Orlando Cepeda

    Most fans think of Orlando Cepeda as a San Francisco Giant and Cepeda played most of his career with the Giants but I'll always think of the Hall of Famer as a St.Louis Cardinal and a long-time favorite of mine.

I think most of that is because of his 1967 Topps card but some also is due to the picture to the left, a 1968 (I think) Topps poster from a series that Topps inserted into each pack that year.

The 1958 Rookie of the Year, Cepeda was the San Francisco Giants' first breakout young star after the team's move to California. At the time, if not forever, it was Cepeda who was the most popular player on the team as San Francisco fans regarded Cepeda as "theirs" compared to Willie Mays "belonging" to the team's former home in New York City.

Cepeda would lead the National League in homers and RBI in 1961 but the Giants had a big problem in the first half of the sixties- they had two players that could play first base well and struggled in every attempt to fit both players at other positions to allow both big hitters into the lineup.

Both players were destined for the Hall of Fame-Cepeda and Willie McCovey.

Cepeda began having knee problems with the Giants and would barely play in 1965 before returning to the lineup early in the 1966 season. This showed that Cepeda was healthy enough to attract interest from the St.Louis Cardinals, who traded pitcher Ray Sadecki to the Giants straight up for Cepeda.

Cepeda hit .303 in over one hundred twenty games for the Cardinals in 1966, winning the Comeback Player of the Year award.

The stage was set for 1967, the best season in " The Baby Bull's" career.

Cepeda was unanimously named MVP after leading the Cardinals to the world championship, defeating Boston in seven games.

Cepeda hit .325 with 25 homers and a league-leading 111 RBI for the pennant winners and his numbers dipped as all batters did in 1968, "The Year of the Pitcher" but it still came as a surprise when the Cardinals traded Cepeda one for one for Joe Torre in 1969.

Both players had issues with their previous teams (Cepeda for reporting late for spring training without permission, Torre holding out for a new contract) but rarely are two terrific players swapped for each other without any other considerations.

Atlanta and St. Louis each have a case for who "won" the trade.

Cepeda gave the Braves two excellent seasons in 1969 and 1970 (.305, 34 homers, and 111 RBI in 1970) and helped them to the 1969 National League Western Division title before his ailing knees held him to only seventy-one games in 1971.

Torre played longer with the Cardinals (playing in St. Louis through 1974), and won the 1971 National League MVP but the Cardinals didn't win a division during Torre's tenure and his final three seasons in St.Louis saw a drop in performance, particularly in the power department, so I'd say the trade was pretty even.

Cepeda appeared ready for retirement after his continuing battle with his knees allowed him to play only thirty-one games in 1972, twenty-eight with Atlanta and three with Oakland but in 1973, the American League instituted the Designated Hitter and it was Cepeda who was named the top DH after he hit .289 with 20 homers and 89 RBI for the Boston Red Sox.

But Cepeda had reached the point of immobility, and it was difficult to play him despite his hitting abilities. As Bill Lee wrote in his book "The Wrong Stuff," if Cepeda singled, it would take three hits to score him because he couldn't move up two bases on a base hit.

Cepeda's career was over in 1974 after thirty-three games with the Kansas City Royals, finishing with a career batting average of .297 with three hundred and seventy-nine homers and over 1,300 RBI at the age of thirty-six.

An eleven-time All-Star, Cepeda should have been an easy selection for the Hall of Fame within a few times of appearing on the ballot. Still, a conviction for drug possession and ten months in prison hurt Cepeda's candidacy.

Cepeda would fall nine votes short of induction in 1994, his final year of ballot eligibility but was elected by the Veterans Committee in 1999.

Cepeda's number thirty was retired by the Giants in 1999 and was honored with a statue outside the Giants home stadium in 2008. 

Over a week?

Yep, it's been over an entire week and that might be the longest break that I have ever taken from this little venture.

It didn't start that way, I assure you.
You get busy here and there and you squeeze some time away and before you know it gets out of control and you've been away for a while.
Sometimes and I know this might not be easy to understand. but you just aren't motivated or have much to say.
It's odd, but there are times that I have so much to write about, it feels like I'm going to burst without getting these thoughts onto "paper" and on occasion (and it is far fewer in number), there is just nothing that I care about in writing.

I've been watching the Cavaliers series with the Celtics and I'm planning a series recap of perhaps the greatest performance of a player to lift a team to a level that they have no business being, but that will wait another day or two.
However, even though I wanted to write about the games, I just wasn't feeling "it" last past week and I suppose that's why this is a labor of love and I've never felt the need to monetize this- I like having the freedom to come and go as I wish.
So, until the day someone wants my opinions and wants to pay me enough (Insert your snicker here) to make my mortgage payment, I like having the lack of scheduling structure to write when I want to.
I worked a lot in May to help pay for some of the fun things that I'll do in June, July, and August that you'll read about here and that didn't help a lot in adding motivation to write either.

Enough about that and it's time to explain just why there is a picture of a 1965 Topps Orlando Cepeda on a post that features a return to action.
During the semi-unintentional hiatus, the lovely Cherie and I celebrated our 31st anniversary and we did so pretty quietly.
We had a nice dinner and I bought her what she wanted for her gift, which was solar lighting for the yard.
Solar lighting likely isn't the most romantic gift in the world, but I've always thought that gift-giving isn't about what you want to give, it's about what the person receiving the gift wants.
That goes back to 1993 (I looked up the release date of the figure) and when a friend of mine and I went to Toys R Us to shop for Ryan a birthday present.

Ryan was six and he was huge into wrestlers then from both toy lines (WWF and WCW) and he had a few that he wanted most- silly gimmicky wrestlers like the Mountie, the Repo Man and the Berzerker.
Toys R Us had the Repo Man and Berzerker, so I talked to my friend about Ryan's "want list" and we each could buy one figure and Ryan's list would be filled!

One problem- he didn't want to buy one of these, he wanted to buy Ric Flair, who Ryan "had" through the WCW line and despite my protestations, he bought Flair anyway.

I bought Repo Man, but Ryan never got the Berzerker (I wasn't loaded with cash then not that I am now!), which he jokes about to this day (send your Berzerker figures to "Wrestlers for Ryan" at...), Ryan called the new Flair "the Fake Ric Flair", although he still played with the figure and I learned a valuable lesson- gift giving isn't always about what you want to give, it's about what makes the gift recipient happy.

All this leads back to Orlando Cepeda and how he was added to the collection.
The 1965 set is my winter project when I don't have to worry about buying team sets and stuff for the graphing world as I do during the season.
I keep to only buying PSAs for the set and it's something of value that the kids can eventually do something with down the road.
I give myself a few restrictions to make it fun- I only buy "8's" unless it is a star card, where I will allow a "7" for the expense of the card and I do not allow exceeding the PSA value of the card unless I have something extra to supplement (eBay bucks, gift cards, etc).
It keeps it fun and adds an extra dimension to the project.

Cherie always feels bad because of a family thing that came up a few years back that I rolled their gifts into the set and then was changed.
I turned various gifts (I.E. Cash/Gift Cards) into Sandy Koufax (I added money to buy Koufax to allow going over budget) and I was planning to do something similar every year should that gift type continue with the next year being Willie Mays.
In any event, things changed and the replacement event was/is not the greatest in the world, although my grandmother still gives a few dollars (I always buy a common card for the set and note that it came from her for Christmas whatever year), the better cards for more or less "free" days were gone.
"Gan" has bought for me: Al Weis, Davey Johnson (his rookie, and I bought it for far undervalue), and the immortal Duke Carmel over the last three years for the set.
Cherie told me that because of that, she wanted me to buy a card for the set for my anniversary present and gave me a budget (I thought about adding money to buy Mays) and I shopped around mainly looking to add one of two players (other than Mays) either Orlando Cepeda or Dick (Don't call me Richie, even though Topps usually did) Allen.

Another side part of the set is trying to add players I liked first and some of these guys would have no reason to stand out to anyone other than me unless I told them why.
Only Ryan might know the reasons why some of the players have already purchased it (You can check out the set here) because no one knows my sports history like he does.
I was trying to keep things under budget, so I was going to make the decision between those two players and I managed to win a Cepeda for ten dollars under PSA value, so I was pleased to make this my anniversary present.
Thanks to Cherie for the thoughtfulness and for the wonderful anniversary as well!

I'll be back later tonight with another post as I continue to catch up!