Mega star Bruce Springsteen’s high school friend, Joe DePugh, died this week and “The Boss” issued a statement on social media.
“Just a moment to mark the passing of Freehold native and ballplayer Joe DePugh. 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 said.
Yes, that Joe DePugh — a King’s College graduate and the topic of one of Springsteen’s most iconic songs, “Glory Days.”
“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, well they’ll pass you by,
Glory days, in the wink of a young girl’s eye,
Glory days, glory days.”
DePugh was Springsteen’s Freehold Regional High School classmate.
In July 2011, the Times Leader talked to Joe DePugh when he was living in Stowe, Vermont. The conversation was about those “glory days” that happened long before DePugh donned a King’s College basketball uniform.
DePugh played sparingly for the Monarchs back in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But it was his prowess on the baseball diamond — Little League to Freehold Regional High School in New Jersey — that inspired his teammate, Springsteen, to write a song about DePugh later in life.
DePugh graduated from King’s College in 1972 before going on to be a painting contractor, splitting his time between Florida and Vermont. DePugh and Springsteen graduated high school together in 1967.
It was back in the summer of 1973, after DePugh played a game in the Jersey Shore Basketball League, that he said he went to the opposing team’s sponsor’s bar — the Headliner in Neptune on the Jersey shore.
“I was leaving the Headliner at about 9:30 p.m. and when I get outside, here comes Bruce,” DePugh recalled in the 2011 Times Leader story. “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.”
DePugh said there was a dynamic between the two — DePugh was the star of the team and Springsteen was the kid that sat at the end of the bench and never got in the game.
“That dynamic has never changed,” DePugh said. “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. We used to call him`Saddie’ because he hardly ever played.”
When “Glory Days” came out in 1985, it was the fifth single released from Springsteen’s album “Born in the U.S.A.”
“I knew immediately it was about me,” DePugh said from Vermont. “It described exactly what happened that night. It’s never been a mystery — everybody who knew me knew the song is about me.”
A mutual childhood friend, Don Norkus, arranged for DePugh and Springsteen to meet again at an Italian restaurant in Red Bank, N.J., in May of 2005. ” “We got there in the afternoon and stayed until the place closed.”
Wilkes-Barre connections
A week before the Times Leader story, The New York Times published a story about DePugh being Springsteen’s “Glory Days” inspiration. A copy editor at the New York Times, Connor Ennis, who grew up in Dallas, PA, called DePugh.
Ennis graduated from Dallas High School, the son of the late John and Mary Jo (Joanne) Munley Ennis who both worked at King’s College for years. John Ennis was chairman of the English Department and Mrs. Ennis was a resident Counselor of Women when female students first enrolled at King’s in 1969-70. Connor Ennis served briefly as a correspondent for The Times Leader.
“I was totally surprised about DePugh’s King’s connection,” Connor Ennis said in 2011. “I didn’t know much about the story, despite being a huge Springsteen fan myself. When I got to that part of the story, I immediately called my parents and asked if they knew DePugh.”
They did — DePugh was an English major at King’s, but Mrs. Ennis knew DePugh better.
“Indeed, I remember Joe and he was a very pleasant person,” Mrs. Ennis told the Times Leader in 2011. “He often visited the sixth floor of East Hall, which is where the first young women resident students lived. But Joe was always cooperative about respecting visiting hours.”
Concert is huge experience
In 2011, childhood friend Norkus said he and DePugh were among 30 people from Freehold, N.J., who went to see a Springsteen concert at Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands in 2004.
“Bruce left us tickets and backstage passes,” said DePugh. “Before he sang `Glory Days,’ Bruce yelled into the microphone, `Joe D., are you out there?’ Norkus’ daughter came up to me and said,`the song is about you?’ All of my high school friends knew that, but the other 60,000 people at the concert didn’t know who Joe D. was.”
In 2011, Norkus said he hadn’t seen DePugh in years.
“It always bugged me who that speedball pitcher was,” Norkus said. “Joe told me the whole story. It blew me away.”
Norkus ran into Springsteen two weeks later and he had confirmation straight from the Boss’ mouth.
“Bruce told me the pitcher was Joe,” Norkus said.
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