Joe Pepitone, known for his terrific defense

I wasn't aware of this, so I looked up his B-R page and...he's listed at a painful -8.7 dWAR, 17th-worst during Pepitone's career (1962-73; Frank Howard is easily the worst with -22.6). Hm.

Looking closer, he seemed to be a decent defensive first baseman (22 Rtot in 953 games) but godawful in the outfield (-28 in 496 games, including -22 in 390 games in center). PRO-TIP: Don't move your Gold Glove [he won three of 'em] 1B to the outfield, a position he cannot play, just to put your aging superstar (Mantle, of course) at first.

RIP to a good player and a man who struggled for a long time with his demons.

I admit, though, that my reaction to the headline was "eight average-ish seasons qualify you as a Yankees Great?"

He got plunked by Cosmo Kramer once, and that led to Kramer punching Mickey Mantle out.

Known for being the first player to being a hair dryer into the clubhouse. Well, that's not nothing and nice succinct tombstone inscription

The 2023 team is shaping up to be a working class hero team. Nate Colbert, McCarver, Pepitone, Bando, Frank Thomas. mostly guys I really liked (or should I say, guys who baseball cards i really liked).

believe it or not, that hair dryer was the talk of us boys in our neighborhood for a while.

how the hell could a MAN use a hair dryer, after all? next thing you know, some dude will wear eye shadow or lipstick! most of us were Mets fans, so it was fun to tease Yankees fans about it.

then we found out that an Italian kind in the neighborhood named Mario used one - he'd have been about 12 or 13 - and we rode him pretty hard for that, lol

RIP, Joe

It must have been Jim Bouton who explained Pepitone's fondness for the hairdryer: Pepitone would say "It adds fifty points to my batting average if I know I look #######' out there." RIP.

Closest careers to Pepitone's by OPS+, PA, and dWAR. He was a bigger star than any of them. Bescher was a better player, a top base stealer and primeval OBP guy. Tommy Griffith was a solid journeyman who played around the inception of the lively ball and was a starter for Brooklyn in the 1920 World Series.



Provided by Stathead.com: View Stathead Tool Used
Generated 3/13/2023.

It must have been Jim Bouton who explained Pepitone's fondness for the hairdryer: Pepitone would say "It adds fifty points to my batting average if I know I look #######' out there." RIP.

Bouton did write about Pepi's vanity about his appearance, but that particular quote was about Dick Stuart and his fondness for tight uniforms.

On Pepi's defense, Bouton also wrote about him shaking off a pickoff sign in the World Series because he was afraid of losing the ball in the white-shirted crowd. Said he'd never seen anyone shake off a pickoff sign before or since.

Nate Colbert, McCarver, Pepitone, Bando, Frank Thomas.

They already have a much stronger power core than the 2022 team. RIP, Joe Pepitone.

yeah the quote about the uniform was not Pepitone. The Bouton quote about Pepitone and the hair dryer was when they loaded it up with talcum powder in the middle of a game they were winning handily and then they wound up losing the game (I think Pepitone had an error or K something) and then they get back to the clubhouse and Pepitone turns on the hair dryer and boom! Instant ghost.

I think someone actually did a tracer on that to see what day it was and what actually happened.

On Pepi's defense, Bouton also wrote about him shaking off a pickoff sign in the World Series because he was afraid of losing the ball in the white-shirted crowd. Said he'd never seen anyone shake off a pickoff sign before or since.

That was the 3rd game of the 1963 World Series, and Pepitone must have had a premonition, since the next day he lost a throw from 3B Clete Boyer in those same shirts, and it set up the winning run in the final game of the Dodgers' 4 game sweep.

Pepitone was about as beloved by Yankees' fans as Josh Donaldson. He was a big downgrade from his predecessor, Bill "Moose" Skowron, and they were glad to get rid of him.

Talented, but there seems to have been some question about how well Pepitone applied himself to his craft. R.I.P.

Joe Pepitone up in this ############.

Joe had the misfortune of coming along as the Yankee Dynasty was dying, and of replacing actual greats and near-greats.

He also had the misfortune of trying to be a flamboyant Joe, when a real flamboyant Joe was establishing himself in another sport.

He caught a lot more grief than he deserved. RIP Joe.

His "several" years with the Cubs were half of 1970 (purchased from the Astros), all of 71 and 72 and the first couple of months of 73 when they were able to somehow trade him to Atlanta for Andre Thornton which was one of the better trades in Cubs history (not that the Cubs took advantage of it). The Braves released him a month later and he never played again.

I do recall being excited when the Cubs got him -- he was pretty famous, he must be good, right? And he was pretty good in 70-71, mostly platooning with Hickman.

On his dWAR ... it's a bit weird. Based on context, the relationship between RAA and WAA (and therefore RAR and WAR) changes and it was quite extreme in those years. For his career he was -60 RAA but that gets converted to a full -8 WAA. Similar with his dWAR -- as noted, just -6 overall in Rfield plus whacked for -62 in Rpos ... all resulting in -8.7 dWAR. Comp Adam Laroche at -9 and -85 but only -10.2 dWAR or McGwire at -29 and -96 but just -12.2 dWAR. In terms of comparing him historically, I don't know if it's best to comp Rfield or dRAA (I just made that up, Rfield + Rpos) or dWAR. I would think one of the first two -- his miscues might have been more costly in his context but that doesn't mean he'd have a 8.7 dWAR in Mac's era with the corresponding drop in Rfield.

From my youth, I remember him being a really good player, but he wasn’t. He was more famous than good.

For nine of his 12 seasons, he revolved around replacement level (I counted every season with < 1.0 WAR). His best season was 2.9 WAR and he had 9.8 for his career.

Wasn’t he also kind of famous for wearing a toupee?

Wasn’t he also kind of famous for wearing a toupee?

As described by Bill James in his New Historical Baseball Abstract: "Joe was mostly bald by the time he was thirty, and, being insecure and blessed with bad judgment, began wearing a wig the size of a grizzly bear."

Seems kind of inconsistent with the hairdryer. Was that pre-rug?

The hairdryer story from Ball Four, paraphrased: According to Jim Bouton in Ball Four, Pepi had two different toupees: one for everyday wear and a "game piece", the latter to be worn only on the diamond. One of the famous anecdotes in the book had Bouton and Fritz Peterson sneaking into the clubhouse during a game to sprinkle talcum powder in Joe's hair dryer. After the game (a Yankee loss), Joe applied his "everyday" rug and turned on the dryer to straighten his actual hair, and WHOOOOSH...as Bouton told it, "he looked like an Italian George Washington".

And, edit for the Ball Four story. PG 174, more paraphrase: Pepitone's thinning hair was frizzy and curly when he let it grow long. He carried a small Pan Am bag with various hair tools: hot comb, various hair products, glue for the hairpieces, hair straightener...and the famous hair dryer.

His autobiography, Joe, you coulda made us proud is a good and surprisingly no holds barred look at his career.

Could not resist the nightlife and barely tried.

Publicized as the next great Yankee star -- A 22 year old with 27 HR and a 109 OPS+ is worth getting excited over. But he stagnated after that.

Chris jaffe did the tracer on the pepitone hair dryer story and narrowed it to two possible games in summer r1966. One went to extras the other was 7-6 both feature pepitone making the last out

#11: It was a bit sad that the winning run was set up by that error, as the game's other runs were long homers by Howard and Mantle. My other memory came in the 9th after Bobby R dumped a leadoff single into short center. Koufax then caught both Tresh and Mantle looking. After the game MIck was quoted as saying "That curve boke about four feet!"

Walken family reunion

Whenever I see the word flamboyant I always think of this

Pepitone only played in 75 games for the Astros, but in my memory it seems like he was there longer. He must have made an impression on my 12-year old self.

Wasn't Pepitone the guy who put popcorn under his foreskin?

Hey, Joe Pep,
Don’t you evah die.

If the Sopranos was around then, Joe would have been called Joey Peppers.

The Yankees wanted to play Joe so they traded Moose SKowron (They aren't booing him, they are calling him "Moosoose".) to the LA Dodgers for pitcher, Stan Williams to open up first base. Moose did not hit in the National league. He was followed by Ron Fairly at 1b.
In the off-season, LA sold him to the Washington Senators. He didn't do much better back in the American League, so, in mid-season, he was traded to the White Sox for Joe Cunningham, Carl Bouldin, and Frank Kreutzer. Moose played 4 years for the Sox but never hit much again.

So now we chat Moose for a while. Thanks to his name, I think of him as an old, old timer but he lasted nearly long enough to overlap with my baseball childhood. He had 3 good seasons but otherwise was a pretty Pepitone-y player. I see that even in his prime, he usually had only about 500 PAs -- injuries or semi-platooning?

MS 282/332/459, 119 OPS+, 27 WAR, 8 WAA in 6000 PA
JP 258/301/432, 105 OPS+, 10 WAR, -8 WAA in 5500 PA

"Moose" is listed at 5-11, 195 -- a SS these days. :-) But per his sabr bio, the nickname is not size-related. Apparently his dad played local/semi-pro ball while the younge Skowron was playing on the junior team. Dad's teammates thought the kid looked like Mussolini, thankfully later shortened to "Moose."

The SABR bio also says that Pepitone (sorry Joe) sent Moose a telegam saying "told you so" when he was traded.

then we found out that an Italian kind in the neighborhood named Mario used one - he'd have been about 12 or 13 - and we rode him pretty hard for that, lol

Until he started getting all the girls in the neighborhood.

well, I wouldn't go that far.

but yes, in that era, basic hygiene and other efforts to make a good appearance were criminally underrated by boys in their early teens. fortunately, almost all of us were slobs so it was mostly an even playing field (my older sisters told me how "ratty" my long hair looked, but it didn't induce me to use some "girly" shampoo).

it was an odd era, the 1970s. some of my nephews and nieces were quite skeptical that young people REALLY dressed like the characters on "That 1970s Show" - until we rolled out some old family photo albums. lots of laughs all around. I once came down the stairs wearing multi-colored striped pants paired with a shirt emblazoned all over with every NA team logo - on the theory that they were some sort of a match. one of my sister's laughed so hard that she cried lol.

Wasn't Pepitone the guy who put popcorn under his foreskin?

Interested in hearing the answer to this one ... and if yes, the justification.

he was foolin with the team doctor and suggested he had a VD.

So now we chat Moose for a while. Thanks to his name, I think of him as an old, old timer but he lasted nearly long enough to overlap with my baseball childhood. He had 3 good seasons but otherwise was a pretty Pepitone-y player. I see that even in his prime, he usually had only about 500 PAs -- injuries or semi-platooning?

Yeah, Moose's constant injuries were the cross he had to bear. IIRC it began when he tried to lift one of those giant room air conditioners singlehanded, and it kind of went downhill from there.

His stats were quite bit better than Pepitone's, not really outstanding but also (on a rate level) better than the beloved (by Yankees fans) Tino Martinez. He was also a fine World Series hitter (.845 OPS) who came up with some of the most important WS clutch hits in the Stengel era, and then with the Dodgers he returned the favor in 1963.

My favorite Skowron story came when a reporter asked him about some college FB cheating scandal, and Moose just said quite matter-of-factly (paraphrasing) "I don't see what all the fuss is about. When I was playing football at Purdue, all us players got copies of the tests beforehand."

Let me rephrase ... Skowron was a promising young player (two very good half-seasons at 23-24) but in the end had just 3 seasons comfortably above 2 WAR, those 3 seasons being 7 of his 8 career WAA. From ages 30-36 (about half his career PA) he had 7.7 WAR and -2.3 WAA. But yes, if he stays healthy, he looks a lot better. I did make the mistake of seeing his 1.9 WAR age 28 season (following his age 27 1.8 WAR) season and thinking "average" but not noticing he missed half the season.

FWIW, Tino also had just 3 seasons comfortably above-average, roughly similar to Moose, with two of those for the Yanks. Tino sorta had the opposite problem, very durable and trotted out there every day no matter how average he might have usually been.

Not to rag on the departed, but the Times obit on Pepitone had this quote from the Mick that perfectly summarized a lot of Yankees' fans feeling about him:

“I wish I could buy you for what you’re really worth,” Mantle once said to him, according to the website Baseball-Almanac.com, “then sell you for what you think you’re worth.”

My advice to Skowron would've been "Let your wife handle the air conditioners."

My favorite Skowron story came when a reporter asked him about some college FB cheating scandal, and Moose just said quite matter-of-factly (paraphrasing) "I don't see what all the fuss is about. When I was playing football at Purdue, all us players got copies of the tests beforehand."

Didn't Bouton relate how some Mafia "friends" of Pepitone offered to "grease" his way to the starting 1B job by having Moose sleep with the fishes?

Probably apocryphal, but since Ball Four doesn't have an index, it's kind of hard to do a tracer on.

I think it was in Pepitone's book, where Joe related that a mob guy came up to him and said "Joe, we're gonna take care of that problem you got with Skowron."

It may have been in Pepitone's book, but it was in Ball Four too.

Moose Skowron....Because I'm lefthanded the first good ball glove my dad bought me as a kid, when I was about 8, was a first-baseman's mitt. It was a MacGregor Moose Skowron autographed model. I loved it, but of course by rule you can't play any other position with a 1B mitt, even in Little League, so a year or two later I got a regular fielder's glove so I could play other positions. A Mike Andrews. Did not have a lot of luck when it came to the autographs on my gloves.

Found it. Page 95 of my dog-eared paperback version of Joe You Coulda Made Us Proud

One night, I'll be goddamned if a couple of them didn't think they'd come up with a way to get me off the bench.

"We're gonna help ya out with that little problem ya got wit Skowron," he said.

"What? What do you mean?"

"He's gonna have a little accident."

"NO, no! I'll win the job on my own next year."

"Joey, why wait? We'll just get in touch wit him after a game, and the next day ya got the job. No problem. He won't play real good wit cracks in his legs."

\"#### no, don't do that," I pleaded.

"Joey," another guy said, "he's not supposed to be playin' ahead of an Italian."

Great stuff. A great book.

I hope none of those gangsters hanging around Pepitone had any gambling interests. Because that would be wrong. Gambling and baseball don't mix.

“I wish I could buy you for what you’re really worth,” Mantle once said to him, according to the website Baseball-Almanac.com, “then sell you for what you think you’re worth.”

So Mickey Mantle invented Moneyball.

RIP Joe.

I'll always remember him for designing Central Park.

Found it. Page 95 of my dog-eared paperback version of Joe You Coulda Made Us Proud

One night, I'll be goddamned if a couple of them didn't think they'd come up with a way to get me off the bench.

"We're gonna help ya out with that little problem ya got wit Skowron," he said.

"What? What do you mean?"

"He's gonna have a little accident."

"NO, no! I'll win the job on my own next year."

"Joey, why wait? We'll just get in touch wit him after a game, and the next day ya got the job. No problem. He won't play real good wit cracks in his legs."

"#### no, don't do that," I pleaded.

"Joey," another guy said, "he's not supposed to be playin' ahead of an Italian."

Great stuff. A great book.

And almost totally unbelievable. I suppose those same dudes offered to do a number on Elston Howard when he took over Yogi's position behind the plate. And maybe they stuck that lawn sprinkler apparatus in RF during the 1951 WS to deter Mickey Mantle from encroaching on Joe Dimaggio's territory.

It's funny that Joe Pepitone and Jeffrey Leonard both finished with exactly 5476 plate appearances. I think they're each other's most similar players. Intermittent power, terrible plate discipline, and fame/reputation way ahead of their on-field value.

The all-time 5450-5499 team

1B James Loney 11 WAR
2B Davey Johnson 27
SS Woody English 27
3B Craig Counsell 22
LF Mickey Stanley 17
CF Gorman Thomas 20
RF Terry Puhl 28
DH & Harry Caray favorite Ralph Garr 15

UI Marco Scutaro 22
Ghost Runner: Omar Moreno 10

The OF and IF are all pretty interchangable. It's a fierce 1B battle between Loney (11.3), Pepitone (9.8) and David Segui (10.4) but the numbers don't lie! There is no C to be had so, on the theory they get fewer PA anyway, the first C with fewer than 5450 PA is Wilbert Robinson with 7 WAR; or go with Terry Kennedy's 5421 PA and 22 WAR, fitting right into this group.

The most amazing career in this range though is Pete Suder with 5475 PA and -2 WAR for the 40-50s A's. A career 71 OPS+ at mostly 2B/3B, he put up -206 Rbat.

This one's interesting:

Moies Alou 7913 PA, 128 OPS+, 40 WAR, 16 WAA, -10 dWAR
Felipe Alou 7908 PA, 113 OPS+, 42 WAR, 13 WAA, -3 dWAR

The most amazing career in this range though is Pete Suder with 5475 PA and -2 WAR for the 40-50s A's. A career 71 OPS+ at mostly 2B/3B, he put up -206 Rbat.

If the A's hadn't moved to KC in the final year of Suder's career, he would've played his entire career as a Philadelphia Athletic. Players with exclusive 10+ year careers as a Philadelphia Athletic are virtually nonexistent. Eddie Rommel and Dick Fowler are the only two I can think of. No 10 year or more career was ever played exclusively with the St. Louis Browns or Boston Braves.

Which suggests the rest of the league knew how marginal Suder was since surely Mack would have traded him if he'd ever gotten an offer.