Today, Chance Meetings Have Become Fights

Bo and Dean. Dean and Bo.

Dodger Stadium wasn’t their only high-profile venue, when the Angels’ two best pitchers were mowing down American League hitters in the early 1960s.

If you enjoyed Los Angeles night life then, you probably saw them at the Villa Capri on Yucca Avenue, the Thistle Inn on Glendale Boulevard, or at Scandia, Chasen’s, Musso & Frank’s . . .

Wherever it was, Chance confirms today, Bo Belinsky never had to work at finding the most beautiful women in Los Angeles. They found him.

“Bo was unbelievable,” Chance said recently.

“He was a magnet. All he had to do was walk into a bar and the most beautiful women there would come to him, sometimes even before he sat down.”

Today, at 58, Chance promotes fights and runs one of boxing’s numerous governing bodies, the International Boxing Assn., from his “hobby farm” in Wooster, Ohio.

Shane Mosley beat Oscar De La Hoya for one of his titles last Saturday at Staples Center. The sanctioning fee, Chance cracked, was “more than I ever made pitching.”

In his 11-season career, six of them with the Angels, Chance’s highest salary was $60,000.

“I remember when I was making $60,000, [New York Yankee ace] Whitey Ford was too,” he said. “We were the two highest-paid pitchers in the American League.”

He also makes $60,000 a year now from the baseball pension plan.

“I remember Nolan Ryan telling me when he first came up that his goal was to get five years in, so he’d be in the pension plan. I felt the same way.

“Every major league baseball player today, every morning, should observe a moment of silence in tribute to Marvin Miller,” Chance said of the union chief who hammered out the players’ pension plan.

Chance was twice a 20-game winner and won the Cy Young Award in 1964.

He also won 10 1-0 games for the Angels.

In a 1964 Dodger Stadium game against the Yankees, Chance gave up three hits in 14 innings. He was replaced in the 15th and the Yankees promptly won, 2-0.

Of his 161-pitch effort that night, he said recently, “That was the best game I ever pitched in my life.”