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 professional baseball player, coach and scout. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a first baseman from 1958 to 1974, most prominently as a member of the San Francisco Giants where he established himself as one of the most consistent power hitters in the National League (NL) during the 1960s. An 11-time All-Star player, Cepeda was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999.

Breaking in with the Giants in their first season after relocating to San Francisco, he was named the NL Rookie of the Year by unanimous vote in 1958. Every year from 1958 through 1963, he was among the league leaders in batting, home runs, RBIs, slugging percentage, and total bases. In 1959, he became the first Puerto Rican player to start an All-Star Game, and in 1961 he was runner-up in voting for the NL Most Valuable Player (MVP) after leading the league with 46 home runs and 142 RBIs, which remains the club record for right-handed hitters. 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. In 1967, Cepeda in helping the team to the NL pennant, won the MVP Award by unanimous vote. Another trade brought him to the Atlanta Braves, and he helped that team win the inaugural NL West division title in 1969. With his play increasingly limited by knee problems, he was traded to the American League shortly before its adoption of the designated hitter, and won the first Outstanding Designated Hitter Award with the Boston Red Sox in 1973 before his career came to an end the following year.

Cepeda struggled in his personal life after the end of his career. 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. Following changes in his personal life, however, he repaired his image after being contracted by the Giants in 1987 to work as a scout and goodwill ambassador, beginning decades of humanitarian work.

Cepeda was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, to Pedro Aníbal Cepeda (1905/6–1955) and Carmen Pennes. The family was poor, and lived in wood houses without a telephone or refrigerator. His father was a professional baseball player in Puerto Rico, where he was known as "Perucho" and "the Bull", and was widely considered one of the best players of his generation. Orlando was thus known as "the Baby Bull". Cepeda saw his father play baseball for the first time in 1946, and was instantly interested in the game.

Because he was black and the bulk of his career was played before Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color line in 1947, Perucho Cepeda could not play in the major leagues. Several players from the Negro leagues visited their house, which influenced Orlando's view of the sport. He became a fan of Minnie Miñoso.

When he was 10 years old, Cepeda began to sell newspapers in order to participate in a baseball tournament organized for the paper boys. His first tryout came three years later. He practiced with the team for three months but did not make the roster. Cepeda then began playing basketball, but he tore cartilage in his knee and underwent surgery. The injury kept him inactive for nearly a year, and the doctor recommended that he avoid practicing basketball. He began practicing baseball again, noticing that his physical strength had significantly improved in two years.

One day, an amateur baseball player saw him play and recruited him to play with his team. The organization won Puerto Rico's amateur championship and went on to play against an All-Star team from the Dominican Republic. Pedro Zorilla, then owner of the Santurce Crabbers, attended the game to scout another player, but after seeing Cepeda play, he became interested in him. In 1953, Zorilla brought him onto the team to work as a batboy. After retiring, Pedro Cepeda worked for the government, checking the water of rivers in the municipality. He contracted malaria, which eventually precipitated his death at age 49. This illness worsened the family's living conditions. They moved from Guayama to Juncos, where their financial condition deteriorated. They moved again, this time to San Juan, where his mother worked odd jobs to support the family. After her father's death, there was not sufficient income in the household to pay for Orlando to attend college.