Hey, Orlando Cepeda Knows English

Although much of the presentation at the Bud Selig Distinguished Lecture Series on Tuesday was about the importance of baseball in Japanese-American culture, those of us who attended also got ourselves an excellent story about how certain white players did not particularly enjoy hearing Spanish on the field.

In a Giants-Reds game, Orlando Cepeda was on second with Matty Alou batting. Cepeda was shouting instructions of some sort to Alou at the plate in Spanish. Reds’ pitcher Joseph Jay wasn’t happy about it, leading to the following exchange:

JAY: Hey, don’t you speak any English?
CEPEDA: I think you’re a cocksucker.

Question answered.