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Joe Pepitone, Rest In Peace

(October 9,1940-March 13, 2023)

“The public airing of Pepitone’s difficulties led many to reflect on the tragedy of a great talent gone to waste.” –William Ryczek, from The Yankees of the Early 1960s

“Joe Pepitone should have been a $100,000 ballplayer…” –Ted Williams

The baseball world was saddened this week to learn of the passing of one of the game’s most colorful characters, Joseph Anthony “Joe” Pepitone. Joe died at his daughter’s home in Kansas City, Missouri, aged 82.

Searching…Seaching…but never finding…

There may have been more troubled souls in baseball’s long history, but you’d be hard-pressed to name one. Similar to his Yankee teammate, Mickey Mantle, Joe’s legacy is one of potential and talent unfulfilled. He once summed up his career this way:

“I didn’t fully realize it then, but that was the thing I was most trying to earn playing baseball. Not money. Not glory, but love…”

Maybe this constant search for love was a result of being raised in a dysfunctional family with an abusive, alcoholic father. Maybe being shot at the age of 17 had something to do with it. But whatever the reason, the Brooklyn native’s career never fully blossomed and was sullied by self-destructive behavior. Strive and conflict always seemed just ahead, as did dissipation from drugs and alcohol, and an overly-indulgent nightlife. After his playing days came to an end, failed marriages (three to be exact), failed businesses, and bouts with the law—including drunk driving and assault charges—always seemed to find him. He once spent four months in Rikers Island on drug-related charges. In his constant search to hit the big time, I personally remember his ill-fated venture into Chicago’s nightlife with his short-lived Rush Street bar, Joe Pepitone’s Thing.

Wherever Joe went, sooner or later, his penchant for wearing out his welcome always seemed to surface. Whether it was the Yankees, the Astros, the Cubs, the Braves, or even in Japan where his name was adopted into their vernacular as a word meaning “goof off,” there were similar endings: they were always glad to see him go.

In his self-deprecating, tell-all autobiography, Joe, You Coulda’ Made Us Proud, which I read many years ago, Joe put these many foibles on full display. The book reads as a shameless, warts-and-all public airing of his deeply troubled, narcissistic personality. I always felt he chose the title for the book, Joe, You Coulda’ Made Us Proud, because he heard the charge aimed at himself so often during his life. By the time you finish the book, you’re left shaking your head in disbelief, wondering just how in the world he got as far as he did….and, like his teammate Mickey Mantle, also wondering what could have been.

Joe’s Career

Unquestionably a talented ballplayer, Joe played 12 years in the big show from 1962-1973. A slick-fielding three-time All-Star, he batted .258 with 219 home runs and 721 RBIs. He’s best remembered for his eight years with the Yankees where he hit .252, with 166 homers, and 541 RBIs. He played in two World Series, 1963 and 1964. In the latter series, he hit a grand slam in Game Six in the Yankees’ losing effort to the Cardinals. He later enjoyed four productive seasons with the Cubs (1970-1973), going .284/39/144, where he acquitted himself well in the difficult task of replacing icon Ernie Banks at first base.

Joe’s best year was probably 1966 with the Yankees when he logged 31 home runs with 86 RBIs. Unfortunately, his New York tenure will always be remembered for his misplay in the 1963 World Series against the Dodgers. With the score tied 1–1 in the seventh inning of Game Four, he lost a routine Clete Boyer throw in the white shirtsleeves of the Los Angeles crowd. The costly error led directly to the Series-winning run.

Hair Blowers in the Locker Room? You Gotta Be Kidding!

There’s no question Joe had an “iconoclastic” side to him as well—if that’s how you’d characterize introducing hair blowers into the manly, macho world of the baseball clubhouse. Old timers undoubtedly were turning in their graves. “Baseball would never countenance such a thing! There’s no crying…or hair blowing!…in baseball!” they would have surely said. Well, Joe never got the memo…and soon the steady drone of Joe’s hair blower amid the laughter of ridiculing teammates and disbelieving sportswriters could be heard resonating throughout the locker room. Joe didn’t care. He was doing it “his way,” to steal a line from another iconoclastic New Yorker. And who can forget Jim Bouton writing about Pepitone in his 1970 book Ball Four, where he revealed that Pepitone “…went nowhere without a bag containing hair products for his rapidly balding head,” and that he took to wearing toupees, some of them making him look ridiculous (see gallery). 

A Flawed Human Being, Like All of Us…

Talent unfulfilled. A life of dissipation. Unrelenting womanizing. The constant search to “hit it big.” That pretty well sums up the life and career of Joe Pepitone, one of baseball’s truly memorable and tragic characters. But he did have a soft, kindhearted side to his personality that I remember well from his time in Chicago, including the time in 1973 when I ran into him dining alone while eating breakfast in a Chicago Rush street restaurant. A bit annoyed by my rude interruption, he nevertheless found time to engage in some idle baseball chatter and to sign an autograph for this know-it-all, intrusive Cub fan. That’s the side of Joe Pepitone that endeared him to his many fans in both New York and Chicago, and that’s the side by which I choose to remember him.

Rest in Peace, Joe…and may your constant searching now and forever be over.

Gary Livacari 

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Information: Excerpts edited from Joe Pepitone Wikipedia page, stats from Baseball-reference.com