This East Peoria native and Spalding ('82) graduate took the Irish to the 1982 state finals before obtaining an industrial engineering degree from Northwestern where he was an All-Big Ten catcher in 1985 and 1986. Drafted in the 5th round MLB draft by the Chicago Cubs, Joe turned a successful major league playing career into a managerial career, first as bench coach of the New York Yankees, and recently as manager of the Florida MarIin.

Joe's playing career spanned 15 seasons with the Cubs, Rockies, Yankees and Cards, winning World Series rings in '96, '98 and '99. He was selected to the N.L. All-Star team in 2000. He caught Dave Cone's "perfect game" in '99 and Dwight Gooden's nohitter in '96.

His career stats include a .267 batting average, 186 doubles, 26 triples, 36 homers, 454 runs scored and 422 RB's. He played in 1277 games, collecting 1100 hits. A superb handler of pitchers, his career fielding average was .991 bettered by only two major league catchers with 15 year careers in MLB history.