Bruce Springsteen pays tribute to Joe DePugh, 'Glory Days' inspiration

USA Today

02-04-2025

Bruce Springsteen pays tribute to Joe DePugh, 'Glory Days' inspiration
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He was walking out and Bruce Springsteen was walking in.
Joe DePugh, the Freehold, New Jersey native who inspired Springsteen's hit 'Glory Days' after a chance encounter in their shared hometown, has passed away. He was 75.
DePugh died after a bout with cancer, Rich Kane, a friend and long-time Freehold Borough teacher told the Asbury Park Press.
'Just a moment to mark the passing of Freehold native and ballplayer Joe DePugh,' Springsteen wrote in a post to his Instagram Sunday. '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.'
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The inspiration for 'Glory Days,' released in 1984 as part of Springsteen's 'Born in the U.S.A.' album, was largely a mystery until Freehold historian Kevin Coyne identified DePugh in a 2011 New York Times article.
'Whenever we're together, it's the same dynamic: I'm the star and he's the guy at the end of the bench," DePugh told the Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Network, in 2011. 'That's who he has always been to me, my right fielder.'
DePugh was a stand-out pitcher who tried out for the Los Angeles Dodgers and played basketball at King's College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, earning an English degree.
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Family circumstances caused DePugh to raise younger brothers, instead of them going to foster homes, Kane said. DePugh worked as a self-employed contractor and would play summer basketball, where he met Springsteen in 1973.
'Finally, I go to leave. But once I saw Bruce we went back in and closed the place,' DePugh told the Palm Beach Post of a bar they both frequented. 'He had a little entourage with him. They all sat in a booth, but it was just me and him at the bar. All of a sudden, it's 1:30 (a.m.) and they started blinking the lights."
A decade later, the night was the setting for 'Glory Days,' one of Springsteen's biggest hit songs, going to No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100.
"I had a friend was a big baseball player\Back in high school," the lyrics go. "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."
"When I first heard the song, I thought the song said 'and all we kept talking about was glory days,'" DePugh told the Palm Beach Post. "And years later, I finally saw the lyrics and saw 'all he kept talking about was glory days.' And I thought, 'Huh, (he) took a little shot at me!"
"I was tickled pink I would even get into the song. I certainly wasn't going to complain about what he decided to write about," he continued. "It's about living in the past and letting go, especially for jocks, to get out of that and live in the present. That certainly wasn't the first time I was accused of that."
Springsteen and DePugh were later part-time neighbors in Palm Beach County. DePugh, like Springsteen, never strayed far from his Freehold roots, visiting the borough at least twice a year when he went from Florida to his summer place in Vermont, and again on the trip south.
"All he wanted to do was raise his brothers, play baseball, play basketball and just hang in Freehold Borough," Kane said. "This one hurt. Joe and I were very close."