Orlando Cepeda

Orlando Manuel Cepeda Pennes (Spanish pronunciation: [oɾˈlando seˈpeða]; September 17, 1937 – June 28, 2024), nicknamed "the Baby Bull" and "Peruchin", was a Puerto Rican first baseman in Major League Baseball who played for six teams from 1958 to 1974, primarily the San Francisco Giants.

In the ensuing years, the Giants struggled to fit both Cepeda and teammate Willie McCovey, also a first basemen, into their lineup, unsuccessfully trying to shift each of them to left field at different points.

After longstanding knee injuries forced Cepeda to miss most of the 1965 season, limiting him to pinch hitting duties, he was traded in May 1966 to the St. Louis Cardinals, coming back to finish the year with a .301 average.

After a 1975 arrest for transporting marijuana from Colombia to Puerto Rico, he served ten months in prison and saw his reputation ruined on his home island.

[13] He wanted to quit and return to Puerto Rico, but Zorilla convinced him to play for the Kokomo Giants, a team in the Mississippi–Ohio Valley League.

Following a solid season in Class B, Cepeda played for the Crabbers in the Puerto Rican Professional Baseball League (LBPPR) during the winter, concluding with a batting average of .310, 11 home runs, and 40 RBIs.

He then signed a Class A contract with the Springfield Giants, accepting it on condition that he be allowed to play with the Minneapolis Millers in spring training.

While he was playing with Santurce, manager Bill Rigney, team owner Horace Stoneham and Tom Sheehan scouted him on behalf of the Giants, who had just moved from New York to San Francisco.

The Giants remained in the race for the pennant during the latter part of the season, but were eliminated from competition after losing a series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, eventually finishing third.

[31] He was in constant pain, but was in the race for a batting title along with Roberto Clemente, Dick Groat, and Tommy Davis, eventually finishing fifth.

[34] After experiencing swelling in the knee during the first games of the season, a group of doctors recommended that he stop playing,[28] however, Cepeda refused to do so since baseball was his main source of income.

In the off-season, Cepeda also bought a house in Diamond Heights while his wife was pregnant with their son, Orlando Jr. After recovering from the injury, he attended 1966 spring training; however, he was not placed in the team's starting lineup.

[40] The team promoted offensive performance by fining any player who left teammates on base a dollar; the money was used to pay for the postseason party.

[40] The Cardinals contended in the early league standings with the Chicago Cubs, but the team took control of the pennant race as the season progressed.

He, Albert Pujols, Frank Robinson, and Mike Trout are also the only players in major league history to win both the Rookie of the Year and MVP awards unanimously.

[45] Cepeda moved to Atlanta with uncertainty, wondering if the effect of the Jim Crow laws was still present, but his concerns disappeared once they settled.

For the first time, baseball's postseason had best-of-five playoffs, and the Braves won the National League West with a record of 93–69, before losing to the Mets in the NL Championship Series.

[50] His first hit with the team was a walk-off home run on April 8 to beat the Yankees 4–3, and on August 8 he had a career-high four doubles and six RBIs in a 9–4 road win against the Kansas City Royals.

[52] Cepeda was the second player from Puerto Rico to win a triple crown in Minor League Baseball, doing so in 1956 with a batting average of .355, 26 home runs, and 112 RBIs.

Source:[1] After retiring, that same year, Cepeda traveled to Colombia to direct a baseball clinic; once there, he met a group of drug dealers who convinced him to put bags containing five pounds of cannabis in two boxes containing hand-made clothing.

When Cepeda arrived to collect his cargo, he was told that they could not be released, since the shipping cost had not been covered; the shipment actually weighed 170 pounds (77 kg), far more than he had been expecting.

At that point, two police officers (who were aware of the packages' contents) instructed one of the air freight employees to give Cepeda the boxes with or without payment.

After completing that program, Cepeda coached a LBPPR team in Bayamón, Puerto Rico and was later hired as a scout by the Chicago White Sox.

[60] There he met and befriended publisher Laurence Hyman, who introduced Cepeda to Giants staff members and encouraged him to write to general manager Al Rosen.

[61] After initially receiving no response, eventually Patrick J. Gallagher called to tell Cepeda that Rosen wanted to hire him as a scout.

[67] By the early 1990s, when his time of initial eligibility for the Baseball Hall of Fame was beginning to run out, many Puerto Ricans, celebrities, and ordinary citizens alike began to campaign for his induction.

It goes on to list many of his national and community contributions, including his regular visits to inner-city schools throughout the country in conjunction with HOPE: Helping Other People Excel.

"Each December, Orlando tours as part of the Giants Christmas Caravan visiting hospitals, schools and youth groups including the UC San Francisco Medical Center pediatric cancer ward.

He suffered what was called a "cardiac episode and head injury" and a stroke after falling in a parking lot at the Rancho Solano Golf Course complex in Fairfield, California.

[85] In 2020, Cepeda sued his daughter-in-law alleging "elder financial abuse, fraud, negligence in handling his finances after he granted her power of attorney in 2018, and infliction of emotional distress."

Cepeda in 1961
Orlando Cepeda's number 30 was retired by the San Francisco Giants in 1999.
Cepeda in 2008