He was called The Baby Bull. His dad was The Bull. They were from La Isla del Encanto, from the island of the enchantment, meaning Puerto Rico. They both played baseball professionally. The son eventually played in the Majors; the dad only played in the island. His father didn’t get a chance to play in the Big Leagues because he was Black. Though he was good, really good. He had a chance to play in the Negro league, though, but he refused to do so. He wanted to play in the Majors. He was that good. He knew that; others did too. He was one of the best players of his generation in Puerto Rico according to some.
Both son and dad grew up poor. Very poor. They were from Ponce, a nice spot in that island of the enchantment. It was hard making money then. Especially playing ball. But the son made a few bucks later in the Big Leagues, playing for the Giants, the team that moved to San Francisco in the late fifties. He became a slugger there, and a player that could be counted on to get on base, to get runners home, and to hit doubles and home runs. You probably know about him. His name is Orlando Cepeda.
I saw him play many times in 1966, after he was traded to the Cardinals by San Francisco. I was stationed at Scott Air Force Base near Belleville, Illinois then. A Service Club bus would drive us to the recently inaugurated Busch Stadium, some forty miles away in Saint Louis, to watch the Cardinals play. It was great seeing The Baby Bull, making things happen, with his hitting, with his attitude. I saw him break his bat many times, when he struck out. Not getting on base wasn’t an option for Orlando Cepeda; it was a must, though getting a hit on one of every three tries, as he often did, is a pretty good feat according to the stats. But not to him. He would break his bat and hide someplace in the dugout in shame.
Orlando was already a hero of mine when I lived in California’s Central Valley, not far from the Bay Area. There were very few Latino baseball players then. So making him my hero was a no-brainer. Besides, he was good. Really, really good. Probably just as good as his dad, Pedro Aníbal Cepeda, who was also known as Perucho. I learned about him years later.
The Cardinals did good with Orlando Cepeda during that year and later on. They won the Pennant in ’67. The World Series, too. He was one big cog in that winning team.
Once out of baseball, Cepeda got in trouble with the law. He got caught bringing pot to the States from Colombia. He did jail time and fell somewhat from grace with his fans, but he paid dearly for that misstep, going through a lot of personal hell for more than a decade. But things changed for the better eventually. With the help of some friends, he was given a chance to return to professional baseball. In 1987, the San Francisco Giants hired Cepeda to do scouting work for them in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and other Latin American countries.
To celebrate the positive turn of fortune and to send Cepeda to the Bay Area with a touch of pomp and fanfare, a group of northern California fans put together a farewell bash for him in Sacramento. I was there to write about it and to interview him. Cepeda looked fit, but somewhat nervous, which made sense. After all, he was again in the limelight. But he soon changed his demeanor. By the time I interviewed him, Cepeda was his old self, friendly, laughing and having a ball. And ready to get back in the game, not to beat overpowering opposing pitchers with his bat, but to go find future major league ball players in the Caribbean and at other places dear to our hearts in Latin America.
Orlando Cepeda was eventually inducted in the Baseball Hall of fame, in 1999. He’s also the recipient of several humanitarian awards. He’s 85 years old now and living somewhere in northern California, suffering from the slings and arrows that often batter folks as they get older. But he’s still around and he’s still my hero. Not only because of what he did with his bat for a while some sixty years ago, but because of his overall legacy.
In baseball, in scouting, and in life.
AUTHOR: Pedro Chávez