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 'Baby Bull' Cepeda finds redemption, place in history
Posted: Thursday July 22, 1999 02:11 PM
By Tom Rinaldi, CNN/SI
SAN FRANCISCO -- It was the middle of January, 1994 and the scene was Candlestick Park. The San Francisco sunshine highlighted Orlando Cepeda on the day his Giants jersey was retired, and it seemed easy to forget all the darkness. The carefree rhythm of salsa music blaring from the stands somehow seemed the wrong soundtrack to mark the path from hard time to Hall of Fame. "When I made that huge mistake, I let everybody down," Cepeda said looking back at an event that he said would forever change his life. "We, Puerto Ricans and Latin people, we are very emotional and sometimes we don't forgive and forget." The son of Perucho Cepeda, perhaps the greatest Puerto Rican player of all time, Orlando Cepeda felt the long shadow of his father. He chose not to play baseball initially because of the pressure of his father's reputation. But with his late dad's blessing, Cepeda burst into the majors in 1958 with a sunspot smile and an explosive style. It was the Giants first year in San Francisco, and Cepeda was unanimous Rookie of the Year, eclipsing and at times alientating one of his own teammates by the name of Willie Mays.
"I didn't come here with nothing," Cepeda said. "In fact I was a non-roster player, me and Willie McCovey. I was in Triple-A. I wasn't supposed to make the team, so when I started doing well and they had me making headlines instead of Willie Mays, maybe he (Mays) took that very hard." Cepeda was talented, and he knew it. He soon clashed with the Giants' front office, and with manager Alvin Dark in particular, for banning the use of Spanish in the clubhouse. Claiming a logjam at first base with Willie McCovey, the Giants brought Cepeda to tears by trading him to St. Louis in 1966. "I was hurt but I never tried to show the Giants they made a mistake because that puts pressure on myself. I said, 'Relax, be yourself, and do the damage on the field.'" In 1967, Cepeda won the MVP while leading the Cardinals to the World Series title. But by the late 1960's, Cepeda was suffering with knee problems that would result in 10 operations, and at that time he says, he started smoking marijuana for the pain. In 1975, he made a defining mistake, when he was busted in San Juan, Puerto Rico for claiming two packages containing 165 pounds of pot.He would spend 10 months in a Florida prison, but his true sentence would last much longer. Upon his release, Cepeda became a virtual outcast from his home and his game. "From 1975 to 1978 was a nightmare every single day," Cepeda recalls. In fact, going to jail was a relief for me. Every day was a battle for me out on the street and then I used to come home and take it out on my family." Shunned and living in perpetual shame, Cepeda's money ran out, his marriage ended, his friends deserted him, and he suffered his lowest point in 1984 at Dodgers Stadium when he was ejected by security before he could say hello to some of his old friends and teammates as they took batting practice. "In that moment, walking down the steps, I didn't tell anybody, so many things came to my mind," he said. "I thought, 'If I can't come to the ballpark, and people reject me, why I be living? Why not go?' It was very, very hard."
What saved Cepeda was his faith in Buddhism. Forced to deal with his anger and bitterness, he moved back to the Bay Area in the late 1980s and after a cautious apprenticeship, he eventuallybecame the Giants community relations director. After being rejected for the Hall for the final time on the writers ballot in 1995, he gained entry by vote of the veterans committee this year. "I have changed so much in life, from being a bitter person, mad, about revenge and 'I don't [care].' Now it's the other way. I care about people so much." For many, he will forever be remembered as the 'Baby Bull,' the son of the great Perucho Cepeda. But when Orlando Cepeda finally gained admission to the Hall of Fame, it was not his father that Orlando thought of first. Instead, his heart welled for the memory of his mother, who convinced him to stay in the game of baseball long after his father died.
"You know, my mother worked for me," Cepeda says. "She was a small lady, a very strong lady and she went through a lot for me." At this point, Cepeda motions toward heaven. As the emotions begin to pour in, and overtake him, he motions toward heaven. "But she's having a great time." And so is Cepeda now, having something more precious than Hall of Fame recogntion. Personal redemption.
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