Joe DePugh apparently had quite the arm when he took the mound as a kid. His fastball would blow by hitters and, boy, make them look like fools.
At least, that's how he's remembered by one of his friends and former teammates -- music legend Bruce Springsteen, who took to Instagram to honor DePugh, who died recently and was the inspiration for Springteen's baseball-tinged '80s hit "Glory Days."
"Just a moment to mark the passing of Freehold native and ballplayer Joe DePugh," Springteen wrote. "He was a good friend when I needed one. "He could throw that speedball by you, make you look like a fool"….Glory Days my friend."
Springsteen, of course, was referencing the first verse of "Glory Days," which says:
I had a friend was a big baseball player
Back in high school
He could throw that speedball by you
Make you look like a fool, boy
Saw him the other night at this roadside bar
I was walking in, he was walking out
We went back inside, sat down, had a few drinks
But all he kept talking about was (Glory Days)
That encounter is pretty much what happened one night back in 1973, when DePugh was leaving a bar after a basketball game and bumped into his old pal Springsteen.
"I was leaving the Headliner at about 9:30 p.m. and when I get outside, here comes Bruce,” DePugh told the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader in 2011. “We were 24 years old and he was just hitting it big in the music industry. We went back in and started talking about grade school, the nuns we had, Little League and high school. The glory days, just like the song says.”
In their baseball-playing days, DePugh was the team's star, while Springsteen spent a lot of time on the bench. That created a special relationship between the two whenever they met later in life.
"We've only been together a couple of times since high school, but when we do see each other, I’m still the big baseball star and he’s still the same quiet, humble kid at the end of the bench," DePugh told the Times-Leader. "We used to call him 'Saddie' because he hardly ever played."
And that's why when "Glory Days" became a hit off Springsteen's "Born in the USA" album, DePugh found special enjoyment in the song.
"I knew immediately it was about me," DePugh told the Times-Leader in the 2011 interview. "It described exactly what happened that night. It's never been a mystery; everybody who knew me knew the song is about me."