Orlando cepeda ray sadecki biography

When Orlando Cepeda stood on the podium in Cooperstown, New York, on July 25, , it is likely that no man had followed a more difficult path to the Baseball Hall of Fame, or that any man was any happier to attain the honor. Cepeda had escaped the slums of Puerto Rico to attain stardom at a very young age, and he overcame numerous injuries during his career, and even worse personal difficulties after leaving baseball.

Although he had two remarkable comeback seasons in his baseball career, he had his biggest and most impressive comeback years later, when after a decade of humiliation he again stood on a ball field and listened to the roar of a crowd.

Orlando cepeda children

To know Orlando, one must first know his father. Although surrounded by love, Cepeda grew up in stifling poverty — his father made little money, and often gambled what he made — and by crime and drugs, habits Orlando participated in. Had it not been for baseball and the legacy of Perucho Cepeda, I could have followed my boyhood pals into a world of crime, violence, and hate.

His family moved a few times before settling in Santurce, a district of San Juan. Orlando played a lot of baseball, but suffered the first of his many knee injuries playing basketball when he was During his long recovery, he grew six inches and added more than 40 pounds to his previously scrawny frame. But afterward, whoosh! Because they were all underage, and had never left the island, they were accompanied by the year-old Roberto Clemente , on his way to spring training with the Pirates.

Cepeda returned home and used his bonus money for the funeral.