Billboard Women in Music 2025
Bruce Springsteen has paid tribute to Joe DePugh, the New Jersey pitcher who inspired his hit song “Glory Days,” following news of DePugh’s death this week at the age of 75.
“Just a moment to mark the passing of Freehold native and ballplayer Joe DePugh,” Springsteen wrote in an Instagram post on March 30. “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.”
DePugh and Springsteen grew up together in Freehold, N.J., and played baseball in the same youth league. Their now-legendary chance encounter at a bar in 1973 served as the real-life basis for one of the most iconic verses on Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. album: “I had a friend was a big baseball player back in high school… Saw him the other night at this roadside bar, I was walking in, he was walking out.”
DePugh later confirmed the moment in interviews, recalling how the two reconnected outside the Headliner in Neptune, then spent hours catching up inside.
“He had a little entourage with him. They all sat in a booth, but it was just me and him at the bar,” DePugh told the Palm Beach Post. “All of a sudden, it’s 1:30 a.m. and they started blinking the lights.”
Springsteen never mentioned DePugh by name in the song, which reached No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1985. But the mystery of the man behind the lyrics was finally solved in 2011, when Freehold historian Kevin Coyne revealed DePugh’s identity in a New York Times article, with confirmation from Springsteen himself.
“He was not a person who was living in those days. He had had those days, he had thrived in them and he had loved them, and then he had a nice life,” Coyne said of DePugh.
A standout pitcher and basketball player, DePugh once tried out for the Los Angeles Dodgers and played college basketball at King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He became the legal guardian of his younger brothers after the early death of his parents, later working as a contractor and splitting his time between Florida and Vermont.
DePugh and Springsteen remained friends throughout their lives, occasionally crossing paths in Palm Beach County, where Springsteen owns a home and DePugh lived in Lake Worth.
“He said to me, ‘Always remember I love you,’” DePugh recalled of one of their final meetings. “He kissed me on both cheeks, and then he was out the door.”
DePugh died after a battle with cancer. He is remembered fondly by friends, including longtime Freehold teacher and coach Rich Kane, who said: “All he wanted to do was raise his brothers, play baseball, play basketball and just hang in Freehold Borough. This one hurt. Joe and I were very close.”
