AHEAD OF HIS TIME
Ex-Cub drew more attention for his off-the-field conduct
NEW YORK — Joe Pepitone, an All- Star and Gold Glove first baseman on the 1960s Yankees who gained renown for his flamboyant personality, hairpieces and penchant for nightlife, died at age 82.
Pepitone was living with his daughter Cara Pepitone at her house in Kansas City, Missouri, and was found dead Monday morning, according to BJ Pepitone, a son of the former player. The cause of death was not immediately clear, but BJ said a heart attack was suspected.
The Yankees said in a statement Pepitone’s “playful and charismatic personality and onfield contributions made him a favorite of generations of Yankees fans even beyond his years with the team in the 1960s.”
Pepitone played for the Cubs from 197073. He owned a bar in Chicago, Joe Pepitone’s Thing, at 12 E. Division St.
Born in Brooklyn, Pepitone helped the Yankees to their second straight World Series title, a team led by Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and Elston Howard.
Pepitone drew attention for his off-thefield conduct. In a time when most players were staid and conformist, Pepitone was thought to be the first to bring a hair dryer into the clubhouse, an artifact later given to the Baseball Reliquary and displayed at the Burbank Central Library during the 2004 exhibition “The Times They Were A- Changin’: Baseball in the Age of Aquarius.”
“Things were a little different back then, sure,” Pepitone told Rolling Stone in 2015. “When I brought the hair dryer into the clubhouse, they thought I was a hairdresser or something; they didn’t know what the hell was going on, you know? I’d walk in with a black Nehru jacket on, beads, my hair slicked back; it was ridiculous. I think about it now, and I laugh.”
Jim Bouton, in his groundbreaking 1970 book “Ball Four” that revealed the inner working of baseball teams, recounted how “Pepitone took to wearing the hairpieces when his hair started to get thin on top. . . . He carries around all kinds of equipment in a little Blue Pan Am bag.” Pepitone’s 1975 autobiography, “Joe, You Coulda Made Us Proud,” detailed nightlife with Frank Sinatra, smoking marijuana with Mantle and Whitey Ford and Pepitone’s jailing at Rikers Island.
Yankees owner George Steinbrenner brought Pepitone back as a minor-league hitting instructor in 1980 and promoted him to the big-league team two years later. Pepitone said he would even trim his wigs to comply with the Yankees’ grooming policy.
Pepitone was jailed at Rikers for about four months in 1988 after two misdemeanor drug convictions, then was rehired by the Yankees to work with minor-leaguers. He was arrested in 1992 at a Catskills resort for a brawl that started when a man called him a “washed-up nobody” and pleaded guilty in 1995 to driving while intoxicated.
He joined the Yankees at a high point in the team’s history. After winning the 1962 title, New York went on to take American League pennants the following two years only to lose in the World Series. Pepitone became an All- Star in three consecutive years starting in 1963.
He stayed with the Yankees through their decline and was traded to Houston after the 1969 season for Curt Blefary.