Thanks to Bruce Springsteen, Joe Depughs’ glory days have never really passed him. DEPUGH, who helped inspire the “Glory Days” – Ode Rollicking, but Sweezers of Springs, to young memories of his 1984 mega -sales album “Born in the USA” – died of cancer in Florida this week at 75.
“Just a moment to mark the death of the native of Freehold and Ballon player Joe Depugh,” wrote Springsteen in a statement published on Instagram on Sunday. “He could throw this speedball by you, make you look like a fool”…. Days of glory my friend.
Depugh and Springsteen grew up in Freehold, NJ, and played young people together. The two met in 1973 outside a bar called the headliner at Neptune City, NJ Springsteen between and Depugh was, you guessed it, leaving.
“There, I go to the car in the parking lot and here is Bruce. And I hadn’t seen him since our diploma,” said Depugh in a video recorded for a full -owned exhibition on the history of the song. “It was great to see him again, and so we talked, and we were in the parking lot for half an hour and he said” let’s go “, so we turned around and had a drink, then another drink, and all of a sudden, the guy flashes the lights, it was almost in the morning.”
More than a decade later, the “glory days” hit the air.
“I knew right away,” said Depugh in the video about the first time he heard the song. “It’s an incredible compliment.”
For years, the true identity of the launcher who became Barroom Companion remained unknown to the public. The former small in full owners had the theories on which belonged to the arm behind speedball – there was the former player who ran to Springsteen in a restaurant and the local launcher who reached minors, among others.
“There were several candidates for this, people who thought it was the” glory day “launcher,” said Kevin Coyne, writer and historian in full ownership. “Joe Depugh was in a way a black horse.”
In 2011, Coyne helped organize a 60th meeting of the Little League Freehold, one of the older small leagues in the country. Springsteen did not attend, but other classmates have done so, one of which identified the launcher as Depugh. Confirmation had come from Springsteen himself.
“I said:” Well, Bruce, is it true or isn’t it true? “,” Said Don Norkus, a friend of Depugh who had already met Springsteen. “And he said:” Yeah, it’s true. “”
Later that year, Coyne wrote an article on Depugh for the New York Times, establishing its link with “Glory Days” known publicly. It was a distinction that Depugh was slightly.
“He was a charming, charming, graceful, modest and charming human being,” said Coyne, who got to know Depugh in the years since he wrote the article. “He was not a blow to blow, you know, ex-athlete who talked about his last days. He was just a charming and modest guy.”
And he could really play ball. The transcription in full ownership, a local newspaper, wrote on an exit from the Babe Ruth league in Depugh on May 14, 1964, when he withdrew 11 to 11 years in a losing effort. The newspaper scored Springsteen on this same list, but at the time, it was Depigh who appreciated the status of Rock Star.
“Baseball was the world, and if you were good in this area, you were a god,” said Coyne about the era of Depugh and Springsteen.
The longtime friend, Rich Kane, recalled his first memory of Depugh in a local derby.
“We were older than Joe, but this grandson of a pistol beat us all and never hinted at the end,” said Kane. “He was the smallest and younger in the region, and he won it to all these adults. It was my introduction to Joe Depugh. He was just a good guy.”
And while some consider that the message of “days of glory” is melancholy, Depgh was not part of it.
“There is nothing in this song that bored him,” said Coyne. “There was nothing on this subject because he was not that person. He was not a person who lived at that time. At the time, he had prospered it and he had loved them, then had a good life. ”
At the end of the school, Depugh has tried for Los Angeles Dodgers before playing basketball and graduating at King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
Depugh has lost his two parents at a young age and became the legal guardian of two of his brothers. After university, he worked as a substitute teacher before becoming an entrepreneur. Later, he left New Jersey, sharing his time between Vermont and Florida. He continued to make regular arrests in full ownership to see old friends, including, on occasion, Springsteen.
“He said to me:” Always remember that I love you “, said Depugh in the video about such a meeting. “He kissed me on the two cheeks, then he was released.”
(Photo Gracious of Don Norkus)
