With his powerful shots and exuberant style of play, Mr. Cepeda became an instant star as a 20-year-old rookie with the Giants in 1958, the franchise’s first year on the West Coast.
He hit a home run in his first game and won the National League Rookie of the Year award. He became a fan favorite in San Francisco, ahead of even star outfielder Willie Mays.
Mr. Cepeda was nicknamed the Baby Bull, after his father, Pedro, a Puerto Rican baseball star nicknamed “El Toro.” His teammates nicknamed him “Cha Cha” because of his love of upbeat Latin music and his outgoing attitude.
“You have to remember that Orlando was the most popular player when the franchise left New York,” team owner and managing partner Peter Magowan told the New York Times in 1993. “Orlando played the game with extravagance. He was a complete player. It sparked our fans’ interest in the team. »
In the early 1960s, the Giants had one of the most formidable lineups in the National League, with Mays, Mr. Cepeda and a third Hall of Fame hitter, Willie McCovey. In each of his first seven seasons, the right-handed hitting Mr. Cepeda hit no fewer than 24 home runs and drove in at least 96 runs. He finished his swing with a swing of the bat over his head.
He had one of his most productive seasons in 1961, when he led the NL with 46 home runs and 142 RBIs, ahead of Mays and other stars including Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson and Ernie Banks.
In 1962, Mr. Cepeda was at the heart of the Giants team that finished the regular season with 101 wins and 61 losses — the same record as their archrivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers. In the deciding game of a three-game playoff series, Mr. Cepeda hit a sacrifice fly to tie the score, 4-4, in the ninth inning. The Giants went on to win 6-4 and clinch the NL pennant, only to lose the World Series to the New York Yankees.
Mr. Cepeda was on deck when McCovey hit a line drive in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7 as the Yankees held on to win the series in the deciding game.
During their years in San Francisco, Mr. Cepeda and McCovey alternated between left field and first base, which aroused resentment from Mr. Cepeda, who thought he should have been the first baseman at full-time. He also played through pain after injuring his right knee in a collision at home plate against the Dodgers in 1961.
His manager, Alvin Dark, never appreciated the severity of his injury, Mr. Cepeda said, and suggested that Mr. Cepeda was not playing hard enough. Dark also ordered the Giants’ Latino players to stop speaking Spanish and listening to music in the locker room. Mays, the team’s superstar, had to intervene to prevent a revolt against the manager.
“He treated me like a child,” Mr. Cepeda said of Dark in a 1967 interview with Sports Illustrated. “I’m a human being, whether I’m blue, black, white or green. We Latinos are different, but we’re still human beings. Dark didn’t respect our differences.”
Mr. Cepeda played in only 33 games in 1965 before undergoing knee surgery. He was traded in 1966 to the St. Louis Cardinals, where he moved to first base and became the National League Returning Player of the Year. He emerged as a leader vocal on a team that included future Hall of Famers Bob Gibson, Lou Brock and Steve Carlton.
In 1967, Mr. Cepeda won the Most Valuable Player award with a career-high .325 batting average, 25 home runs and a league-high 111 RBIs. He helped propel the Cardinals — “El Birdos,” as he called them — to the World Series, in which they defeated the Boston Red Sox in seven games.
“It’s not just his stats,” teammate Mike Shannon said at the time. “This is also what happens in the locker room. It’s intangible. I can’t really explain it. Orlando is a prestigious player, and we have it – the other clubs don’t have it. »
Although Mr. Cepeda’s hitting dropped in 1968, the Cardinals returned to the World Series but lost to the Detroit Tigers in seven games. He was then traded to the Atlanta Braves, for whom he had a great season in 1970, hitting 34 home runs. He went on to play for the Oakland Athletics, Boston Red Sox and Kansas City Royals.
He retired in 1974 with 379 home runs and a lifetime average of .297, including nine seasons at .300 or better. His exploits would normally have earned him an induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, but in 1975 Mr. Cepeda was arrested at the San Juan International Airport while attempting to retrieve two boxes allegedly containing 170 pounds of marijuana.
He was convicted of possession of marijuana with intent to sell and sentenced to federal prison. He was released in 1979 after serving 10 months in prison.
His reputation was shattered in Puerto Rico, where he was hailed as the island’s greatest baseball hero after Pittsburgh Pirates star Roberto Clemente died in a plane crash on December 31, 1972.
“I made a huge mistake,” Mr. Cepeda told the San Jose Mercury News in 1999. “When Roberto Clemente died, they said in Puerto Rico, at least we have Orlando Cepeda alive. So when I let everybody down, they got very angry. We are a very emotional people. We are hard on people who do stupid things.”
Orlando Manuel Cepeda Pennes was born September 17, 1937 in Ponce, Puerto Rico, and raised in San Juan. His father, Pedro “Perucho” Cepeda, was nicknamed the “Babe Ruth of Puerto Rico” and played on Caribbean all-star teams with Negro Leagues baseball stars such as Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson and Cool Papa Bell.
Young Mr. Cepeda excelled at baseball and basketball as a youth and signed with the Giants, then still in New York, in 1955. His father died just before he was to play his first professional game for a minor league team in Salem, Va. Mr. Cepeda spent his $500 bonus on his father’s funeral and had to be persuaded to return to Virginia to continue his baseball career.
“I was only 17 and it was tough,” he told Sports Illustrated in 1991. “I lived in the black part of town and on Sunday mornings I would hear people singing gospel music in the church across the street. I would sit by my bedroom window and listen and cry from the misery and loneliness.”
However, he progressed quickly through the minor leagues and reached the major leagues in just three years.
After his drug conviction in the 1970s, Mr. Cepeda struggled for years to rebuild his life. He became a Buddhist and in 1989 attended a game in San Francisco. He proved so popular with fans that the Giants hired him as a goodwill ambassador, a position he held until his death.
His marriages to Ana Hilda Pino and Nydia Fernandez ended in divorce. His third wife, the former Mirian Ortiz, died in 2017 after 26 years of marriage. Survivors include five children from his marriages and other relationships.
For years, Mr. Cepeda was denied entry into the Hall of Fame, which he attributed to his drug conviction. (He was also fined $100 in 2008 for possessing a small amount of marijuana.)
In his 15th and final year in the Hall of Fame in 1994, Mr. Cepeda needed 342 votes to reach the 75 percent threshold for election. He was missing seven votes.
He was finally inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1999 by the Veterans Committee. He was the second Puerto Rican to be elected, after Clemente. The Giants retired his No. 30 jersey and in 2008 unveiled a statue of Mr. Cepeda at the entrance to the team’s stadium.
He also found redemption in San Juan, where a parade was held in his honor.
“The greatest victories are those over yourself, when you control your mind and your destiny,” Mr. Cepeda told Sports Illustrated in 1999. “My life has been a drama of inner change . »