Orlando Cepeda

Orlando Manuel Cepeda Pennes (; born September 17, 1937), nicknamed "the Baby Bull" and "Peruchin", is a Puerto Rican former first baseman in Major League Baseball who played for six teams from 1958 to 1974, primarily the San Francisco Giants. A 7-time All-Star, Cepeda was one of the most consistent power hitters in the National League (NL) through the 1960s. 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 after batting .312 with 25 home runs and 96 runs batted in (RBI), also leading the NL with 38 doubles. Every year from 1958 through 1963, he was among the league leaders in batting, home runs, RBI, 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 RBI, which remains the club record for right-handed hitters.

Cepeda had been succeeded as Rookie of the Year by fellow Giant Willie McCovey, and in the ensuing years the team had struggled to fit both 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 and a .176 average, he was traded in May 1966 to the St. Louis Cardinals, coming back to finish the year with a .301 average. In 1967 he hit a career-high .325 with 25 home runs and a league-leading 111 RBI, carrying the team to the NL pennant; he won the MVP Award, again by unanimous vote. Another trade brought him to the Atlanta Braves, and he helped that team win the inaugural West Division title in 1969. Cepeda's 254 home runs and 896 RBI in the 1960s each ranked fifth among NL hitters. With his play increasingly limited by knee problems, he switched 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 batted over .300 nine times, retiring with a. 297 mark in an era of declining averages; league batting averages dropped below .260 for the remainder of his career after 1962, often falling below .250. He also posted five seasons each with 30 home runs and 100 RBI. His 226 home runs and .535 slugging percentage with the Giants then ranked behind only teammate Willie Mays among right-handed hitters in franchise history, with his NL totals of 358 home runs and 3,684 total bases ranking fifth and ninth among the league's right-handed hitters. He also ranked ninth in NL history in games at first base (1,683), and eighth in assists (1,012) and double plays (1,192). After a 1975 arrest for transporting 170 pounds of marijuana from Colombia to Puerto Rico, Cepeda served ten months in prison and saw his reputation ruined on his home island. But following changes in his personal life, 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 inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999. Provided by Wikipedia