GINO CAPPELLETTI, BABE PARILLI AND THE BOSTON PATRIOTS… “THE GRAND OPERA”

Perhaps it’s arguable, but not to me.

Gino Cappelletti, who died this week at 88, was the greatest player in American Football League annals.

The greatest all-around player and the greatest player, period.

(Perhaps, even a better man).

Of course, there were others which I suppose, makes my contention ‘arguable.’

As an aside, Cappelletti was renowned as the best-dressed gent in the league…and apparently, it wasn’t even close.

“The most beautiful wardrobe in sports,” Patriots coach Mike Holovak used to say.

San Diego Chargers running back Keith Lincoln, apparently felt the same.

One night in 1961, Cappelletti hosted a post-game party after the Pats lost to San Diego October 7 in Boston, by a score of 38–27.

Lincoln showed up at the party, and just before the night came to a close, he was walking out with the nicest pair of shoes in Gino’s overflowing, high-styled closet.

Presumably they were his size.

Gino got wind of the “theft,” and when the Patriots arrived in San Diego for the season-ending game, a Pats’ 41–0 shellacking of the Chargers on December 17–3 months or so later–he telephoned Lincoln in reference to the shoe incident.

Lincoln did not deny.

Rather, without skipping a beat, Lincoln said,

“I’ll buy you a new pair, Duke, I’ve worn these out.”

The moniker “Duke,” was a nod to John Wayne; Gino was the ‘Duke’ of the AFL.

Gino Raymond Michael Cappelletti, a Boston Patriot icon over decades–and across playing and broadcasting careers–was a special human being.

One of the original members of the Boston Patriots in 1960, and a Patriots Hall of Fame wide receiver and placekicker, he came from humble origins and stock.

Born March 26, 1934, in Keewatin, Minnesota, he worked on the railroad and in iron ore mines during his teenage years.

He played college football at the University of Minnesota, where he was a quarterback, backing up All-American Paul Giel.

Cappelletti also kicked extra points, but the Golden Gophers did not kick field goals, as a rule then.

Until the sophomore in 1952, badgered head coach Wes Fesler into letting him try a game-winning 43-yard field goal into the wind, against Iowa.

He hit it.

No less an authority than the Boston Globe’s venerable John Powers insists that Cappelletti was one of a kind, as a premier kicker, receiver, broadcaster and human being.

He is correct.

Gino was beyond reproach for nearly all of his eleven seasons as a Boston Patriot.

He was the club’s de facto MVP, its go-to receiver and its perennial placekicker.

Also, he was the man who paid his own way to the franchise’s first training camp in 1960 with thirty bucks in his pocket.

That’s all he thought he needed.

He expected to be an early cut.

When he saw that was not to be the case, he borrowed some dough from lineman and pal Bob Dee.

And paid him back immediately upon receipt of his first game check.

Cappelletti played every week thereafter.

He performed in five home stadia for four head coaches and suited up with six starting quarterbacks.

Nobody has since donned his #20 for the Patriots, retired by the organization long ago.

He was the picture of versatility.

And humility.

At Minnesota he played tailback and quarterback, and in the pros end, flanker and defensive back.

The “kicker?”

Pardon the pun.

He had little to no speed.

But he did have understanding, anticipation, quickness, agility and he ran very precise routes.

He was an outstanding athlete.

To him, kicking was collateral.

Hard to believe.

He booted 176 field goals and missed only 11 of 353 conversion attempts in his AFL career.

Toe-first style.

“I don’t consider kickers as players,” he once remarked.

His first field goal attempt as a member of the Patriots nearly rendered him immobile.

“What scared me the most was, if I had missed the field goal I might have been cut from the team,” said Cappelletti, who drilled it from 35 yards, for the fledgling league’s first points.

The AFL’s first points ever.

Keewatin is a town on Minnesota’s Iron Range whose entire populace could fit nicely inside the Harvard Stadium colonnade.

Gino’s Dad spent three decades as an underground miner and the boy–with a taste of it–wanted none of that.

Instead, he figured out how to make himself indispensable as a football player.

He remains the only pro ever to run and throw for a two-point conversion, catch and intercept a pass and return & punt a kickoff, all in the same season.

Wait, what???

Yet in his self-effacing way, with his fiercely competitive spirit intact, he conceded that,

“I didn’t have burning speed.

All I could do is get open and catch the ball.”

Despite his career receiving numbers–292 catches; 4,589 receiving yards; and 42 touchdowns–Cappelletti was remembered for his kicking prowess.

Soaring extra points landing deep into Fenway Park’s bullpen.

Six field goals converted in the rare Denver air, circa 1964.

And the four field goals in the 1963 AFL playoff game in Buffalo, which vaulted the Pats into their only league title appearance.

Their 51–10 loss to the Chargers in the AFL championship game was what it was; one of those days.

(Thank you, Keith Lincoln: Game MVP).

Cappelletti played for only two more winning Patriots teams, but his legacy had already been firmly established.

He never missed a game for the remainder of his tenure as a member of the AFL’s Boston Patriots.

He was the franchise’s steadfast–and stylish–face.

Dean Martin?

When his Pats teams were mediocre–okay, bad–and his role was reduced to that of placekicker only, ‘Mr. Patriot,’ had had enough.

“The luster of the game diminished for me when I had to give up receiving,” he said.

Princeton sidewinder Charlie Gogolak–younger brother of Pete–would show up in 1971.

Cappelletti knew what was in store.

He retired.

Happy.

“I’ve had my day.

It’s been a good day and now I have to get on with the rest of my life.”

Gino being Gino.

Which meant coaching the Pats’ special teams for three seasons; and calling their games for more than three decades alongside radio icon, the late Gil Santos, with whom Cappelletti conceded, he was, “simpatico.”

The undeniable highlight for him was watching Adam Vinatieri kick a field goal to clinch the franchise’s first Super Bowl championship.

He thought of all of his 1960 teammates who’d worn the same numbers.

Like QB and comrade, Vito “Babe” Parilli, who also was Gino’s kick holder, so adept that he earned the moniker, “Gold Finger.”

The combination of QB/Holder Parilli and WR/Kicker Cappelletti came to be known as the “Grand Opera.”

Interesting days indeed.

[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in May 2022.]