Hall committee took wait off Cepeda's mind

Associated Press
San Francisco Giants' Orlando Cepeda earned his reputation with a bat.
Orlando Cepeda insists he doesn't mind the long wait he endured before finally being admitted into baseball's Hall of Fame. It simply gave him more time to prepare for the moment and savor it.

"I've been working on my speech for 20 years," Cepeda said. "If it happened the first year, I could have taken it for granted. I waited a long time, so I'm having a wonderful time now."

Cepeda, a menacing right-handed slugger known as the "Baby Bull," spent most of his 17-year career with the San Francisco Giants. He was the National League's first unanimous choice as Rookie of the Year (for the 1958 Giants) and as Most Valuable Player (for the 1967 St. Louis Cardinals).

When he retired in 1974, Cepeda looked to be a good candidate for induction into the Hall five years later. He had compiled a career batting average of .297, driven in 1,365 runs (48th all-time) and slammed 379 home runs (39th on the career list) to establish himself worthy of strong consideration.

But baseball writers' unanimous regard for Cepeda ended shortly thereafter.

In 1975, Cepeda was arrested at an airport in his native Puerto Rico and charged with trying to pick up 160 pounds of marijuana. He was sentenced to five years in prison but was released after serving 10 months. His Hall of Fame hopes were imprisoned much longer.

Cepeda never did get the requisite 75 percent support on baseball writers' Hall ballots. In 1994, his 15th and final year on the writers' ballot, he fell seven votes short of induction. But the Hall's Veterans Committee, which has now installed 144 of the 244 Hall members, voted to add Cepeda on March 2. It was Cepeda's second year of consideration by that panel.

"Things in life, sometimes, don't go the way you want," said Cepeda, 61. " . . . It doesn't help to be bitter. I'm lucky that [induction] happened. To me, that's enough."

Cepeda, who this month had his No. 30 retired by the Giants and served as honorary captain of the National League All-Star team, exudes a tranquillity he attributes to the Buddhist faith he adopted in prison. Fellow 1999 Hall inductee Nolan Ryan said he remembers the more aggressive Cepeda.

"He was like Juan [Gonzalez], to some degree," Ryan said. "He hit the ball to right-center with a lot of power, and he hit the ball out over the plate or he could pull the ball. He was probably one of the strongest guys in the league at the time."

Cepeda is the only living member of the four inductees elected by the Veterans Committee in March.

The committee also elected "Smokey" Joe Williams, a native of Seguin, Texas, who was one of the most feared pitchers in the Negro Leagues; former umpire Nestor Chylak Jr., who officiated American League games for 25 years with a blend of authority, tact and humor often missing today; and 19th-century manager Frank Selee, whose teams won 1,284 games from 1890-1905.