`BABY BULL' IN THE HALL; CEPEDA FINALLY REACHES COOPERSTOWN.

Byline: Ron Bergman San Jose Mercury News 

Orlando Cepeda took a walk-through at Cooperstown two months ago. He saw a photo of himself and one of his bats. He paused in front of a photo of his father, the legendary star Perucho, ``The Bull,'' the Babe Ruth of Puerto Rico kept out of the majors by the color line.

On Sunday, Cepeda will be able to see his likeness on a plaque in the Hall of Fame. Cepeda's induction caps a story of rags-to-riches, back-to-rags and, if not back to riches again, at least back to respectability.

By now, all Giants fans know the story of ``The Baby Bull'' and how he was dealt to the St. Louis Cardinals in what could have been the worst trade made by the San Francisco club. A trade that wouldn't have been made had Cepeda cleared the way for Willie McCovey to play first base by putting his heart into learning how to be a left fielder.

``I couldn't sell him on playing left field after we got McCovey,'' said Bill Rigney, who managed the Giants from 1958-60. ``I wanted to get them both in the lineup. Orlando could run and had great hands. He could have done it if he put his mind to it because he was a great athlete.

The trade turned out to be great for Cepeda, unanimously selected as the National League MVP on the World Series-champion St. Louis Cardinals of 1967, his first full season there. He had played only 33 games in 1965 because of knee injuries, missed 20 games in 1966 for the same reason, yet managed to lead the league in 1967 with 111 RBI while averaging .325 with 25 homers.

``Everything he accomplished, he did so by driving through those injuries,'' veteran St. Louis broadcaster Jack Buck said when the Cardinals visited San Francisco earlier this month. ``He had to work harder than anyone else on the field because of the condition of his knees.

That wouldn't be Cepeda's last great season. In 1970, his second year with Atlanta (where he had been traded for Joe Torre), he again drove in 111 runs while hitting .305. That would be his ninth and last .300-or-better season, his fifth and last 100-or-better RBI season. Cepeda had only one good year left in him. He drove in 86 runs, hit 20 homers and batted .289 for Boston in 1973 when he won the first Designated Hitter of the Year award, in a position seemingly designed for him. He appeared in 33 games in 1974 for Kansas City, then limped away from baseball at the age 37.

Had things gone smoothly from there, Cepeda would have been elected to the Hall of Fame by the early '80s.But things did not go smoothly.

Cepeda says he allowed a friend to include a five-pound bag of marijuana in a box being shipped back to Puerto Rico from a baseball clinic they had attended in Colombia. Police arrested Cepeda when he went to the San Juan airport to claim the package. It was only a year after he had retired.

``I blew it,'' Cepeda admits. ``I made a huge mistake.''

Cepeda was found guilty of distributing drugs at a 1978 trial and sentenced to five years in federal prison. His own people turned their backs on him.

Cepeda served 10 months at Elgin Air Force Base in Florida, got out, drifted around, was hired and fired by the White Sox and a team in Puerto Rico. He eventually landed in Los Angeles. The low point came one day in 1984 when the Dodgers kicked him out of their stadium when he couldn't produce field credentials. He returned to his apartment in Burbank, broke, single and unemployed.

Not all was bad. Cepeda found Buddhism, and it worked for him. He met a woman named Miriam Ortiz, now his third wife. And a writer named Laurence Hyman encouraged him to swallow his pride and ask the Giants for a job; the team had turned him down a number of times.

This time, the Giants came through, thanks for the most part, Cepeda says, to longtime club executive Pat Gallagher, currently the senior vice president for business operations. More fortuitous was the sale of the Giants, and the ascension of supermarket tycoon Peter Magowan to managing general partner in January 1993.

Magowan mounted a campaign to get Cepeda into the Hall of Fame. Cepeda came within seven votes of being elected in 1994, his 15th and final year of eligibility. Finally, the 18-man Veterans Committee opened the doors to the only player with more than 300 homers and at least a .295 lifetime batting average who wasn't in the Hall of Fame.

Cepeda will go in as a member of the Giants, who employ him as a community representative along with Vida Blue, who also served time in federal prison on a drug conviction. Cepeda originally signed as a Giant in 1955, an event tinged by the death of his father before his first game in organized ball.

It was with the Giants that Cepeda hit the first major-league homer in the team's first game in San Francisco in 1958. Cepeda was selected as Rookie of the Year that season after hitting .312 with 25 home runs and 96 RBI.

Cepeda's new life has won back the hearts of most of his countrymen, who danced in the streets and gave him a huge parade when he returned home to Puerto Rico three months ago after the Veterans Committee elected him. Even the law enforcement officials who prosecuted Cepeda hosted a reception for him.

``I didn't know this would be so great,'' Cepeda says about the honors that have been bestowed upon him at age 61. ``I'm no saint, but people will get to know me as a person now. That's very important to me.''

ORLANDO CEPEDA'S CAREER STATISTICS

Year, Team AB R H HR RBI AVG 

1958, SF 603 88 188 25 96 .312

1959, SF 605 92 192 27 105 .317

1960, SF 569 81 169 24 96 .297

1961, SF 585 105 182 46 142 .311

1962, SF 625 105 191 35 114 .306

1963, SF 579 100 183 34 97 .316

1964, SF 529 75 161 31 97 .304

1965, SF 34 1 6 1 5 .176

1966, SF-StL 501 70 151 20 73 .301

1967, StL 563 91 183 25 111 .325

1968, StL 600 71 149 16 73 .248

1969, Atl 573 74 147 22 88 .257

1970, Atl 567 87 173 34 111 .305

1971, Atl 250 31 69 14 44 .276

1972, Atl-Oak 87 6 25 4 9 .287

1973, Bos 550 51 159 20 86 .289

1974, KC 107 3 23 1 18 .215

Totals 7927 1131 2351 379 1365 .297

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos, Box

Photo: (1) no caption (Orlando Cepeda)

(2) After years of struggling, Orlando Cepeda, shown here in 1963, will be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Associated Press File Photo

Box: ORLANDO CEPEDA'S CAREER STATISTICS (See text)