Joe, You Coulda Made Us Proud

At age seventeen Joe Pepitone signed with the New York Yankees, and soon experts were predicting that he would be the team’s next superstar. He could run, throw, and field, and he had a sweet home run swing.

But during his twelve years in the major leagues Pepitone devoted most of his energy to swinging off the field. He blew his career, destroyed two marriages, lost custody of three children, and came very close to a nervous breakdown. At the age of thirty-three he quit baseball for good a...