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BABY BULL--From Hardball to Hard Time and Back by Orlando Cepeda with Herb Fagen |
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Long before the issue of school busing became a hot-button issue in the United States of America, the city fathers of Evansville, Indiana, were making busing work for a portion of its youngest citizens.
You see, in Evansville, in the mid-1960's, the Catholic schools had an agreement with the city's public schools regarding the transportation of Catholic kids to their private schools.
The process was simple--the private schoolers were allowed to ride the school corporation's buses...in separate runs that took place before the public school children were transported to their schools.
So bus drivers hit most neighborhoods twice each morning...and made stops as early 6:15 am, Monday through Friday.
The nuns at St. Theresa elementary school didn't mind, though, since their early-arriving students had plenty of time for conversation, milk and chocolate long-johns before the 7:30 am daily Masses.
Despite the near-sunrise pickup hour, though, the bus riders congregated early at the bus stop...and marked places in line by leaving sack lunches in a row, at the exact place that the bus came to a stop.
Which worked for yours truly, fine and dandy, until Bosco, the neighborhood's German Shepherd, decided one morning that my lunch (a baloney sandwich-and-Twinkie combo, which were both contained inside a small brown sack) would be his breakfast.
The solution?
A metallic lunch-box emblazoned with the cast of the Bonanza TV show.
It worked; Bosco never took my lunch-box.
Which was a good thing, too, because, in the last few weeks of second grade (in May and June, 1966, to be precise), that lunch-box contained a sandwich, a goodie...and one very important newspaper clipping.
That clipping was from the May 9, 1966 edition of the now-defunct St. Louis Globe-Democrat, and the article, written by Jack Herman, announced to St. Louis that Orlando Cepeda had been traded by the Giants to the Cardinals.
With the aid of a microfilm reader, I've recently looked at the article in question...and an unauthorized reproduction is shown below:
It looks pretty much the way I remember it...which begs the question.
What was it about Orlando Cepeda that caught the eye of an eight year old Indiana schoolboy?
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Maybe it was the name.
Or-lan-do Ce-pe-da.
What a wonderful sounding name.
Especially when uttered by legendary Cardinals radio broadcaster Harry Caray.
Somehow, Caray's respect for Cepeda was conveyed in the exaggerated way that he pronounced all six syllables of his name: one---at---a---time.
Maybe it was Caray's Budweiser-enhanced delivery.
But no words had a sweeter sound, at least to most Cardinals fans in 1967 and 1968.
That Cepeda provided essential ingredients for one World Series championship (1967) and two NL pennants (1967 and 1968) was easy to grasp, and simple as well.
But his trade to the Atlanta Braves (for Joe Torre), prior to the start of the 1969 season, was not simple, at least to one perplexed ten year old.
Perplexed, I think, is a good word to describe the views of most baseball fans, too, when they think about Orlando Cepeda the human being--a baseball player with (a) Hall of Fame credentials; (b) a well-publicized reputation as a moody Latin; and (c) a prison record.
But Cepeda's recently published book (co-authored with Herb Fagen), "Baby Bull From Hardball to Hard Time and Back", goes a long way toward ending the confusion regarding Orlando Cepeda the baseball player, and Orlando Cepeda the man.
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After a short forward by Giants President Peter Magowan and an introduction by former Cardinals catcher Tim McCarver, the book begins with a description of Pedro Cepeda (nicknamed "Perucho"), Orlando Cepeda's father.
Perucho Cepeda, a black Puerto Rican who was often was referred to as the "Bull", never played in the pre-Jackie Robinson major leagues.
A big man who ran well, Perucho was a five-tool player before the term had been invented...and put up statistics in the Puerto Rican league that led some to call him "the Puerto Rican Babe Ruth".
More than that, though, Perucho was a national hero in his native land of Puerto Rico.
But the shadow of Perucho Cepeda loomed, and looms, large over son Orlando. And "Baby Bull--From Hardball to Hard Time and Back" makes it clear that Orlando Cepeda seems to be aware that his own sensitivities, his own weaknesses, his own mistakes, and his own magnificent talents as a ballplayer, are all characteristics derived in large part from Perucho.
The book continues as Cepeda describes his adolescence in Puerto Rico and teen-age years as a minor league baseball player in US towns such as Salem (VA), Kokomo (IN), St. Cloud (MN), and Minneapolis (MN).
Along the way, Cepeda and other Latin and black ballplayers were subjected to the usual discrimination and segregation that, sadly, permeated America in the 1950's.
Cepeda's explanations make it clear that he was hurt by the slings and arrows of discrimination, which took place in restaurants, in hotels, and on buses.
In one particularly poignant story, Cepeda recounts the reason that a bus driver demanded that a white woman leave the bus in the middle of downtown Birmingham (AL). Her transgression? She had struck up a conversation with Cepeda.
Sadly, Perucho Cepeda died while Orlando was playing in Salem, VA. The Baby Bull used his $500.00 signing bonus to pay for his father's funeral.
But Cepeda's 1957 season would be his last as a minor leaguer. As a member of the AAA Minneapolis Millers, he slugged 25 home runs and had 108 RBIs, while batting .309.
The major leagues were beckoning.
The next section of the book (chapters four through eight) deals with Cepeda's playing career as a San Francisco Giant.
Invited to spring training as a non-rostered player in 1958, Cepeda's 1958 rookie season was punctuated with two awards: National League Rookie-of-the-Year (unanimously chosen) and Giants club MVP.
A side-light to Cepeda's Giants MVP award: the great Willie Mays was, according to Cepeda, envious that he (Mays) wasn't chosen by the fans...and was even angrier that the national media had taken notice of Mays' newest teammate.
An interesting tid-bit concerning Cepeda's 1958 season: his 1958 contract with the Giants, for $7,000.00, was not signed until ten minutes prior to Opening Day's first pitch.
Bill Rigney was Cepeda's first big league manager, and Rigney remains well-liked by Cepeda. In 1960, Rigney was fired and replaced by Tom Sheehan. Sheehan was essentially a scout, and only managed for the final 91 games of the 1960 season.
In 1961, the Giants hired Alvin Dark to serve as their manager.
How does Cepeda feel about Alvin Dark?
"He was the wrong man to manage a team like the Giants," writes Cepeda. "To be blunt, on many occasions Alvin made my life a living hell...I believe that Alvin's racial attitudes were harmful to the best interests of the ballclub in general, and to the Latin players in particular."
Cepeda continues: "We were never a unified team...We were a club made up of three distinct groups: whites, blacks, and Latins. And even among the black players, there was animosity between American blacks and Latin blacks."
Cepeda was particularly bothered that Dark asked the Giants' Latin contingent from speaking Spanish in the clubhouse, that Dark prohibited the playing of Latin music in the clubhouse, that Dark attempted to prohibit Cepeda from taking his record player on road trips, that Dark did not support Cepeda as the NL's MVP in 1961, that Dark benched Cepeda (and Felipe Alou) for the final regular season game in 1962 (a game that the Giants had to win if they hoped to tie the Dodgers for the NL pennant), and that Dark told the media that Cepeda was jealous of Mays' stature, that Dark attempted to persuade Giants management to cut his pay, $7,000.00, for the 1963 season.
Cepeda's final stats in 1962? A total of 35 home runs, 114 RBIs, and a batting average of .306.
Dark was fired following the 1964 season, and was replaced by Herman Franks.
Cepeda's interactions with Franks were dominated by the fact that his long-suffering knees began to exert their effect on his ability to play the game of baseball, and that Franks began to insist that Willie McCovey be given a chance to play first base on a regular basis.
To quote Cepeda: "Herman kept calling me lazy. I was faking, he insisted."
In 1965, Cepeda batted only 34 times, and he did not make the Giants starting line-up for 1966's Opening Day.
It was therefore no surprise that on May 8, 1966, the Cardinals and Giants exchanged players, with Cepeda coming to St. Louis and lefthanded pitcher Ray Sadecki going to San Francisco.
In the middle portion of the book (chapters nine, ten, and eleven), Cepeda describes his two+ seasons as a member of the St. Louis Cardinals.
And, in a change from his latter years in San Francisco, it seems that nearly all of his St. Louis interactions are positive--from Tim McCarver to Stan Musial; trainer Bob Bauman to manager Red Schoendienst; Bob Gibson to Curt Flood; Lou Brock to Mike Shannon; and from Julian Javier to Roger Maris.
Furthermore, the Cardinals signed Cepeda to a new contract the day after he was traded, reinstating his pay to its $53,000.00 yearly level, not the $40,000.00 that the Giants had demanded following his injury-filled '65 season.
And Cepeda was allowed to set up his stereo system in the Cardinals Busch Stadium clubhouse.
All of which contributed to the puzzle that came together in the form of the 1967 and 1968 editions of the St. Louis Cardinals.
Cepeda's recollections of the important details of the '67 and '68 seasons, and the World Series that followed them, are straightforward.
But his descriptions of Roger Maris and Mike Shannon stand out, in part because of his great degree of admiration for those two men.
That Cepeda could count those two men as his teammates no doubt played at least some part in the quality of his play, which resulted in his unanimous selection as the National League's Most Valuable Player in 1967.
But the Detroit Tigers defeated Cepeda's Cardinals in the 1968 World Series, and, prior to the start of the 1969 season, the Cardinals management decided that some changes were in order.
One of those changes was that, in March of 1969, Orlando Cepeda and Joe Torre exchanged uniforms, with Cepeda going to Atlanta and Torre to St. Louis.
The next section of the book (chapter 12) chronicles Cepeda's post-St. Louis years as a professional baseball player.
In 1969 (his first year in Atlanta), the Braves won the NL Western Division title, a fact that pleased Cepeda. And Cepeda enjoyed living in Atlanta, a city that, to him, worked hard to shed its image as a racist community.
In Atlanta, Cepeda made new acquaintances, and renewed old ones--Hank Aaron, Braves GM Paul Richards, manager Luman Harris, Clete Boyer, Tony La Russa, and Dusty Baker are among the men whose company he largely enjoyed.
But Cepeda's knee problems returned in 1972, and his "dumb" reactions to those injuries, and the subsequent communication breakdowns with manager Harris culminated in his July trade to the Oakland A's, for Denny McLain.
But the knee injury was severe enough to require another post-season surgery, and after the surgery, A's owner Charles Finley sent a telegram to Cepeda, asking that he call Finley within three days, or be released.
Cepeda, in a funk, did not call Finley, and thought his career was over.
But the 1973 season included a new rule change: the Designated Hitter.
The Boston Red Sox took a flyer on Cepeda, who responded with a 20 HR/86 RBI season.
For his efforts, Cepeda was rewarded with the 1973 Designated Hitter award.
But the 1974 Red Sox were managed by newcomer Darrell Johnson.
According to Cepeda, Johnson persuaded Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey that he (Johnson) could get younger player who would perform equally as well as the veteran trio of Cepeda, Luis Aparicio, and Bob Bolin.
In March of '74, the Red Sox released Cepeda, who was then picked up on waivers by the Kansas City Royals.
A disheartened Cepeda knew that his baseball playing career had come to an end.
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The final part of "Baby Bull--From Hardball to Hard Time and Back" outlines the fall and redemption of Orlando Cepeda.
First, in 1975, he was arrested and charged with attempting to import marijuana: 160 pounds of marijuana.
Then, in 1978, he was convicted and sentenced to the Eglin Air Force base facility in Florida.
His sentence? Five years at Eglin and a $10,000.00 fine.
But Cepeda writes movingly of the shame that he felt during those three years, and almost succeeds in persuading the reader that the shame inflicted upon "The Baby Bull" in his home country of Puerto Rico was more severe than any legal penalty.
The prison experience was not kind to Cepeda's pride, either. But Brian David, a Chicago-based attorney, was able to get Cepeda's sentence reduced to ten months, and in April of 1979, he was released for Eglin and lived in a halfway house in Philadelphia.
Finally, after additional lawyering by David, Cepeda was released on April 15, 1979.
In 1981, Cepeda was hired by the White Sox GM Roland Hemond as a roving instructor.
But, in Cepeda's words, he "blew the assignment", and blasted Hemond when the axe fell.
While working fot the White Sox, Cepeda's mother died, which, to him, meant that there was little reason to keep his residence in Puerto Rico.
After moving his family to Los Angeles, Cepeda's second marriage began to unravel...an unraveling that was aided by a successful paternity claim by one of the apparently numerous women who could call themselves Cepeda's girlfriends.
Interestingly, Cepeda himself blames the Latin culture for his own womanizing.
Penniless, and without meaningful employment, Cepeda's life was at rock bottom.
In one sad-but-true 1984 incident, he was asked to leave Dodger Stadium when he was observed talking with some of the players. Cepeda writes that the Dodgers players received a memo from management forbidding them from having any contact with him.
But according to Cepeda, his redemption began in the mid-1980's when he accepted Buddhism as his faith.
Soon afterward, he then met his current wife, Mirian Ortiz, moved back to San Francisco, and is now employed by the San Francisco Giants in their Community Relations department.
In that capacity, and with this book, Orlando Cepeda continues to work long and hard to rehabilitate his own life, and to try and communicate to others what he has learned in his sixty-plus years on this planet.
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In summary, Cepeda's book--"Baby Bull--From Hardball to Hard Time and Back" certainly filled in the gaps for this reader, who, thirty-three years ago, carried that "Cepeda Traded to Cardinals" newspaper clipping to second grade class every day for a month.
After all, a man's life is much more complicated than one single headline or one single article.
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BABY BULL--From Hardball to Hard Time and Back by Orlando Cepeda with Herb Fagen |
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