A touching tale of a life changed: At UPMC, Jeff Kepner is accepting his new hands

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Kepner, Stofflet Shine On Opening Night Softball
August 11, 1984|by KEITH GROLLER, The Morning Call.
One of our own, a fellow Airman, a legend in softball and the first person (that I know of) to have two arm transplants.

But even more is the fact, is that Jeff, is a Hall-of-Fame, fast-pitch pitcher. (ASA). He was known for his blazing fastball, strike outs and perfect games. But ironically or not, he lost both arms. What a bizarre twist of fate. On the positive side of the ledger are the transplants. A new lease on life and ironies, but as part of the Air Force, he deserves our best wishes and prayers.

SMSgt Minister Gerald A. "Doc" Thomas LTC Stephen F. SSG James J. Palmer IV aka "JP4" @


ASA Hall-of-Fame...
Jeffrey Kepner 2011
Ramstein, AB, Germany.
Opening night of the International Softball Congress World Fastpitch Tournament belonged to two pitchers who took very different routes to Allentown.

Kepner, Stofflet Shine On Opening Night Softball

August 11, 1984|by KEITH GROLLER, The Morning Call.
Opening night of the International Softball Congress World Fastpitch Tournament belonged to two pitchers who took very different routes to Allentown.

Jeff Kepner of the Pearl Beer team from San Antonio, Tex.,
had to take a flight from Rhein-Main, West Germany to
get to the Lehigh Valley. Meanwhile, Ty Stofflet only had
to travel a few miles from his suburban Coplay
home to get to the Queen City.

But despite the vastly different travel plans, the two men had very similar results last night.

Kepner overcame jet lag to pitch a three-hit shutout in his team's 3-0 victory over the Allentown Patriots and Stofflet duplicated his effort with a three-hitter as his Bank of Pennsylvania Sunners defeated Crauford Construction of Savannah, Mo., by a score of 2-0.

The superb pitching, expected to a daily feature in the 10-day event, was certainly the highlight of the tourney's premiere night which played to a crowd estimated at over 4,000 at Bicentennial Park.

An additional 400 fans were estimated at the tourney's other site, Patriots Park.

The huge audience at Bicentennial had hopes of seeing the two local teams in the tourney get off to successful starts. But Kepner spoiled things right away with a masterful effort against the host Pates.

The Lancaster native, who had been stationed at the Rhein-Main Air Force base in Germany, had to get special permission from ISC officials to be allowed to play in the tournament since he hadn't been played with Pearl Beer for several years. Kepner got the ISC approval and took a leave from the military base.

"About 90 percent of this team is from the air force base in San Antonio and I pitched with these guys about four years ago," said Kepner, who walked just one and fanned nine. "I pitch over in Germany and when their regular No.1 pitcher couldn't make this tournament, they needed help and gave me a call. I'm glad to be here."

Ted Tedford's three-run homer to right-center in the second inning proved to be all the runs Kepner would need. His toughest inning was the top of the third when Barry Buchman lined a double and George Brosky followed with a triple.

The only problem for the Pates was that Buchman tried to stretch his double to right into a triple and was thrown out at third. Thus, he was in the Patriot dugout and not on base when Brosky got his hit.

Gibby Glessner, the hard-luck losing pitcher for the Pates, had his team's only other hit in the game - a single in the fifth inning.

"Jeff came through with a fine effort and we got the clutch hit from Teddy," said Pearl Beer manager, Ernie Whitaker. "It's always nice to get off to a good start in a tournament like this. We're used to big tournaments. We finished fifth in the ASA national tournament in 1978.