"What's so good about the game of baseball is that it's pitching, it's fielding, it's hitting, but any little thing that you can take advantage of, can help win a game. And on the flip side again, any thing you can keep another club from taking advantage of, may possibly keep them from scoring a run or two and keeping you in a game or keeping you on top." - Joe Pettini in The Birdhouse (Brian Walton, 'The Role of the Bench Coach'.)

Joseph Paul Pettini (born January 26, 1955 in Wheeling, WV) is a former Major League Baseball player and the former bench coach for the St. Louis Cardinals and Houston Astros.

Pettini signed as an undrafted free agent with the Montreal Expos in 1977 after graduating from Mercer. On March 15, 1980, he was sent to the San Francisco Giants as the player to be named later in a 1979 trade where the Giants sent Montreal backup catcher John Tamargo.

Joe made his major-league debut for the Giants on July 10, 1980. He would go on to be a part-time player for the Giants for four seasons, 1980–1983, amassing a total of 344 big-league at-bats and hitting for a .203 average. His final game as a big-league player was October 2, 1983.

Pettini stayed with the Cardinals as a coach after his playing career ended in 1988. He started out as a manager with the rookie-level Hamilton franchise in 1989, then moved up the system, managing the Class A St. Petersburg franchise in 1990, the Class AA Little Rock affiliate from 1991 to 1993, and Class AAA Louisville from 1994 to 1996, where he managed the Redbirds to the 1995 American Association championship.

In 1997 Joe was promoted to minor league field coordinator for the St. Louis Cardinals organization, where he remained until 2002. In 2002 St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa picked Pettini to be his bench coach.

Pettini earned his first championship ring when the St. Louis Cardinals won the 2006 World Series, defeating the Detroit Tigers four games to one, and a second one when the Cardinals defeated the Texas Rangers four games to three in the 2011 World Series.

From 2012 to 2013, Pettini was the Houston Astros' Bench Coach.

(excerpted from Baseball Almanac, BR Bullpen & Wikipedia)