Joe, You Coulda Made Us Proud Read online

  John King, the bird dog for the Yankee scout, became like a second father to me. He looked after me, helped me tremendously in a nice patient way. He gave me all kinds of advice that improved me as a ballplayer every year. That first season he taught me how to run better, stay up on my toes, and how, on throws from the outfield, to keep the ball low by releasing it with a downward snap. He was always working with me.

  John King also became very close to my mother and father. We all respected him and trusted him. Too much as it turned out. When I was fifteen, in my second season of playing baseball, he had me sign an agreement which gave him exclusive rights to represent me, act as my agent. He would receive something like fifteen percent of everything I earned until I was about forty-four years old. My mother and father, not knowing any better, not realizing the ramifications of this “contract,” signed it, too. It seemed like a fine arrangement then. After all, John King was going to help me become a major league ballplayer eventually.

  When I was sixteen, I’d grown to about five feet, ten inches tall, weighed about 135, 140 pounds, and I really started to get my strength, to power the ball. We played a game at Hamilton High School, which is 320 feet down the right-field line. Beyond the fence is a handball court, and beyond that is a lawn. I put a ball, on a fly, on that lawn. Somebody measured it at 410 feet, and they set a bronze plaque in cement where the ball landed that says, “SCHOOLBOY JOE PEPITONE HIT A BALL IN THIS SPOT IN 1957.” I was also doing some pitching that season, and that same day I threw a one-hitter. It blew my mind.

  I batted about .600 in high school ball in 1957, and a dozen other scouts started coming to see me play. Then I tried out for one of the best semipro teams in Brooklyn, Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs, and made it. Nathan’s played in five different leagues, about a hundred games a season. The Nathan’s players ranged in age from twenty to twenty-five, and all of them had some minor-league experience and received a little pay for playing. I couldn’t take any money because I wanted to play another year of high-school ball, but I didn’t care about money anyway. All I cared about was playing.

  I batted .390 with Nathan’s. I was proud as hell. My friends were proud of me: skinny Joe Pep was a baseball star. He knocked the shit out of that ball. John King said I was going to earn myself a nice bonus, that with thirteen bird dogs or scouts constantly in the stands at my games there would be terrific competition among them to sign me, which would push the numbers up. Somebody said I’d get $25,000; another said $35,000; another said $45,000. I couldn’t believe $25,000, couldn’t imagine just how much money that was. I knew my father, breaking his ass on construction, brought home in a good year, working a bunch of Sundays and a lot of overtime . . . about $7000.

  My father was also proud as hell of me. But, given his nature and his early frustrated desire to be a baseball player, my performance was almost never enough. He couldn’t relax, be patient. He couldn’t abide any mistakes. I guess he tried to relive his strop-welted lost youth through me, and he wanted so agonizingly badly for me—us—not merely to succeed, to excel, but to be perfect. I felt the pressure.

  He started coming to every game, and I always felt his presence. If I made an error in the field, if I made a mistake running the bases, if I struck out, I’d look over at him and he’d have his face in his hands in embarrassment, or he’d be shaking his head in disgust. After the game, we’d be walking home and he’d yell at me, “Jesus Christ, why didn’t you hit that guy? I moved behind home plate, and he had nothin’! Nothin’! You should’ve hit him easy! You weren’t concentratin’!”

  I wasn’t concentrating because of him, a piece of my head was always fixed on Willie. And if his friends were at a game and I fouled up, it was even worse . . . he had so much pride, so much ego, so much desire for me. He’d really get pissed off, scream, even smack me. I’d yell back, and he’d punch me. Then, two minutes later he’d come in my room and hold me in his arms and hug me, and we’d both cry together and he’d apologize. “Joe, I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry.”

  “If you’re gonna hit me—don’t apologize!” I’d tell him. “Either don’t hit me, or don’t apologize afterward. It’s driving me nuts!” It didn’t help; he couldn’t control himself.

  And if anyone put me down or tried to hurt me in any way in a ball game, my father would go over and beat the shit out of the guy. No matter who it was or where it was, he wouldn’t allow anyone to put any crap on his son. If a pitcher would throw at my head, my father would run behind the screen in back of home plate and yell, “You sonofabitch! You throw at him once more, I’ll come out there and kick your ass! You hear me? One more—just one more pitch at his head—I’m coming out there to get you, you bastard!”

  Everybody in the stands would stare at the crazy man yelling. He’d go back to his seat, and if he’d come alone, if none of his friends were there, people sitting near him would slide away, leave him sitting there with a big space all around him. I don’t think he even noticed, he was so intent on the game, on me.

  I remember we played an all-black team called the Vikings at their field on Myrtle Avenue one day. I was playing first base and there was a very close play. I stretched as far as I could with my foot on the inside edge of the bag, just my cleats and the sole of my shoe touching. This big black guy came down the line and purposely jumped on my foot. The spike went through my shoe and almost chopped off my toe. I screamed and fell back on the ground holding my foot. The blood was running out the gash in my shoe.

  “Hey, you!” I heard someone yell. I looked up and saw Willie running out onto the field. He met the guy who’d spiked me as he trotted across the infield toward his dugout. Willie didn’t say another word. He just hit that guy and knocked him out with one punch. The Vikings leaped out of their dugout. Willie set his feet and motioned them on. Unfortunately for the first three guys, they came one behind the other. My father flattened each of them with a single punch. Bang, bang, bang: they went down like tenpins. None of them got up. I just lay there watching as half the men in the stands poured onto the field. My teammates, the Vikings, and scores of fans ran around slugging one another. I finally got up and limped circuitously toward the stands. I saw the scouts all leaving and I thought, I wonder what they think of this shit? Is my father driving them away from me? The game was suspended.

  A week or so later we were playing at the Shore Parkway field and there were six scouts in the stands. I was in a little slump, and I was feeling unbelievable pressure at this time. The presence of the scouts, the presence of my father . . . I felt at times like I couldn’t breathe. And I couldn’t shake it, couldn’t clear my head. I struck out my first three times at bat in this game.

  There was a guy in the stands, a huge man with one of those deep, booming voices that carries all over the ball park. He started getting on me after the second strikeout, yelling, “Oh, you’re some hitter. Way to make contact, Pepitone.”

  When I stepped to the plate in the ninth, the game tied, I was so tight, so tense, I thought I’d burst. This guy started on me. “You’re overrated, Pepitone. Why the hell would the Yankees consider signing you? You’re a big whiff.”

  On the first pitch, a fast ball inside, I connected. The ball carried about 350 feet, a helluva shot. Home run. As I trotted home, I saw my father, who had been sitting up behind this guy, walk down in front of him.

  “He’s overrated, huh, bigmouth?” my father shouted into the guy’s face. “That ball went over 350 feet, you asshole.” The guy stood up and my father knocked him down. He stood up again, and my father knocked him out.

  He was an incredible man. But it wasn’t easy for me, every time I heard a commotion in the stands, seeing my father beating hell out of somebody, fighting and destroying three grown men at once. It wasn’t easy with all those scouts watching me. They wanted to see the long ball, to see if I had consistent power. So I had to go up there swinging away, and when I didn’t make contact it crushed me. I felt I was blowing my chance, and I really didn’t think it was
fair, all that pressure from the scouts plus my father. I just kept getting tighter and tighter.

  It reached the point where ail the bird dogs and scouts were saying, “Joe Pepitone’s old man is gonna ruin that kid.” John King kept hearing this, and he knew they had a point, knew it was getting harder and harder for me with my father at the games.

  The night following that game at Shore Parkway field, we’d just finished dinner and I was getting ready to go out when the phone rang. I was standing right next to my father when he answered it. “Hello, John, what’s up?” He listened for a minute, and I stood there watching the anger clench his face into a blazing scowl that could kill.

  “What do you mean—I’m hurting his performance? Are you crazy, you sonofabitch?”

  He listened a moment.

  “I do take it personally, goddamnit. And I don’t give a shit what you say or what any of the scouts say. Nobody’s telling me I can’t go and watch my own son play baseball.”

  He listened again and his hand started trembling, and the tears swam into my eyes. I stepped back by the china closet and leaned against it.

  “I’m not making him nervous, goddamnit!”

  He was making me nervous, I thought. Shit, he was!

  Then my father exploded. “Who the fuck are you talking to? If I can’t go to his games any more, my son’s not going. You got that? And you’re not his agent any more. In fact, I don’t ever—I mean ever—-want to catch you around my son any more. He’s not playing any more fucking baseball!” He crashed the receiver into the phone.

  I couldn’t believe it. My own father had just killed my dream. I looked him right in the eyes and yelled, “I hate you!”

  He snatched up a thick glass ashtray sitting by the phone, whirled around, and threw it at me. Instinctively, my head turned away, toward the china closet. The ashtray hit the closet and smashed into a hundred pieces, and a dozen shards ricocheted into my eyes and face. I had searing pains in my eyes and I couldn’t open them. I thought I was blind, and I could feel the blood running down my face and dripping off my chin.

  My father let out a cry like a dog that had been run over. I felt him hug me, lift me up, sobbing, his body shaking, and felt him carry me down the stairs to the street. He gently eased me into the car, then raced to the hospital, his hand clamped on the horn, never stopping once. “You’re gonna be all right, Joe. Hang on. You’re gonna be all right!”

  I was scared to death. I thought I’d be blind, that I’d never be able to open my eyes again. When we got to the emergency room, I didn’t think I could stand the pain when they forced me to open my eyes, when they peeled back the lids and picked out those shards of glass. My father held my hand, knelt next to me, and let me squeeze his hand as hard as I could against the pain.

  “Go ahead, Joe, squeeze! He’s getting all the pieces out. You’re gonna be all right!”

  He was right. They got the glass out and I could see again, there was no permanent damage. They cleaned and dressed all the cuts on my face and we drove home. On the way, my father said, “Joe. Joe, I’m sorry.” He didn’t have to say any more. I knew he had been as frightened as I was, knew that if I had been blinded, he would have never forgiven himself, knew that he would have spent the rest of his life trying to make it up to me. But I also felt some bitterness, because I really didn’t want the fanciest tapping cane and tin cup in New York. I wanted to play baseball.

  My father never hit me again, though, after this incident. I think the glass in my eyes scared him so much that he finally forced himself to stop punching me. Whenever he lost his temper with me after that, he’d ball up his fist as if he were going to bash me, then he’d turn and put his hand through a wall, a window, whatever was there when he blew up. That’s how he was. He ended up with a lot of cut and bone-bruised hands, but he never left another mark on me.

  Sometimes I wished he would hit me, because once he stopped hitting, he yelled at me more. He’d get angry and scream at me at the top of his lungs, call me everything he could think of. And that hurt me more, really hurt me. I finally told him, “Stop yelling! Please! I’d rather you hit me, get it over with! Just don’t yell at me, Dad—don’t do this to me!”

  He couldn’t stop yelling at me any more than he could stop beating me all those years. I knew he didn’t mean it, that all he wanted was for me to do well. But the yelling really got to me because it stuck with me longer than a punch, the words crouching in my head and repeating themselves, the things he called me. I guess this kind of put-down, when it comes from a god—and I had so much respect for my father in spite of everything—becomes heavier and heavier to bear. Because the put-downs came from my father, because I couldn’t live up to his expectations, I began to feel incompetent even though I knew damn well I wasn’t. It wobbled my head, affected my play.

  Fortunately, for almost two months after the glass was picked out of my eyes my father didn’t appear at my ball games. John King’s words must have finally reached him, given him some realization that his presence at the games wasn’t helping me. He stopped coming, and I started hitting the hell out of the ball. I still felt tremendous pressure from the scouts who were always there, still felt I couldn’t afford to make mistakes, that I had to show them the long ball, display my power. But I was able to handle it. I loved my father so much and I knew he hated not being at the games, and there were so many times when I’d look over and see he wasn’t there . . . and I wished he were. Yet I knew I was better off, knew it was better for both of us.

  He often pulled up just as a game was ending, driving a Caddy or some other big car the owner of his construction company, Tony Gull, had lent him for the evening. He’d pick me up, ask me how I did, and smile that smile of his that was as wide as a keyboard when I’d had a strong game. It was nice.

  Of course, it couldn’t last. Willie couldn’t stay away from my games forever. When he started coming back, he was a bit more subdued at first. He’d yell at any opposing player who seemed to be threatening to hurt me, but at least he didn’t slug anyone for weeks. And when he finally lost control of his fists again, I don’t know as I could blame him.

  The flare-up occurred at the Kings Park Hospital field where there was a section of the stands enclosed by a wire fence for the resident psychiatric patients. My father was sitting on a seat down below them, and for some reason one of the inmates started yelling at him.

  “You. You. The one with the twenty-dollar socks. Who the hell you think you are?”

  I was playing first base for Nathan’s this game, and I saw my father look around at the guy, who was making funny faces at him. The next thing I knew the nut was throwing pebbles down on my father’s head.

  “Hey, you crazy bastard,” my father yelled. “One more pebble hits me, I’m gonna come up there and kick your crazy ass!”

  The nut kept it up, but my father didn’t go after him. He went down to our dugout and borrowed a batting helmet, walked back and took his seat again. Then: pling, pling, pling. The pebbles started bouncing off the helmet. My father went berserk. He jumped up and plowed through people in the stands to get to the gate leading into the enclosed area. Enraged, he locked his fingers in the wire and tried to pull the gate open. It didn’t give, but the wire did, tearing out and sending him spinning backward. The nut was sitting there laughing, and still tossing pebbles at my father. But Willie scrambled through the hole in the fence, shoved an old guard out of the way, and punched the nut. My father was so upset, it was a glancing blow, and the nut kept laughing and saying, “You with the twenty-dollar socks—sit here. You with the twenty-dollar socks—sit here.”

  My father threw his arms in the air. Then he crawled out through the hole in the wire. He walked to the far end of the stands shaking his head. I laughed. I didn’t feel any pressure that day, none at all.

  I often wonder, looking back, how Willie would have treated my brother Jimmy if he’d lived with us. Jimmy and I shared a bedroom in our two-bedroom apartment until my youngest bro
ther, Billy, was born. At age four and a half, Jimmy went to stay with our Aunt Fifi, my mother’s sister, and her husband for a few weeks. He stayed over eight years. Aunt Fifi lived only a block away and I ate lunch at her house daily during the week when my mother was working. Fifi was childless, and when Billy was several weeks old and my mother went to bring Jimmy home, Aunt Fifi started crying and hid under a table. She made such a scene that my parents let Jimmy stay on with her a little longer, and a little longer, until he became more like Fifi’s son.

  It’s interesting to note how different Jimmy—who wasn’t constantly around my father—turned out from Billy and me. Jimmy, a New York City detective who also works two days a week as a bank teller, is a much more responsible, dependable guy, careful with his money. When we were kids, I got a job delivering for the local grocery store. After one week, I gave the job to Jimmy and went back to spending most of my time playing ball. Jimmy liked earning money more than playing ball. He delivered groceries for six years. There was never any evidence of rebellion in him, that I was later to exhibit so graphically. Billy, who was also a good ballplayer and signed with the Giants, quit after one season because his wife didn’t like the baseball life. He’s a New York City policeman, a guy who doesn’t worry all that much about tomorrow. He was Willie’s baby son, his pride and joy, and never got rapped around. Jimmy was Willie’s responsible son, who wasn’t present to get rapped. I was the eldest son and took the abuse. It just happened that way.