I became a lifetime “devout at the altar of Roberto Clemente” when my Dad took us to watch a Spring Training Game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Pirates at the Hiram Bithorn Stadium in 1965.
Orlando Cepeda was the object of the competing cult among the baseball fans of Puerto Rico during that period. Cepeda played for my PR Winter League team, the Santurce Crabbers. Like Clemente and other stars who lived in PR (Tony Perez, Mike Cuellar to name just two) they would play half of the Winter League Season every year to keep in game shape, and to allow Island fans to see them play in the flesh.
Cepeda was definitely not a speedster. His bowed legs were stunted by an early childhood disease. (Cepeda’s father, also famously bow legged, had been a great short stop in the Negro Leagues and various Caribbean Winter Leagues.) But to paraphrase my baseball playing, pre adolescent friends and fellow fans in 1960’s Puerto Rico, Orlando Cepeda “ran like a cow.” Because of the presence of in his prime Willie McCovey on the Giants, they were forced to trade Cepeda to the Cardinals, because neither of them had the foot speed to regularly play a corner OF position.
As far as this statement in the article,
Several minutes after takeoff, the plane exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, killing Clemente and four others.
I have never read this anywhere before and believe that it is totally inaccurate. The post crash investigation determined that the cargo plane was criminally poorly maintained (the ownership company was very sketchy) and that the quantity and configuration of the cargo, loaded by volunteers on New Years Eve (including several friends who were at a party when Clemente himself appeared at the house, asking for volunteers), was a contributing factor in the crash.