I knew it felt like there was a disturbance in the Force today… the inimitable Joe Pepitone has apparently passed away.
Joe had some really good years as a player for the Yankees and Cubs, though that was all before my time. But in the summer of ‘78, I checked his autobiography Joe, You Coulda Made Us Proud out of the LA Public Library, thinking it would just be another mildly entertaining baseball book with which to while away the long summer hours. What I found instead was something I would later describe as a cross between Ball Four, Goodfellas and Penthouse Forum. I have truly never been the same since…
Joe was a real character and a “free-swinger” both on and off the field – he was the first MLB player to bring a hairdryer into the clubhouse (at a time when such attention to grooming was considered “unmanly”), he smoked weed when most of his fellow players were still sticking to scotch, and he owned a short-lived Division Street watering hole called Joe Pepitone’s Thing. He also sported some of the greatest muttonchops ever seen on a baseball diamond, and some of the most ridiculous hairpieces. When I went to Cubs Fantasy Camp in 2010 (and again in 2012) I wore #8 on my jersey in his honor. And while I’m not a big collector of MLB memorabilia, my absolute prized baseball possession is a promotional mini-bat from the “Thing,” which I keep prominently displayed on my record shelves.
Joe was his own worst enemy, and he did a lot of things in his life that he later profoundly regretted, not the least of which was letting partying and skirt-chasing get in the way of his playing career. But I will always treasure the handful of phone conversations I had with him around the time his book was reissued in 2015. He was sweet, warm and screamingly funny, as the interview we did for Rolling Stone still attests. (You can also find extra material from that interview here.)
Joe’s passing makes me really, really sad. But if there’s a Heaven, I know Joe is up there right now doing “the popcorn trick” (Google it) for St. Peter, who is laughing too hard NOT to let him through the Pearly Gates.
Rest in Peace, Pepi.