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Monday, July 8: The Sports Lunatics Remembering Orlando Cepeda & The Greatness Of Bo Jackson
These guys are sports lunatic. This is the sports lunatic show. Welcome to another edition of the sports lunatic. Who are the sports lunatic? Well, we're just two regular guys who love sports history. Hi, I'm Sean Levine in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and I'm Howie Mooney in Berry, Ontario, and you are watching or listening to the sports lunatics on your favorite audio or video platform. Don't forget check us out on YouTube. Check us out at the sports lunatics.com and in Ottawa on CK DJ 107.9 FM every Sunday at noon. How we were going to talk a little baseball in this episode of the sports lunatics and maybe some other stuff. We'll see how much time we have. You know, we recently did a show on the great Willie Mays and just one of the legendary New York and San Francisco Giants players, another Hall of Fame player that played a significant part of the San Francisco Giants, you know, hey, day in the sixties, Orlando Cepeda passes away again. Howie, I never got to see him play. But tell me more about Orlando Cepeda, well, Orlando Cepeda came out of Puerto Rico. He was one of the very first players to come out of Puerto Rico. He followed Roberto Clemente, who came into the National League with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1955. Cepeda joined the Giants in 1958 right after they moved from New York over to San Francisco. Here as Willie Mays was a giant already and had been a big star in New York already. In San Francisco, Cepeda became the favorite of the people in San Francisco because he would, he, they felt like he was their star. He was a guy that was grown in San Francisco as opposed to in New York. And he was, he was a great slugger, a great player, a great first baseman when he was with the Giants, but with the emergence of Willie McCovey at first base, they moved Cepeda out to the outfield and he had to deal with some knee issues. He was Rookie of the Year, of course, with the Giants in '58. But as his time in San Francisco moved on and Willie McCovey became the, the, the full-time first baseman, Cepeda said, you know, look, I'd realize that Willie McCovey is going to be the man at first. Can you please trade me? And the Giants did trade him. They moved him to St. Louis. And in his second season with St. Louis, the second, or his first full season in St. Louis, second season there, he took the Cardinals to the World Series. He won a World Series there against Boston with the Cardinals and he won the most valuable player in '67 as well. He had a great, great career. After St. Louis went to Atlanta, after Atlanta, played in Boston and then finished his, finished his career in '74. Interesting thing though, after his career was done, because he was, he had a great career finished with a 295 average. He had over 300 home runs in his career. But in '75, on his way from the States going back to Puerto Rico, he was stopped in the airport and picked up a package of marijuana, 165 pounds of marijuana. And he was arrested. He was booked, served time. And that, in fraction, basically kept him out of the Hall of Fame. He was not voted in and in his last year of eligibility he fell seven votes short of being, of getting into the Hall of Fame. At that point, he was the only guy with an average of 295, a career average of 295 and 300 home runs that was not in the Hall of Fame. It wasn't until 1999 and the Veterans Committee voting him in that he finally got into the Hall of Fame. And as he said, it's out of my hands. I have not, I can't do anything about it. It's up to whoever is voting and the Veterans Committee finally voted Orlando Cepeda, the baby bull or Cha Cha as he's known at into the Hall of Fame. It took that long. It took 25 years after his career ended before he finally got in. And it was a wild story. And I saw it on an MLB network piece, a six minute piece or five and a half minute piece on the MLB network about the marijuana arrest. And then I started going through newspapers.com and reading old papers and trying to figure out how this all happened. And it was just wild. Cepeda and his friend, Herminio Cortez, were arrested at the airport and that infraction basically was the pill, the poison pill that kept him out of the Hall of Fame all those years. Incredible. Do you say 165 pounds? Yeah. It wasn't like a something in his, in one of his bad little baggy in his bag or something. It was 165 pounds of marijuana, according to the story that I read. That's incredible. Some other accomplishments, Howie, he became in 1959. You mentioned his rookie of the year in '58, '59 and became the first Puerto Rican player to start an all-star game. And in 1961 led the league with 46 home runs and 142 runs batted in, which remains the club record for right handed hitters for the Giants and he came second in the, in the most valuable player voting that year to Frank Robinson. He also became Boston's first designated hitter. We know how much you love the designated hitter and actually credits his time in the position for getting him enshrined into the Hall of Fame. And of course his career came to an end in 1974. I'm glad you mentioned that thing about the designated hitter because that, that is an important part of baseball history. And I, as much as I dislike the DH, it did come in and Ron Bloomberg of course was the first DH in history when he played with the Yankees. But the fact that Orlando Sapeta was with the, the Red Sox, the, the DH did extend his career and it also extended the careers of other people like Hank Aaron as well. He said, Boston called and asked me if I was interested in being the DH and I said, yes. He recalled in a 2013 interview with the Associated Press for the 40th year of the DH. The DH got me in the Hall of Fame, the rule got me to the Hall of Fame. And that was Orlando Sapeta in 2013. He did make his home in the Bay Area. And as I said, he was considered a homegrown star in San Francisco and the fans loved him. He was one of those guys, just like Willie Mays at the ballpark all the time in, in San Francisco, and there's a statue out front of their new ballpark with, of Orlando Sapeta and just a guy who he was considered by everybody there in, in, in the city to be one of the, one of those fun guys, happy guys, always had a kind word for everybody and loved being at the ballpark. And it was, it's great that he got into the Hall of Fame in 99. It's sad that it took him so long. And, you know, it's a one mistake can, can do that for you. Yeah, 17 year major league baseball career, but he had a lot of knee issues. He had 10 knee operations in all, sidelining him for different years. So his numbers could have been, you know, even greater than what they were. And going back to the DH year, he had two 89 20 home runs, 86 RBIs and 73. He actually won DH of the year honors in 1973. So there was a DH of the year. I didn't know either. But that's according to the associate of press that he had won the DH of the year in 1973. Like when rollades had the rollades fireman of the year. Well, he topped Tommy Davis. Oh, okay. Antonio Leiva of Minnesota. So Tommy Davis played Baltimore. Oliva was a DH in Minnesota for top DH honors. See, it's amazing what you'll learn on this show. So the baby bowl passes away at the age of 86. And it just feels like how we, we talk about it every week now that somebody significantly passes away. Of course, in the national hockey league, and I don't mean to spring this on you. Sergey Barrazan, you know, was a superstar. But another huge fan favorite, you know, covering him in Toronto with the Maple Leafs. He was a big, big fan favorite with fans here in Toronto passing away suddenly, I believe at the age of 52, which shocked everybody. And we send our condolences on that loss as well. And that just happened in the past week. Another significant moment happened recently. And the only reason why I want to talk about them, we've talked about them a lot on our show. But I want to stress you and me have talked about him a thousand times, but in our lifetime, we have never seen a player like Bo Jackson, whether it was on the diamond or on the grid iron, Bo Jackson to me was the greatest athlete I have ever seen in my life. And we always talk about when we hear about, you know, it happens in every sport now where the athletes have never been stronger, faster, whatever, greater. To me, nobody has been as great as Bo Jackson. He will never be in the pro baseball and the baseball Hall of Fame. He will never be in the pro football Hall of Fame. He's in the college Hall of Fame, college football Hall of Fame. He just got inducted into the Kansas City Royals Hall of Fame. You know, if you don't know the story, Bo Jackson was an unbelievable two way player or two sport player in baseball and football. Unfortunately, suffered a hip injury in a playoff game for the Los Angeles Raiders. And it just changed his career. And it is football career, played a little bit of baseball after that showed Brit glimpses, a brilliance. But unfortunately, the injury was just it was devastating. And unfortunately, yeah, as time goes on, you know, we're we're about 30, 35 years past some of his major accomplishments. You know, I just don't want people to forget Bo Jackson. That all star game in 89 was spectacular. The catch that he made running up the whole song basically. I remember we were at a watch. We had a watch party for that. That's that doesn't happen anymore. Does it watch party for the all star game? I remember a bunch of us from our from our hockey team. We we played summer hockey together and we played winter hockey and a bunch of us got together at one guy's house. And we're all down in the basement and watching the that all star game. And I'll never forget that that play. I'll never forget Bo Jackson. And the injury that he suffered, he was being chased from behind a guy grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled down and it drove his leg up into his hip and it tore the artery that's that's in there that that hip that artery that's in the hip. And they had to work just to basically save his life and save his leg to put that artery back together. And that that basically ended his football career as you mentioned. But just the the he was brilliant. He was a great football player, great running back with the Raiders. And he was also a great ball player baseball player as well. And I mean, Dion Sanders was a great football player and a decent baseball player as well. But I didn't never felt the same electricity around Dion Sanders that I did around Bo Jackson, Bo was at one time. I would say from a marketing standpoint, if he wasn't just as big as Michael Jordan, he was bigger. Yeah, which is saying something. I love that commercial. Bo Bo knows everything. A bonus baseball, bonus football. And then he got him playing hockey and Wayne Gretzky just stands there and goes, no, which was brilliant. He was must see TV. If that makes sense, we never got to see Kansas City Rural Games. The only time you got to see Bo Jackson was if there was a national primetime game or if they were playing the Blue Jays on on CTV in Canada, we're talking Canada here. We never got to see Bo Jackson play. So when you said watch party, it's astounding. I was literally just talking to my girlfriend about this in the last couple of days. Her youngest daughter just graduated high school. And I'm going back to, you know, when I went to high school. And there were just so many things that we never got to see that now you just you turn on your phone and you get everything. There was a romance. When you said a watch party and getting people together, that was a thing. Yeah. We did not get to see baseball games every day of our life as people as kids do now. So it was always special. Every game you got to see on television seemed special. I just saw the highlight again. It popped up just in the memories, you know, mark the bird Fidrich beating the Yankees, which is going down as one of the great nights in baseball history and in Tiger's history because it was a primetime game. And he pitched a gem against the best baseball team at that time in the Yankees. It was special. You know, that was my CTV. You tuned into Monday night baseball. When the J's got to play on Monday night baseball and the States are on a Saturday afternoon and you knew Joe Garaziola and Tony Kubeck, even though Kubeck was a color commentator for J's games on Wednesdays and Sundays, that was a big freaking deal, man. Well, I remember when the expos were on the game of the week on a Saturday afternoon, it was huge. You know, and that was 85 around the time when the Cardinals were, we're going to the World Series that year and they had the, they were based on everything was based on speed, Vince Coleman and all those, you know, the guys that could run. Yes, Willie McGee, absolutely. And then to see the expos on a Saturday afternoon on an American national broadcast, it was almost like a validation for us as expo fans here in, you know, in Eastern Ontario, Western Quebec, seeing Bo Jackson play it and shine because you always heard the hype. You heard the hype about how great a ball player he could be. And then to see it, was that the same all-star game where he hit the first pitch? Because it was, it was Vince Scali and he was interviewing Ronald Reagan and Bo was up. And he played football. I just, I don't know if there's ever going to be a game. But the fact that you're, the fact that you're talking about things like this, like watch parties and things like that, I can remember the 86 masters watching, you know, a bunch of us sitting around the TV, watching it at a friend's place. I can remember when before Thursday night football became a thing and, and, but they'd introduce it as Howard Kossell would say, as special Thursday night edition of Monday night football. And it was the Houston Astros, or sorry, the Houston Oilers. And just everybody singing "Love You Blue" and, and Earl Campbell in those beautiful light blue jerseys. And that was, it was, it was something that was, everything was an event. Everything, if it was on prime time sports, it was an event. And, uh, as you said, like brought back all those memories, these, these were sick, these sick, sick memories of, of just all this wonderful sports that we used to watch. But I call it beautiful. I call it beautiful because it is so saturated and it has been for years and, and just to feel that excitement again, to watch again, do you feel any, there are very few games I find where you get that feeling like we used to get growing up. Now again, we're older. We're more mature. We have other interests. We have other distractions in life. But I go back to those moments growing up and I am like, this is like the greatest thing ever. My neighbor is a big fan of soccer and the euros are going on right now. And yesterday, I, you know, what did my grocery run and I'm standing in the driveway. He's, he's in his driveway loading his truck up because they're going, they're driving to Strathroy. And he says, yeah, I'm, I'm going to be in the passenger seat. My wife's driving. I've got the euros on my tablet and he's, he's watching that in his car as he's driving to Strathroy. Hey, that's cool. Don't get me wrong. Like I, I find, you know, obviously any big soccer tournament, you get caught up in it. That's the reason why it's the world's biggest sport. Yeah. But it, from a television watching perspective, growing up, those all star games, yes, because it was a pride factor too. You got to see your guy on that field, on that diamond, you know, and, you know, especially some of the great players we got to watch in Montreal and Toronto, you know, it was a big deal. Like if you got to see Dave Steve on the mound and you got to see Steve Rogers, he's got to see Gary Carr. I always thought, ooh, how many innings is Carter going to get? And he always played like seven innings in an all star game. It was crazy. Now, now, how we, now it's like, oh, you can't play more than four load management. Oh my God. But I can remember, you know, if I may make a little plug for the sports analytics.com and the piece that I put up or that you put up on about Reggie Jackson, part one. And that, that game in 71, the all star game where he hit the light standard at Tiger Stadium. And for me, that was a great highlight. But the fact that Rusty Stobb was representing the Montreal Expos as the, as their, in the all star game. And I kept watching. Where's Rusty Stobb? Is he going to get to play? Are they going to put him in the game at all? You know, but yeah, that, those moments that were just wonderful. I remember I was on the floor, like with my, my hands underneath my chin, watching that, watching the TV, you know, from three, three inches away. I'm not going to, I'm not going to lie to you. Going back to that 71. I did post that highlight on the story and the grainy video. I'm like, where's the ball? Where's the ball? You'd ever see the ball, like you see the pitch and you see him hit it. But then you don't see the ball. Like you have no idea where the ball is. You know, it's always the description of Kirk Goudy, you know, where he goes, it's off the light standard. And I didn't see it. Maybe, but again, it's like, it's like watching it as a kid, you're likely going, Oh my God, that is like the coolest thing. I grew up in the 60s and golf broadcasts were all like that. You couldn't see the ball. It's funny. You say that because recently, I don't know what I was what Oh, I was just on YouTube. I was watching like an old golf broadcast from, I think, 1967. Yes. Like a US Open or something. And I'm just like, there is two hours of me watching this. And I don't see the ball once unless it's on the green and the guy's putting it. You never see it in the air. It was wild. But it seemed to do everything. They seem to do everything so quickly back then too. They'd get up. They put their ball almost right away. It was none of this 47 minutes of just preparing to make your putt. Miguel Angel, Jimenez, doing doing contortions on the green to try and get his line. You know, watching guys smoking darts on the course. There's nothing like watching guys smoking darts on the course. We had that John Daley. We had that with John Daley, though. He was, you know, he's really one of the last breeds. Yeah. But oh my God. Yeah, no, getting back to ball. Sorry. We got off into tangent, but we'll bring it back. I just miss him playing so much. And you see his highlights as football highlights, his baseball highlights. There was nobody. You know, we talked about Willie Mays and a lot of people would compare Bo Jackson. Maybe not as good a hitter, obviously, in terms of average. But the rest of it, he could hit for power. He had incredible speed. He had, he was very good defensively. The arm that throw he made in Seattle at the Kingdong to nail Harold Reynolds at the plate. Go check it out on YouTube. Second base line drive. Yes, he can. I don't believe it. He made an absolutely perfect throw. It looked like there was no way he was going to get it through it in the air to home plate and nailed Harold Reynolds. It was one of the great highlights. But Bo Jackson just had that it factor. He had that it factor. And it's it's difficult to put into words. It's difficult to quantify. But unless unless you could watch him play watching him play football and running out of out of the this the dome in Seattle, you know, running off the field and through the the walk where the runway there. Third down and six at the nine. And Bo Jackson to the 20 and out in front and only one man to turn and easily can't run him down. He had the angle. But there goes Bo and nobody catches Bo touchdown. He may not stop. That's a coma. He's gone. Portland. He just went basketball can. There go the Raiders into fight. Come on back guys. Oh, he was flying watching him play. There was something to him that we don't get to see anymore. And I don't know how to put it into words or describe it any other way than that. Well, what's also incredible with him is he goes from baseball. So he finishes his baseball season, goes into football, doesn't have a training camp and then can run for a thousand yards every year. Like it's pretty incredible. The fact that he was able to do that. Deon amazed to the Don't get me wrong. I always was amazed by Deon Sanders as a player as well. But I just never thought he was as good as Bo and he'll say that too. Bo was just a different level man. And the stories, whether they're true or not, is pretty incredible of what he could do all the way through his, you know, from a child right into teenage years, college years and what we saw in the pros were astounding. Yeah, as I said, Deon Sanders just didn't have the same electricity as Bo Jackson did. Bo Jackson was just, he was one of a kind and they'll never be another one. Well, there may be, but it's not, not in my lifetime. Well, I think it's just right now. It's just, it's so, you know, that was the thing. Kids got to play multiple sports throughout a year where now it's so specialized. Even though I find it funny because I find a lot of, you know, again, it's social media. So you never, I find a lot of videos who say you got to play multiple sports. Well, the way sports is structured, you can't or if you can, it's on a limited basis or you, or you have to choose, you know, one or the other. We're growing up. We got to play whatever we wanted to, when we wanted to type of thing. It's a lot different now than what it was when we grew up, you know, Well, I was listening to a, I was listening to a podcast and they were asking why is the American, why are the Americans passing us in terms of producing hockey players? And it's because they've got these sports academy hockey academies. Now, as opposed to the way we do it, where we play the games in leagues and hopefully somebody will, will emerge as, you know, a great star, whereas they're, they're creating the stars in these academies now. Well, it's no different in basketball. Now we're seeing the Europeans, of course, the NBA draft just happened. More French players go in the first round, which has never happened before. You know, we have a Canadian system now that, you know, it's, it's rival, it's becoming a rival to the American system and just the players we're producing. Yeah, obviously based on population and the collegiate ranks, the Americans will always have, you know, more players being drafted, but, but in terms of just the quality of talent that's coming out, you know, it's, it's changing. That's why they're talking about they want to go to a world versus NBA situation for the all star game, because now there's tons of European and world players that are shining, you know, also because it'll add something different to the all star game that hasn't been seen before. And why I even talked about an NBA all star game baffles me, but it just, I'm just trying to make the point that they have enough players now that they can actually do it and be a competitive game never will happen. But we will, we will move on from that. But, you know, I just felt also, I felt a bit of sadness when I saw both ceremony, because really, this may be the last hurrah of him getting that recognition of being how great he was. Again, he was only in Kansas City for four years. Yeah. George Brett, who, you know, Hall of Fame player said if he had dedicated himself to baseball, he may have been one of the greatest baseball players of all time. That's how good, and George Brett was a hell of a baseball player. So coming from him, he was not blowing smoke. That's how he truly felt about Bo's talents. And I think a lot of people who watched him play would echo those sentiments. Same thing in the reverse. You put him football only. He may have been the all time leaning rusher, because who could stop him? Yeah. Still the greatest tech mo football player of all, tech mobile player of all time. Bo Jackson. That injury though, it stifled everything. And what it did was Bo Jackson was a comet that shone across the sports sky for a brief moment and then was gone. And that's, that's all I can say about about Bo. We haven't really done a show about tragic sports and usually involved death and all that. But in terms of an on field injury, uh, that might be number one. I just feel like that just robbed us and Rob and Bo obviously, but a Rob fans to see how great he truly could have been a two sport Hall of Fame. That's how great he was. If you had been allowed to continue possibly. Yeah, absolutely. Howie, that's, uh, well, actually no, we're not going to end it yet. I want to get into Reggie Jackson. I know we talked about his comments recently and just a lot of the racism he faced, but you're starting this series about Reggie Jackson. The first part is up on the sports lunatics.com. I'm sure by the time this show airs, we will have more up there in your series, but let's talk about part one. You brought up 1971, just how great a player he was with the Oakland A's. And just, you know, I go back. Oakland's going to lose their baseball team. Uh, you know, they're going to be the A's maybe, uh, but they're moving out of Oakland. It's, it's just a very sad, uh, ending I find, uh, for a once great, great dynasty. Well, Charlie Finley moved the team from Kansas city to Oakland. And within five years, he wanted to move it out of Oakland and up to Seattle because Seattle didn't have a team yet. And it was like this shining, uh, this shining city that, uh, that an owner like him, who wanted money, you know, to gravitate to, uh, and the players didn't like them. And that 1973 World Series where, uh, was 73 or 74 Mike Andrews, uh, made an error. I mean, they were down to their third string, second baseman and Mike Andrews made a couple of errors that cost them the game. Uh, Finley wanted, uh, him out and, uh, another second baseman in, and, uh, the players said, no, you can't do that. You can't just get rid of a guy like that. The players were, we're considering not playing, uh, you know, in, in the rest of the World Series. Imagine that, uh, because of Charlie Finley. So he had the players hating Charlie Finley. You had the, the town, the city of Oakland, disliking Charlie Finley as well because of his thoughts on wanting to move the team. It was, it was a pretty wild time, but Reggie Jackson could mash. He could just plain mash a ball. Uh, he could, we talked about him hitting that ball almost out of Tiger Stadium, you know, in 71 in the All-Star game. But before that he was doing it, you know, in this, in the, in 68, 69, 70. Uh, he was just a great, great ball player and, uh, but, but he was the kind of guy that, you know, he would let you know it as well. What was it? Uh, was it catfish hunter said, yeah, he'd give you the shirt off his back, but he, of course he'd call a press conference to do it. You know, it's a, uh, just that's, that's, he was one of those guys, he was a tremendous, tremendous ball player. Uh, but, but he needed that validation all the time as well. And that's why I call him a fragile superstar and, uh, uh, Thurman Munson said he was, you know, the world of baseball is an unreal world. And, and that's all he had was the world of the unreal world of baseball. Uh, he didn't have a family. He didn't have outside interests. He had baseball and that was it. And that's, that, that's the kind of, that's why I call it. He's the fragile superstar in an unreal world of baseball. And you can view that article on the sports lunatics.com. Howie, what an episode, a great reliving, some great memories, Orlando Cepeda and Bo Jackson and some of our youth and how we watched games and appreciated it. And that is the perfect way to end this edition of the sports lunatics. I'm Sean Lavina, Halifax, Nova Scotia and I'm Howie Mooney in Barry, Ontario. And you've been watching or listening to the sports lunatics, check us out on YouTube and in Ottawa. CKDJ 107.9 FM every Sunday at noon and check us out at the sports lunatics.com. Have a great sports day, everybody. [MUSIC PLAYING] [BLANK_AUDIO]