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Orlando Cepeda, Hall of Fame Giants slugger, dies at 86
SAN FRANCISCO — Orlando Cepeda, the slugging first baseman nicknamed “Baby Bull” who became a Hall of Famer among the early Puerto Ricans to star in the major leagues, has died. He was 86.
The San Francisco Giants and his family announced the death Friday night and a moment of silence was held as his photo showed on the scoreboard at Oracle Park midway through a game against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Ezra Shaw / Getty Images
“Our beloved Orlando passed away peacefully at home this evening, listening to his favorite music and surrounded by his loved ones,” his wife, Nydia, said in a statement released through the team. “We take comfort that he is at peace.”
It’s been a heartbreaking month for the Giants given Cepeda’s death followed Hall of Famer Willie Mays’ passing only 10 days earlier on June 18 at age 93.
“Man, what another gut punch,” said Giants manager Bob Melvin, who grew up in the Bay Area cheering for the team. “Another just incredible personality and just beloved here. Statue out front. The numbers he put up, there are a lot of legends here and he’s certainly right in the middle of that. To have it so close in proximity to Willie, it’s kind of staggering.”
Cepeda was a regular at Giants home games through the 2017 season until he dealt with some health challenges. He was hospitalized in the Bay Area in February 2018 following a cardiac event.
One of the first Puerto Rican stars in the majors but limited by knee issues, he became Boston’s first designated hitter and credits his time as a DH for getting him enshrined into the Hall of Fame in 1999 as selected by the Veteran’s Committee.
Godofredo A. Vásquez / AP
“Orlando Cepeda’s unabashed love for the game of baseball sparkled during his extraordinary playing career, and later as one of the game’s enduring ambassadors,” Hall of Fame Chairman Jane Forbes Clark said. “We will miss his wonderful smile at Hall of Fame Weekend in Cooperstown, where his spirit will shine forever, and we extend our deepest sympathies to the Cepeda family.’
When the Red Sox called Cepeda in December 1972 to inquire whether he’d like to be their first designated hitter, the unemployed player accepted on the spot.
“Boston called and asked me if I was interested in being the DH, and I said yes,” Cepeda recalled in a 2013 interview with The Associated Press in the 40th year of the DH. “The DH got me to the Hall of Fame. The rule got me to the Hall of Fame.”
He didn’t know what it would mean for his career, acknowledging, “I didn’t know anything about the DH.” The experiment worked out beautifully for Cepeda, who played in 142 games that season — the second-to-last in a decorated 17-year major league career. The A’s had released Cepeda only months after acquiring him from Atlanta on June 29, 1972.
Cepeda was celebrated at Fenway Park on May 8, 2013, for a ceremony celebrating his role as designated hitter. The Red Sox had invited him for their first home series of the season but his former Giants franchise was honoring the reigning World Series champions at the same time.
“It means a lot,” Cepeda said then. “Amazing. When you think everything’s finished, it’s only the beginning.”
He said then-A’s owner Charlie Finley sent him a telegram to call him within a 24-hour period or he’d be released. Cepeda didn’t meet the deadline and was let go in December 1972. He played in only three games for Oakland after the A’s acquired him for pitcher Denny McLain. Cepeda was placed on the disabled list with a left knee injury. He had 10 knee operations in all, sidelining him four different years.
Cepeda had been a first baseman and outfielder before joining the first class of baseball’s designated hitters under the new American League rule.
“They were talking about only doing it for three years,” he said. “And people still don’t like the idea of the DH. They said it wouldn’t last.”
The addition of the DH opened new opportunities for players such as Cepeda and others from his era who could still produce at the plate late in their careers but no longer played the field with the spot-on defense of their primes.
Cepeda was thrilled to have another chance.
He hit .289 with 20 home runs and 86 RBIs in 1973, starting off strongly with a .333 average and five homers in April. He drove in 23 runs in August on the way to DH of the Year honors. On Aug. 8 at Kansas City, Cepeda hit four doubles.
“That was one of the best years,” Cepeda recalled, “because I was playing on one leg and I hit .289. And I hit four doubles in one game. Both my knees were hurting, and I was designated hitter of the year.”
Cepeda topped Baltimore’s Tommy Davis (.306, seven homers, 89 RBIs) and Minnesota’s Tony Oliva (.291, 16 HRs, 92 RBIs) for top DH honors.
“It wasn’t easy for me to win the award,” Cepeda said. “They had some great years.”
Cepeda also knew little English when he arrived in the minor leagues in the mid-1950s, putting him among the first wave of Spanish-speaking players thrown into a different culture to play professional baseball, build new lives and send money back home.
It was an opportunity to succeed in a sport he loved, as long as daunting challenges off the field could be overcome.
Early on, Cepeda was told by a manager to go home to Puerto Rico and learn English before coming back to his career in the U.S.
“Coming here my first year, everything was a novelty to me, a surprise,” Cepeda recalled in a 2014 interview with the AP. “When I came to Virginia, I was there for one month and my father died. My dad said, ‘I want to see my son play pro ball,’ and he died the day before I played my first game in Virginia.
“From there I went to Puerto Rico and when I came back here, I had to come back because we didn’t have no money and my mother said, ‘You’ve got to go back and send me money, we don’t have money to eat,'” he said.
Cepeda had continued to be encouraged watching so many young players from Latin America arriving in the United States with better English skills, thanks in large part to all 30 major league organizations putting more emphasis into such training through academies in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.
There also are English classes offered to young players during spring training and into extended spring, plus through the various levels of the minor leagues.
He had his troubles, too.
Cepeda was arrested in May 2007 after being pulled him over for speeding when officers discovered drugs in the car.
The California Highway Patrol officer arrested Cepeda after finding a “usable” amount of a white-powder substance that likely was methamphetamine or cocaine, while marijuana and a syringe were also discovered.
After his playing career ended, Cepeda was convicted in 1976 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, of smuggling marijuana and sentenced to five years in prison.
That conviction was probably one reason he was not elected to the Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Cepeda eventually was elected by the Veterans Committee in 1999.
Cepeda played first base during his 17 seasons in the majors, beginning with the Giants. He also spent time with St. Louis, Atlanta, Oakland, Boston and Kansas City. In the spring of 1969, Cepeda was traded by the Cardinals to the Braves for Joe Torre.
A seven-time All-Star who played in three World Series, Cepeda was the 1958 NL Rookie of the Year with San Francisco and NL MVP in 1967 with St. Louis, a city sad to see him go in that trade that brought Torre to town. In 1961, Cepeda led the NL with 46 homers and 142 RBIs. Cepeda was a .297 career hitter with 379 home runs.
It wasn’t until after that 1973 season as DH that Cepeda could look back and appreciate all he had accomplished that year — along with the big part he played in history and change in the sport.
“I just did it,” he said of learning the DH. “Every day, I say to myself, how lucky I am to be born with the skills to play ball.”
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Washington — Congressional leaders have yet to unveil their plan to keep the government funded through the spring, prompting concerns about thwarting a shutdown before a Friday night deadline.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has repeatedly said that the stopgap funding measure’s release was imminent in recent days, said Tuesday morning that he expected to the text of what’s known as a continuing resolution would be made public by the end of the day. The bill would maintain current funding levels until March 14, giving lawmakers more time to reach agreement on new spending bills when the GOP controls both the House and the Senate.
“The CR is coming together, bipartisan work is ongoing,” Johnson said. “We’re almost there.”
The speaker said lawmakers have been “working around the clock to get the CR done,” noting that it was intended to be “a very simple, very clean” stopgap funding measure to get the party into the new year. But the Louisiana Republican said a “couple of intervening things” have occurred, citing the devastation caused by hurricanes Helene and Milton earlier this year. Johnson said the stopgap measure includes disaster relief that is “critically important,” and provides aid to farmers.
“What would have been a very skinny, very simple clean CR, these other pieces have been added to it,” Johnson said.
Johnson noted that House Republicans are aiming to resolve the government funding fight earlier in the year, before the March 14 deadline in the continuing resolution.
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On the timing of the measure to keep the government funded this week, the speaker said he believes in adhering to rule that gives members 72 hours to review legislation before it’s brought to the floor, which would push a vote on the stopgap measure until Friday. And he said House Republican leadership is committed to passing the continuing resolution through the regular process, including by going through the House Rules Committee, where it’s almost certain to face opposition from GOP hardliners that could further slow the path to passage.
Meanwhile, lawmakers on the party’s right flank have already expressed opposition to the stopgap measure. Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican who sits on the Rules Committee, told reporters after the House GOP conference meeting Tuesday morning that “this is not the process that we signed up for,” saying lawmakers are supposed to be able to amend and debate key legislation on the House floor.
“We get this negotiated crap and we’re forced to eat this crap sandwich,” Roy said. “Why? Because freaking Christmas is right around the corner. It’s the same dang thing every year — legislate by crisis, legislate by calendar, not legislate because it’s the right thing to do.”
Johnson has previously expressed distaste for large end-of-year funding measures known as omnibuses, and pledged to avoid the practice of pushing through spending before the holiday recess. He defended the continuing resolution Tuesday, saying “it is not an omnibus” and arguing that it will put the party in a position to “put our fingerprints on what those final spending bills are” in the new year.
The frustration comes as Johnson faces a referendum on his job performance in a matter of weeks, with the chamber set to vote to elect a speaker in the new year.
“Everybody knows we have difficult circumstances,” Johnson said, when asked about how the funding fight could weigh on the speaker vote. “We’re doing the very best we can under those circumstances.”
CBS News
Trump could target Affordable Care Act and Medicaid to help pay for lower taxes, experts say
The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, remains popular with the public, garnering the approval of 54% of U.S. adults, according to a recently released Gallup poll. But experts say that may not insulate the federal health insurance program from change as President-elect Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans look to renew $4 trillion in expiring tax cuts.
Many provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), a signature law passed during Trump’s first term, are due to sunset at the end of 2025. Republican leaders are now strategizing on how to extend the cuts, while the president-elect has also pledged to slash corporate taxes and eliminate taxes on workers’ tips and overtime pay.
But renewing the TCJA tax breaks alone without reducing federal spending would add nearly $4 trillion to the nation’s deficit through 2035, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, an advocacy group focused on reducing the nation’s debt.
Trump has already taken two of the biggest government programs — Social Security and Medicare — off the table for potential cuts. Reduced defense spending is also viewed as unlikely, meaning nearly half of federal spending would be protected, Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF (formerly Kaiser Family Foundation,) said in a recent JAMA article.
That leaves “Medicaid, which is the next largest source of federal spending, and the ACA as prime targets for spending cuts. The math is inescapable,” Levitt stated.
Will Trump repeal the ACA?
By contrast, an outright repeal of the ACA is unlikely. While Trump has continued to criticize the health care expansion measure, he has retreated from his previous vows to axe the ACA entirely.
“President Trump will deliver on his pledge to make his highly successful tax cuts permanent and ease the financial burden on families across the country. He will also end the drain on our health care system so that our country can continue to care for Americans who rely on Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security,” Trump-Vance Transition Spokesperson Anna Kelly told CBS News.
Support for the ACA hit a record 55% in 2017, the first time a majority of Americans approved of the health care law since Gallup started asking about it in 2012. That high watermark came a month after failed efforts by then-President Trump and the GOP to repeal and replace the law.
“The Affordable Care Act is still politically divisive, but overall more popular with the public than ever,” Levitt told CBS MoneyWatch. “It’s unlikely Republicans will try to repeal the ACA again, but cuts to the ACA and Medicaid are quite possible if Republicans are looking to pay for tax cuts.”
Brad Ellis, senior director at Fitch Ratings, noted that Trump and Republican lawmakers have expressed interest in changing how the ACA operates, including introducing high-risk participant pools and possibly reducing subsidies for public exchange business. Such changes could hurt enrollment, he said in a recent report.
During the presidential campaign, Trump said he had “concepts of a plan” to replace the ACA.
“Obamacare stinks,” Trump recently told NBC News’ “Meet the Press. “If we come up with a better answer, I would present that answer to Democrats and to everybody else and I’d do something about it.”
Big cuts without lifting a finger
Republicans can make big cuts to the ACA simply by standing pat. That’s because enhanced ACA premium subsidies, which were enacted after President Biden was elected and the Democrats took control of Congress, are scheduled to lapse along with the 2017 tax cuts at the end of 2025. The drop in financial aid ACA enrollees would increase out-of-pocket premiums by an average of $705 a year, or 79%, according to a KFF analysis.
The Congressional Budget Office projects that letting the additional ACA subsidies expire would reduce the federal deficit by $335 billion over a decade, relative to extending them permanently.
Enrollment in the ACA nearly doubled to a record 21 million after the enhanced subsidies went into effect. The CBO estimates that 6.9 million fewer people would be enrolled in ACA Marketplace plans without the subsidies, and 3.4 million more would be uninsured.
The impact would be felt nationwide, but particularly in Southern states that have not expanded Medicaid eligibility under the ACA, according to Levitt, who noted that the five states with the fastest growth in ACA enrollment since 2020 are Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
“Health care was not a big topic during the campaign, so I can imagine that voters could be surprised to see cuts to Medicaid and the ACA that they didn’t hear about during the campaign,” Levitt said. “As frustrated as people are with the current state of health insurance, disrupting the status quo makes them nervous.”
Medicaid a target for cuts?
Medicaid accounts for more than $600 billion a year in federal spending and covers 81 million people, according to KFF.
“There are indications that support for Medicaid will decrease under the new administration, suggesting lower enrollment and revenue headwinds for this program,” stated Fitch’s Ellis.
Trump was silent on Medicaid during the 2024 campaign, but his budget proposals during his first administration included a plan to cap federal spending on Medicaid. The Project 2025 plan prepared by the Heritage Foundation and a coalition of conservative groups, is recommending changes to Medicaid including a limit on federal spending.
“The centerpiece of several prominent plans — Project 2025, the Republican Study Committee fiscal year 2025 (RSC) budget and the fiscal year 2025 House GOP budget resolution — is to cap and deeply cut federal Medicaid funding,” Edwin Park, a research professor at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy’s Center for Children and Families, noted in September.
Trump sought distance himself from Project 2025 in the months leading up to the election, criticizing some of its policy proposal as “abysmal.”
But Levitt said the ACA and Medicaid could still end up facing cuts as the Republicans, who will control the White House and both houses of Congress, hash out their fiscal plans after President-elect Trump assumes office.
“So much depends on whether there is pressure to pay for tax cuts with spending reductions. If Republicans are willing to cut taxes and increase the deficit, we may not see big cuts to the ACA and Medicaid,” said Levitt. “There are Republicans who may insist on spending cuts to offset tax cuts. If that’s the case, the ACA and Medicaid are very likely to be on the chopping block.”
