Coming Saturday: Steve Dalkowski, alive ... and to be honored in So Cal

The Legend of Steve Dalkowski has taken a curious, and wonderful, detour into Southern California this weekend. At least, that's the schedule.

What can we tell you about Dalkowski? Depends on whether you believe in truths or myths.

He never made it to the big leagues, but he may be as well known in big-league circles as Nolan Ryan or Bob Feller. He might be someone you've heard of as the pitcher who Ted Williams once said he never wanted to face in a game, who could throw a ball 120 mph, who once threw a no-hitter with 20 strike outs and 18 walks, and was the basis of the Tim Robbins character, Nook LaLoosh, in the 1988 classic movie "Bull Durham."

After his nine-year run of misfortune in the minor leagues in the late '50s and mid-'60s, eventually ending his pro career in San Jose, the Single-A affiliate of the California Angels in 1965, Dalkowski disappeared. All his baseball record showed for him was: A record of 46-80, an ERA of 5.59, with 1,396 strike outs -- and 1,354 walks -- in 995 innings.

The story is too mystical to even cover much in this blog post. We'll give you a few links:

== From a 2004 "Whatever happened to" piece in Sports Illustrated (linked here)

== From a 1970 Sports Illustrated story by Pat Jordan (linked here), who also referred to Dalkowski in his book, "The Suitors of Spring."

== From a 2005 piece on him from the blog "Hardball Times" that's very thorough with all his minor-league stats (linked here).

This weekend's journey to Hollywoodland -- yes, someone should make a movie of Dalkowski, and there is a documentary in the works that will continue to record all that happens this weekend -- is because of his induction Sunday in the Baseball Reliquary's Shrine of the Eternals (more info at this link and at this link), with a ceremony scheduled Sunday at the Pasadena Central Library (info linked here).

Dalkowski, now 70, is on a plane right now, flying out from a nursing home in New Britian, Conn., with his younger sister, Patti. After arriving at LAX, he'll be taken to the Dodgers-Astros game tonight and is set to throw out the ceremonial first pitch. After some sight seeing Saturday, he'll be honored on Sunday.

It's another chapter -- hopefully not the last -- in the weird, wild journey of Steve Dalkowski. We'll try to keep up with it with a story in Saturday's newspaper editions.