Joe, You Coulda Made Us Proud
Page 29
Luckily, a friend saw the straits I was in and said, “Joe Pepitone doesn’t live like that.” He let us stay in his house for six weeks. Then he told me that his mother-in-law had died recently and that she’d had a house in the Poconos. He let us move in there.
I was grateful, but moving to the mountains had its drawbacks. For one thing, the winters were absolutely brutal. And I couldn’t use my gas-powered boat on the nearby lake. (But I can’t not fish, so I bought a little rubber dinghy that ran on electricity.) Worst of all, there was nothing to do up there. I mean, nothing. A big day was a trip to Walmart or the car wash. So I spent a lot of time back in New York, doing appearances for the Yankees and working with sponsors.
When this book was first published, in 1975, I’d recently retired from baseball and was still a young man. Today, I’m seventy-four-years old and living happily with Irene back on Long Island. My original coauthor, Berry Stainback, died in 2014. (I still remember our interview sessions for the book. Totally relaxing, not like an interrogation at all.) My amazing grandfather, Vincent Caiazzo, was amazing to the end, living to 103. My mother, Ann, is no longer present “to feed me and clothe me and give me a dime every day,” having passed away in 2005 at the age of ninety-one.
But forty years later, one thing hasn’t changed at all. I still miss my father, Willie Pepitone, and wonder how my life would have been different if he’d lived to a ripe old age.
Every day.
My family posing after a family wedding, left to right: me at age seven, my tough father Willie, my beautiful mother Ann holding baby Billy, and my brother Jimmy, age five. Love the tuxedos—and Willie’s socks.
My amazing grandfather, Vincent Caiazzo, on his sixty-ninth birthday, holding my cousin Clair. Jimmy, at right, is six, and I am eight, minus one tooth. Vincent lived to a ripe old age—103!
Rockaway’s Playland, 1957: My brother Jimmy, fourteen, and me, sixteen, at a shooting gallery. Jimmy’s been a good shot ever since (just not with a baseball bat).
After my first workout in Florida, I sent this photo to my mother and wrote: “Don’t mind the looks, it’s not the looks that make a ballplayer. The man with me had the world’s biggest collection of autographed baseballs.”
Stan Musial’s last All-Star Game and my first (1963). (AP)
Clinching the pennant against Minnesota in my first full season with the Yankees, 1963. Ralph Houk congratulates Johnny Blanchard and me. We both homered. (AP)
Yogi and me at Yankee Stadium before the start of the ’63 Series against the Dodgers. (AP)
Mickey Mantle (7), Tom Tresh (15), and Elston Howard greet me at home plate after my sixth-inning grand-slam home run in the 1964 World Series against the Cardinals. (AP)
My only great game at bat in a World Series. I hit a grand-slam home run and Roger Maris, at left, and Mickey Mantle hit solo homers, as we evened the ’64 Series. (AP)
Fort Lauderdale, March 1965. Joe DiMaggio giving the infield some pointers and making us laugh. Left to right, DiMaggio, Clete Boyer, me, Tony Kubek, and Bobby Richardson. (AP)
At the Cubs’ Arizona spring-training camp with my girlfriend, Stephanie Deeker, who at the time was a Playboy Bunny. Stephanie wasn’t well received by the other wives until we were married.
Me telling Yogi to get off the field and let me work with this kid (infielder Erik Peterson). Only kidding. Nashville Sounds AA ball, 1981. (AP)
Hiding from my three ex-wives in Marathon, Florida.
Irene Thomas and me, 2011.
My backyard after “Superstorm” Sandy, 2012.
At the Yankees Old Timers’ Game, 2013.