Orlando Cepeda -- It's a Lot More than a Game

The Dodgers are in town this weekend to play the Giants. It's not a huge deal, but it's a big deal. It will mean more as the season progresses. But being a long time fan of one baseball team, as The Great Plotnik is of the Dodgers, means a lot more than one series, or one season. A true fan thinks about a baseball game from the past and it reminds him of what else was going on his life at that moment. It's like background music, except nobody can ever turn off the radio.

See this bobblehead doll? It's Orlando Cepeda, the great Giant First Baseman of the late '50s and '60s. When Plot was a young boy, there was a period of eight years when Mummy Plotnik was married to a man named Harold, whose family had all moved to California from Weehauken, New Jersey. They were devoted, ardent, hysterical Giant fans. Though they now lived in L.A., they maintained their allegiance to the Giants, who by now had moved from New York to San Francisco.

The family had a big, black dog with long, floppy ears. Because they loved their Giants, and worshipped their First Baseman, they named their big black dog Cepeda.

Plot remembers those years with great happiness. The two families did many things together, and often they included the wonderful, big-eared dog named Cepeda. When Plottie and his new grandma and uncle and auntie and cousins played poker together on their screened porch next to the pool, Cepeda would always nudge up next to Plot's fingers for a rub behind the ears.

Flash forward to last baseball season -- which is to say close to 50 years since Plot's stepdad Harold, as well as that fine old hound Cepeda, were still alive. Orlando Cepeda, the real Orlando Cepeda, not the dog, now has a food stand in the left field corner of AT&T or Pac Bell or SBC or whatever the Hell the name of Giants Stadium is this year. Orlando's nickname has always been Cha Cha. His food stand is called Cha Cha Bowl.

Plot went to see the Dodgers play the Giants last year, and, of course, went out to get himself a yummy Cha Cha Bowl. Who should he see, standing against the railing, eating his own Cha Cha Bowl, but the real Cha Cha, Orlando Cepeda himself.

Plot's brain was suddenly flooded with memories. He thought about baseball games at the L.A. Coliseum, about his stepdad, about those poker games and those delicious noodles his step-grandma would make, and about how Harold's death splintered the two families so they never really saw one another again -- and he thought about watching Orlando Cepeda and Willie McCovey and Maurie Wills and Junior Gilliam play all those baseball games on small, black-and-white TV screens -- and after all these thoughts, the one picture that came truest to his mind was the face of that big, black dog named Cepeda.

Plot decided he had to tell Orlando Cepeda about the dog named Cepeda.

Orlando was wearing a large, white Panama hat, and leaned against the railing behind his food stand, talking to another man in lightning fast Puerto Rican Spanish. They obviously were having a good time with each other and weren't too interested in someone else butting into their conversation. But Plottie bided his time, and at an opportune moment, stuck out his hand and tried to tell Orlando Cepeda how much he had enjoyed watching him play. Orlando stared at him for a second, and then stuck his hand out too, and shook Plottie's, and waited for Plot to speak his peace.

But...Jeez. There was no way to tell this whole convoluted story in five or ten seconds. So Plottie just sighed and nodded his head and smiled, and so did Cha Cha, and then they dropped each other's hands and Orlando turned back to his friend and resumed his conversation. Plot walked back to his seat, stopping first to buy his Cha Cha bowl, pausing at the condiment stand to load it up with hot habanero salsa, pretty music playing somewhere in the background while the people cheered.