On day, I was watching ‘The Match Game’ with Gene Rayburn. It was one of their famous ‘Athlete’ shows, and one team was the N.Y. Yankees, represented by Mickey, Pepitone and (I think) Tom Tresh.

One of the questions was “Who is the handsomest man in the world?”.
This question has been asked a number of times throughout the years, and 90% of the time people answered ‘Rock Hudson’ or ‘Elvis Presley’.

It his typically modesty, Mantle allowed Pepi to be the team caption, so Mick sat between Tresh and Pepitone. When the question was asked of the Yankee team, Tresh was the first to answer. Tresh turned over his answer card, and it said: “Joe Pepitone”

This gone a good laugh from the audience. Next, when the question was asked of Mickey, Mantle turned over his answer card which read: “Joe Pepitone”.

At this, the audience bust into laughter again. Rayburn himself was laughing pretty hard and strolled over to the Yankee table for the last answer. Coming up to Joe, Gene, still laughing hard, once again asked “So Joe, who do you think is the handsomest man in the world?”.

With a straight face, Pepitone turned over his answer card.
“Joe Pepitone” it said.

And the audience went nuts, and Rayburn all but fell to the floor in hysteria.