'' Kaze said beside a No. 36 Angels jersey in the Stadium Club. ``A life he lived to the hilt, as we all know.''

Pearson, the outfielder-turned-minister, one of those who helped Belinsky beat booze and drugs, remembered how Angels management asked him to room with the party boy.

``They figured if he could win 10 games (in 1962) being out all night, maybe he could win 20 if he stayed indoors,'' Pearson said, laughing at the plan's futility. ``I probably roomed with Bo's luggage more than Bo.''

Pearson once visited Belinsky in Las Vegas and asked his friend ``what he wanted from life.''

``To live fast, die young and have a good-looking corpse,'' Belinsky replied, parroting a line from a movie.

As Pearson spoke, the sun broke through the clouds and brightened the Dodger Stadium outfield.

``Bo was probably the first guy who was my idol,'' said Evans, the Pasadena native who hit home runs for the Braves, Giants and Tigers. ``He was a human being, a guy you'd read about, not up on a pedestal. You'd say, 'If I get to play major-league baseball, that's the guy I'd want to be like.' ''

He had a career record of 28-51, spread over five teams and eight seasons. By the oh-so-enlightened standards of 2001, he was a squandered talent and tragic figure. If such an animal existed in baseball today, a Bo Belinsky wouldn't flaunt his off-the-field play for fear of judgmental journalists and rehab-clinic doctors.

Yet among the people who knew him in the hang-loose '60s, there was not a moist eye in the house Thursday, or a word of reproval.

``What I take out of this,'' Rodgers said later, ``is how much everything has changed.''

Maybe it's a healthy change. Maybe.