They didn't just call him "Pepi" because it was the beginning of Joe Pepitone's last name. It fit his character to a tee.

Pepitone wasn't just a former three-time all-star and three-time gold glover when he made it to the Cubs during the 1970 season. He was a full-fledged head case. His career had been a series of fines, suspensions, mood swings, and defiance of authority figures…and he came to a team coached by Leo Durocher. What could go wrong?

By 1972, he and Durocher could no longer co-exist. Durocher benched him, played him part time, and Pepitone "retired" rather than keep playing with the Cubs. He was traded to the Braves in '73. While he was with the Cubs, however, he was a hit with the fans.

Everything he did was flamboyant. He opened a bar on Division Street. He sold wigs, and wore one himself to cover his balding head. He was the first baseball player to use a hair dryer in the clubhouse. He arrived at Wrigley in limo. He dressed like the kids—wore long hair, bell-bottoms, vests, open necked shirts. He liked to show off the scar on his stomach that he got from a gunshot wound from his teen years in Brooklyn.

Few Cubs players were as memorable as Joe Pepi Pepitone.