CEPEDA TOOK BUMPY ROAD TO HALL

Former Giants Star Was A Pariah In His Own Homeland After Drug Conviction

Bay Area journalist Luis Alberto Torres hasn't forgotten what happened when
he stumped Puerto Rico back in 1990 on a one-man mission to gain support
for Orlando Cepeda's election to the baseball Hall of Fame.

Torres particularly remembers his reception at the office of one of Puerto
Rico's largest newspapers.

"When I called the editor from the lobby, he asked me what I wanted,"
Torres said. "I told him and, almost before I knew what was happening, two
security guards came out and told me I had to leave."

The greeting was almost as chilly everywhere Torres went around the island,
even in Cepeda's hometown of Ponce, where the hostility was especially
noticeable.

The people who seemed to matter didn't want to have anything to do with the
onetime baseball hero, who had become a pariah after he was convicted in
the mid-1970s of transporting marijuana, and served 10 months of a
five-year sentence.

"I visited a lot of people," Torres said, "and nobody wanted to hear about
him. Nobody - in Puerto Rico or any of the Latin countries - wanted to
publish any articles I had written on him or pick up the interviews I had
taped. Even the Spanish broadcasters would say he wasn't worthy of the Hall
of Fame."

But with things looking particularly bleak, Torres - who is now the Giants'
Hispanic media services director - got support from a few influential
people in the press. And sentiment slowly began to swing in Cepeda's favor,
on a number of levels.

The turning point came, Torres thinks, when the former Giants slugger was
elected to the Puerto Rican Hall of Fame, in 1993, joining his father,
Pedro "Perucho" Cepeda, who was once a huge baseball star on the island.

"We strongly felt that Orlando should be selected in Puerto Rico before
Cooperstown," said Tato Rojas, who was on the Puerto Rican Hall of Fame
committee. "All the numbers indicated that Orlando should have been in the
Hall a long time ago.

"Unfortunately for him, he had served some time and was being penalized
beyond measure. Some people couldn't understand that after serving time and
getting his life together, there was another Orlando Cepeda who grew out of
that experience."

As the years have passed, the view has changed in the Puerto Rican and
Latin communities, in a number of locales.

"I think one of the reasons people got so down on him was that in the
1970s, when all that happened, there were only two main guys in Puerto
Rico, Roberto Clemente and my dad," Orlando Cepeda Jr. said. "I was just a
little kid, but my uncle told me that every day he played, the radio
stations down there would report how he did, so his problems really
affected people."

The sentiment is now overwhelmingly pro-Cepeda, though, as he prepares to
enter the baseball Hall of Fame Sunday in a seven-man class that includes
Nolan Ryan, George Brett and Robin Yount.

A Crowd Of 100,000

In late March, shortly after he was voted into the Hall by the Veterans
Committee, the 61-year-old Cepeda flew to Puerto Rico and was greeted by a
crowd estimated at more than 100,000 people.

"The town went crazy," Cepeda said. "It was a huge honor. Kids, old ladies,
everyone knew I had been inducted into the Hall of Fame. It was a big thing
for me, because I'm concerned about Puerto Rico, and am proud to be from
there. I blew it (by transporting marijuana). I made a mistake. But
everything is beautiful now between me and Puerto Rico. Everything is
behind me. Everything is erased. It's completely sealed."

Orlando Jr. said, "Now in Puerto Rico, everybody is coming forward and
telling him they're sorry."

Also Popular In New York

Cepeda's redemption seems just as complete in New York, which has a large
Hispanic population.

"He's viewed very highly by the Latin American community here," said Joseph
Kaminski, general manager of the Hotel Delmonico in Manhattan and a
longtime Cepeda friend who has dedicated a suite in his honor. "He's a big
celebrity at the Puerto Rican Day parade. Everybody knows him, or knows of
him. He's come to New York on several occasions for different fund-raising
events in the South Bronx and outlying areas.

"I think in the Puerto Rican community, he's kind of similar to what Sammy
Sosa is in the Dominican community. When we did the suite dedication, it
was picked up by all the Spanish-language newspapers."

Promoting A Positive Image

Ralph Paniagua, president of New York-based King-Paniagua, which publishes
several Latin American baseball magazines, said, "For Puerto Ricans to have
a Hall of Famer be able to represent us is a very, very big thing (up to
now, Roberto Clemente has been the only Puerto Rican in the Hall).

"For many, many years, Orlando Cepeda, and his wife Mirian, have been a
major part of our community, traveling all over the place promoting a
positive image in the Latino community and giving of themselves to youth. I
did an event with Cepeda and Minnie Minoso in Miami where we hosted over
1,000 kids.

"Orlando has had to go through a humbling situation. He has covered his
mistake many times over, but it takes something like this election to the
Hall of Fame to make it go away. This says, "Hey, Orlando, you belong with
us.' Having this reaffirmation is going to be a very important thing for
his psyche - and for ours."