Joe Pignatano, who was a reserve catcher with four major league teams, including the Brooklyn Dodgers, but gained his greatest renown for cultivating a vegetable garden at Shea Stadium when he was the Mets’ bullpen coach, died on Monday in Naples, Fla. He was 92.
His son Frank confirmed the death, in a hospital. He said his father had dementia for the last two years.
Pignatano, known to many as Piggy, had a modest career as a backup catcher with the Dodgers (first in Brooklyn, then in Los Angeles), the Kansas City A’s, the San Francisco Giants and the Mets.