'75-style custom caps Cepeda's career

My newest custom baseball card is an example of what many collectors today feel Topps didn't do enough of back in the day . . . a card that has stats on back recapping the player's entire big-league career.

I don't fault Topps for this policy; they obviously felt that having a card showing three or four rookies was of greater interest to their kid customers than one showing an "old-timer" who was no longer playing.

My card is a look back at what a 1975 Topps card of Orlando Cepeda might have been.

From his 1958 rookie card, a personal favorite of this seven-year-old collector, through most of his 17-year major-league career, Topps did a good job of getting Cepeda on his current team with each new year's issue.

With the Giants until early May, 1966, Cepeda was traded to the Cardinals. Topps had him in its 1967 and 1968 in the proper St. Louis uniform.

Just before the 1969 season opened, Cepeda was traded to the Atlanta Braves. The best Topps could do for his '69 card was picture him capless (and looking none too happy about it).

The slugger played with the Braves all of 1969-1971, being traded to the Oakland A's in June of 1972. He is correctly pictured with Atlanta in the 1970-72 Topps sets.

After that, the gum company was always a step behind Cepeda's travels. Though he was released by the A's in December of 1972, he was pictured in the Topps set for 1973 in Charley Finley's green-and-gold., though he had appeared in only three games for Oakland in 1972.

Cepeda's last career-contemporary Topps card was in the 1974 set, pictured with the Boston Red Sox, for whom he had played all of 1973. By the time the 1974 Topps cards were released, however, Cepeda had also been released prior to the opening of the 1974 season.

He was noodling around with the Yucatan team in the Mexican League when he was signed by the K.C. Royal on Aug. 6, 1974. He finished his major-league career with a month in the Royals' uniform.

Topps didn't see the need to issue a career wrap-up card for Cepeda in the 1975 set, but I figured that since there exists some nice photos of him with Kansas City, I could pay tribute to one of my favorite ballplayers of his era.

You can order this card. Unless noted, all of my custom cards are available to collectors for $12.50 each, postpaid for one or two cards; $9.95 each for three or more (mix/match). Complete checklists of all my custom baseball, football and non-sports custom cards were published on this blog in late May. To order, email me at scbcguy@yahoo.com for directions on paying via check/money order, or to my PayPal account.

Cepeda struck out in All-Star play

One of the more popular new cards in the 1958 Topps set was that of Orlando Cepeda.

After three years in the minors in which he batted a cumulative .340 with an average of 24+ home runs, Cepeda opened the '58 season as the regular first baseman of the San Francisco Giants, who in those days were a constant threat to my Milwaukee Braves' pennant hopes.

Cepeda went on to win (unanimously) the NL Rookie of the Year Award as the Giants contended for much of the season. Cepeda hit .312 with 25 home runs; both were second-best on the team to Willie Mays. His 96 RBIs tied Mays. Cepeda's 38 doubles led the league. 

It didn't seem fair that with a first baseman like that, San Francisco was able to bring up Willie McCovey the following year, moving Cepeda to left field.

Cepeda went on to a 17-year major league career that saw him win an MVP and a World Series ring in 1967. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1999 by the Veterans Committee, after falling just short at 73.5% of the needed votes in his final year of eligibility (1994) by the baseball writers. His vote count in the course of his 15 years' of "regular" eligibility had been as low as 10.1% in 1982. This was a result, no doubt, of his 1978 conviction and imprisonment on marijuana smuggling charges.

While he did eventually make the Hall of Fame, it was not as a result of his All-Star Game highlight reel. There may not be, in fact, an All-Star who played in so many Midsummer Classics with so little offensive output.

Cepeda was selected for the NL All-Star squad 11 times in seven years (they played two A-S Games a year in 1959-62), and played in nine of those games. His All-Star batting record is .039 -- 1-for-27, with three strikeouts.

Here's a summary of Cepeda's All-Star futility . . . 
July 7, 1959   starting 1B  0-for-4
Aug. 3, 1959  reserve 1B  Did Not Play
July 11, 1960  reserve LF 0-for-1
July 13, 1960 reserve LF 0-2
July 11, 1961  starting LF  0-for-3
July 31, 1961  starting LF 0-for-3
July 10, 1962  starting 1B  0-for-3
July 30, 1962  starting 1B  0-for-1
     (drew a walk off Dave Stenhouse to load bases in bottom of 1st)
July 9, 1963  reserve 1B  Did Not Play
July 7, 1964  starting 1B  1-for-4
     (bloop single behind first off Dick Radatz in bottom of the 9th to score Mays and tie game at 4-4; Johnny Callison won with walk-off three-run homer)
July 11, 1967  starting 1B  0-for-6

I'm at a loss to explain how a guy who hit .297 over 17 years in the bigs could fare so badly in the All-Star Game . . . but there you have it.