Thought I'd bring this over from the Coimbre thread.

Posted by Jorge Colon Delgado on August 30, 2005 at 09:32 PM (#1586050)

Perucho Cepeda is one of the most underrated players in puertorrican baseball. In his first year in the Puerto Rican League, 1938, he batted .465. In 1939, .383 (beat Joshua Gibson by 3 points) and in 1940, .421.

He's the only player to average .400+ in two positions, shortstop (1938) and first base (1940). And both times, it was against negro pitchers like Raymond Brown, Billy Byrd, Bertrum Hunter, Bud Barbee, Leon Day, Roy Partlow and Impo Barnhill, among others.

Coimbre batted .400+ twice: 1940 (.401) and 1945 (.425). In 1945, all pitchers were puertorricans, negro players didn't participate because of WWII.

Coimbre was great, but Perucho Cepeda was greater.

You can add Satchel Paige, Dan Bankhead, Barney Brown, Alonso Perry, Wilmer Fields, Johnny Davis, Ford Smith and Chet Brewer to the list of pitchers around at the time.

Also, during its early years, the PRWL was a weekend league. This allowed teams to have their best hurlers ready in time for the following weekend. I do not know when the league started playing the games more succesively.

As an aside, since WWII was brought up, because of the U.S. involvement in the war the PRWL contracted from 8 teams to 4 for the 42-43 season.

Two ignorant questions, but I don't know Spanish very well.

1) Is Perucho pronounced
per-OO-koh or per-OO-choh ?

2) And how is Coimbre pronounced? Is it
CWAM-bray?

Thank you!

Its been a long while, but

pay ROO choh

Koh EEM bray

In the seasons that Perucho had those averages, 1938, 1939 and 1940, Barney Brown didn't participated in Puerto Rico. Neither Bankhead, Perry, Wilmer Fields, Johnny Davis and Ford Smith. Paige and Brewer saw action, but in the same team that Perucho played, "Brujos de Guayama".

does anyone remember around the time Orlando Cepada made the hall of fame there was some talk that his was better then he was (though thats probobly based on the my genaration is better then yours syndrome)

From the book “El Equipo Del Siglo Del Béisbol Puertorriqueño”

PUERTO RICAN WINTER LEAGUE
Year Team Age AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB Avg
1938-39 Guayama 32 170 38 79 12 5 0 48 -- -- -- .465
1939-40 Guayama 33 214 40 82 8 8 5 58 -- -- 13 .383
1940-41 Guayama 34 178 41 75 13 7 2 47 -- -- -- .421
1941-42 Guayama 35 151 32 57 10 2 2 30 -- -- -- .377
1942-43 San Juan 36 145 24 41 3 4 2 25 10 8 5 .383
1943-44 San Juan 37 147 16 36 2 3 1 14 -- -- -- .245
1944-45 San Juan 38 143 13 37 3 0 0 20 -- -- -- .259
1945-46 San Juan 39 155 12 41 6 1 0 18 3 18 0 .265
1946-47 Caguas 40 187 16 42 9 1 1 25 -- -- -- .255
1947-48 Caguas 41 69 8 18 4 0 1 10 -- -- -- .261
1948-49 DNP 42
1949-50 Ponce 43 30 -- 8 -- -- -- -- -- 1 -- .267
Totals 1589 240 516 60 31 14 295 13 27 18 .325

1942-43 San Juan 36 145 24 41 3 4 2 25 10 8 5 .383

There's an error in this season's data somewhere: 41/145 = .283, not .383. Is the hit total correct, or the batting average?

Thanks for catching that Chris. The batting average is the one that is incorrect. It should be .283. I thought I had checked all the numbers but I must have missed this one. Goes to show to always triple check the numbers any book gives you. Sorry about that. If any lurkers have another source for further numbers for Cepeda, Coimbre or any other excluded player please do not hesitate in sharing.

By the way, I found an on-line Dominican newspaper, www.listindiario.com.do, that has a column that talks about Dominican baseball games from times past, usually including a game account and lineup. There are some mentions of Cepeda and Coimbre there. I'll look around it and see exactly what is there to find.

1937 DR overview

The link has a small overview of the famous 1937 Dominican Republic summer league season. It includes the full roster of players that were on the Ciudad Trujillo team. If anybody needs anything translated let me know.

Esteban,

I see that Coimbre and Cepeda are both listed in the lengthy list of players toward the bottom of the article. What does the article say about which team they were on, and what does it say about whether they were getting playing time.

Thanks!

Based on the numbers kindly supplied by Mr. Rivera, here are MLEs for Cepdea.

1938 shows up as a .400 season for Perucho. This may be because the conversion rate I used (.9/.82) might be too high, but even if I take it down to AA level (.875/.76), he's still hitting .407).

Additionally, I've made the executive decision to lop off everything after 1943. Starting in 1943, he had a run of MLE OPS+s in the 40s to 60s, and there's just no way he's playing big-league ball at those rates. I don't know if he was injured, went off a cliff, or if the competition level suddenly jumped way up in PR, but he bit it after that.

I've put 1937 and left it blank. Cepeda appears on the players list in the article above (as does Coimbre) suggesting that they were playing at a very high level in 1937. I chose not to do any extrapolating for that season because I just don't feel very comfortable with The Bull's numbers yet. Too many ifs and questions.

On a related note, I have no idea what to do with his position except where noted in this thread. I have the feeling he moved off of SS soon after his first PRWL season, and in 1937 he was listed in the article as a 2B only. So I've made him an OF except where I've had information that tells me where to put him.


YEAR LG AGE POS avg obp slg g pa ab h tb bb ops+ sfws
------------------------------------------------------------------
1937 NL 31 2B
1938 NL 32 OF .419 .463 .487 147 564 521 218 254 44 161 36.4
1939 NL 33 OF .345 .387 .464 154 584 547 188 253 38 127 26.0
1940 NL 34 OF .379 .423 .498 154 586 545 207 271 41 153 30.8
1941 NL 35 OF .339 .381 .418 132 501 469 159 196 32 125 19.1
1942 NL 36 OF .345 .387 .328 127 481 450 155 148 31 110 13.5
1943 NL 37 OF .221 .253 .262 50 185 177 39 46 8 49 1.1
==================================================================
TOTALS .357 .400 .431 763 2902 2709 966 1169 193 131 126.9</PRE>

There weren't a lot of people batting .419 in the 1938 NL, which suggests that the conversions may be a bit off...

Karl,

I agree with you. I've presented the numbers as-the-math-goes in the hopes that someone might suggest a rememdy or be able to offer information on the quality of play in 1938 that might be of some use in fleshing these MLEs out a bit.

Doc,

The entire list, starting from Lantigua and up to Andrews, is everybody that was on the Ciudad Trujillo team, which was an amalgamation of the Licey and Escogido teams plus the negro leaguers Paige was able to convince to go and play. It is a very stacked roster and playing time might have been a bit limited for some of them.

The article provides the following lineup as the most frequently used, but it does not mention how many times it was used:

1- Cool Papa Bell CF.
2- Silvio García 3B.
3- Lázaro Salazar RF.
4- Joshua Gibson 1B.
5- Harry Williams 2B.
6- Cy Perkins C.
7- Sammy Bankhead SS.
8- Tony Castaño LF.
9- Leroy Satchel Paige P.

The article states that the very same newspaper ran a more detailed account of the season in their editions that ran from Saturday, May 3 to Saturday November 8 in 1975.

The season ran from March 28 to July 11 and was scheduled for 45 games, of which 42 were played, one tie and two suspended.

One thing I would be careful for this season is drawing conclusions about the players from their playing time. Just a cursory glance at the most used lineup signals some bias. That lineup has all the American position players on the team in the lineup, all brought in by Paige the big prize recruit, and three Cubans, of which one, Salazar, was the manager.

This was a very politically motivated baseball season and Trujillo was bringing every great ballplayer he could find for his team. Even if all did not play, at least the competition could not have them. For all we know, it is a very good possibilty that all the negro leaguers got the bulk of the playing time because of the shiny new toy factor for the local crowds and because of the amount of money Trujillo was investing in them.

Venezuela vs Dominican 1934

This article talks about the Venezuelan Concordia team doing a tour of the Dominican in 1934. Apparently, the Licey and Escogido teams were not having any luck defeating Concordia and they organized the game in the article, which was Concordia vs. a combination of Licey and Escogido players. There are quite a few familiar names involved in this game, as Concordia seems to have reinforced itself before doing the tour.

Esteban, thanks for all of this great information! And for continuing to look for numbers and articles (as you mentioned in the Coimbre thread).

The article in post 16 seems to substantiate that both Cepeda and Coimbre were playing ball in 1934 (age 25 for Coimbre, 28 for Cepeda).

1929 Dominican League overview

I managed to find this article reviewing the 1929 Dominican season. According to the author, this was the highest quality season played up to that point because of all the foreign players that were recruited by the league that year. Licey had 9 cubans, Escogido had 6 Cubans and 3 Puerto Ricans, and Sandino had 5 Puerto Ricans. Games were played only on weekends.

The three lists that appear are the pitching records, showing the player's name, team, wins, losses and win percentage; the batting average leaders; and the small list of players are noteworthy players who did ot accumulate enough at bats to qualify for the title, most likely because they joined their teams after the season began. The end of the article recounts a humorous anecdote off how the Licey team hijacked Oms from the Escogido team



Games 9-12 of 1929 season

This link has a brief overview of games 9-12. Of note is the mention that Perucho Cepeda debuted with the Sandino team at third base during the 10th game of the season. He had the game winning hit. This confirms my earlier suspicions on why Cepeda did not have enough at bats to qualify for the batting title.

players are noteworthy players who did ot accumulate enough at bats to qualify for

That should read not accumulate enough at bats to qualify

So Coimbre, age 20, was a pitcher in 1929, while Cepeda, a couple years older, was making his debut in the DR.

Was Cepeda making his professional debut in this game as well?

Doc-

Pedro Cepeda turned professional in 1928 when he was 23. He played for the San Juan Athletics that summer and then follewed a lot of other Puerto Rican players to the Dominican for the winter season.

Does anybody know Pedro Cepeda's birthdate? The book I am using lists him as being born in 1906, which would make him 22 years old in 1928. However, Gadfly has him as being 23 years old in 1928. Which one is correct?

Game 1 Concordia visit to DR

Game 2 Concordia visit to DR

Game 6 Concordia visit to DR

The links above show for which teams Cepeda and Coimbre played for in the Dominican league in 1934. Also, I think we may have solved the Johnny Mize-Martin Dihigo "when did they play together in Santo Domingo" mystery.

Article about Hall of Famers that played in PR

Some tidbits from the article:

Martin Dihigo was the first HOFer to play in Puerto Rico. His first appearance was on December 16, 1932. He lost 2-0 to the Camden team, comprised of AA ball minor leaguers. He would return several times with the Almendares team and even faced the Cincinatti Reds in March of 1936 when they had their spring training in Puerto Rico.

The second HOFer to play in Puerto Rico was Johnny Mize. He debuted on October 15, 1933 in the Castillo de Ponce league with the Richmond team. They defeated Ponce 7 to 2.

Cmaden and Richmond, among other teams, took part in what were known as the "foreign leagues", which took place in Puerto Rico during the decade of the 1920's. The visiting teams in these leagues were composed of negro leaguers, minor leaguers, cubans, dominicans and venezuelans.

It was during this period that Josh Gibson (with the Estrellas de Ramírez team) and Buck Leonard, Raymond Dandridge, Satchel Paige and Leon Day ( all four with the Brooklyn Eagles) first played in Puerto Rico. All of them would come back to play after the formation of the PRWL in 1938.

Johnny Mize, Josh Gibson, Martín Dihigo, Satchel Paige and Roy Campanella all played in various tournaments in Venezuela before the founding of their professional league in December 1945.

Small correction, the "foreign leagues" in Puerto Rico started in the 1920's but also coninued into the 1930's.

Small correction, the "foreign leagues" in Puerto Rico started in the 1920's but also continued into the 1930's.

Esteban-

Pedro Anibal Cepeda was born on January 31, 1905 in Catano (tilde over the n, a suburb of San Juan, east on the coast toward the El Yunque rain forest), Puerto Rico, and died April 16, 1955, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, during his son Orlando's first season as a pro ball player.

Some sources list Pedro Cepeda's birth year as 1906 and his son Orlando obviously believed his father was born in 1906 because Orlando states, in at least two of his 3 autobiographies, that his father was 49 when he died. However, a short Venezuela biography in the 1930s states that Pedro Cepeda's birthdate was 1-31-1905 and the 1910 U.S. Census concurs with 1905 as the year.

Pedro Cepeda's nickname "Perucho" is to Pedro what Petey would be to Peter, an affectionate corruption. Pedro Cepeda had two other nicknames: "El Toro" (The Bull: for his toughness and strength) and "The Babe Ruth of Puerto Rico."

However, it must be stated that Cepeda was not called the Babe Ruth of Puerto Rico because he was a home run hitter; he was nicknamed that because he was the BEST player in Puerto Rico just as Ruth was in the States.

Pedro Cepeda stood 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighed 190 pounds in his prime (oddly, it is sometimes said that Pedro was a bigger man than his son Orlando but this is not true in a strict physical sense). He weighed 180 pounds early in his career and was around 200 at the end of it.

Perucho was a right-handed batter and thrower and was famous for the strength of his throwing arm and that he was evidently a fantastic bad ball hitter. In my opinion, Pedro Cepeda, as a hitter, in his prime, would have been very very similar to Joe Medwick in the Majors (BA above .350, 20 to 30 home runs and walks a year).

As a fielder, Pedro Cepeda had the ability to play second base, shortstop, and right field in his prime. At the end of his career, he played mostly first base. As a shortstop, it appears that Cepeda was in the Cal Ripken mold. He could play back and use the strength of his arm to make up for his lack of a shortstop's traditional speed.

It is just my opinion, but I bet Cepeda was a terrific shortstop in his prime simply because he was not a traditional shortstop. At that time, managers looked for the Phil Rizzuto type shortstop, i.e. small light guy, quick as sh*t, range from speed not arm strength.

For Cepeda to play short despite not fitting the sterotype indicates that somebody was intelligent in the same way Earl Weaver was about Ripken. In any event, Pedro's bat was so good that he was going to play somewhere.

Pedro Cepeda basically played baseball year round from 1928 to 1942. However, during World War 2, Cepeda got a steady job with the San Juan Water Department. From that point on, Cepeda basically was just playing baseball during the summers to supplement his real job and income.

This turn of events, of course, shows up quickly in his stats. Pedro Cepeda was the best position player, except for Josh Gibson of course, in the Puerto Rican Winter League for the four seasons from 1938 to 1942. After a decent, but not great, season in 1942-43, Cepeda was simply a run of the mill player for the rest of his career.

Of course, Cepeda was quite old when his skills abruptly faded after the 1941-42 season, but the biggest factor in his rapid decline, in my opinion, was the fact that baseball was no longer his main job.

Esteban-

I did not know that there was a "Johnny Mize-Martin Dihigo: when did they play together in Santo Domingo" mystery. Someone should ahve asked me. LOL

In the Winter of 1933-1934, Johnny Mize toured the Carribean with the Richmond team from the U.S. and Martin Dihigo toured the Carribean with the Concordia team of Venezuela. The Concordia team was backed finacially by the son of Vicente Gomez, the dictator of Venezuela, and managed by Dihigo.

In January of 1934, the Concordia team went to Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, to play against the top two teams there, Licey and Escogido, in a series of exhibitions and then for the Trujillo Cup. Rafael Trujillo, of course, being the dictator of the Dominican Republic.

From 1-21-1928 to 1-28-1934, Concordia went 6-1 in seven games against Licey and Escogido during the exhibitions. The Trujillo Cup went from 2-4-1934 to 2-26-1934 and Concordia won the cup too, going 6-3 in nine games.

All three teams loaded up with players for the Trujillo Cup Series. Concordia signed Mize and Jimmy Jordan from Richmond. This, of course, was the great thing about professional Latin baseball back then. Latin teams would sign whoever they thought could play.

Of course, Mize would later state that Dihigo was the greatest baseball player he ever saw, played with, or played against. Mize would also state that the pitchers would walk Dihigo to get to him, such was their fear of Martin.

Interestingly, in every box score I've ever seen, Dihigo bats behind Mize. Of course, Dihigo was the manager of Concordia and may have quickly flipped his and Mize's batting slots in an unrecorded game, but perhaps Mize simply had it wrong.

In any event, both Mize and Jordan did not finish the Trujillo Cup out with Concordia, having to report to Major League Spring Training before the end of the series. Concordia, continuing with the wonderful color blindness, replaced Mize and Jordan with two Negro League superstars: Josh Gibson and Rap Dixon.

After the Trujillo Cup finished, Concordia played a combined Licey-Escogido team on 3-4-1934. Dihigo's team won this too, 8-5. Then Concordia traveled to Puerto Rico to play the Cuban team Almendares a set of three games (3-10 and two games on 3-11-1934) for what was billed basically as the Championship of the Cuba, Venezuela, and the Carribean.

This, of course, was not the regular Winter Season Almendares team but basically a fantastic Cuban All-Star team. Despite Josh Gibson going 9 for 14 with 2 doubles, 1 triple, and 2 home runs in the three games, Almendares swept Concordia 3 straight games.

Concordia stayed around Puerto Rico for another week, crushing the Puerto Rico Stars, a Puerto Rican All-Star team that borrowed Alejandro Oms from Almendares to be their clean-up hitter, before returning to Venezuela on 3-22-1934.

Of course, perhaps the most interesting thing here is the Trujillo Cup. Usually the insanely competitive and expensive 1937 Dominican Republic Tournament that drew the cream of the Negro Leagues and Latin Leagues to Santo Domingo is portrayed as some sort of one time anomaly.

But, in fact, the Trujillo Cup took place throughout the 1930s. The 1937 competition that got totally out of hand was the result of neither Licey nor Escogido being able to win the Cup.

Concordia's victory in 1934 and, even more importantly, the loss of Licey and Escogido to the "Estrellas Orientals" (Eastern Stars) of San Pedro de Macoris in the 1936 Trujillo Cup sparked the 1937 craziness.

Thank you very much for all the wonderful information Gadfly. The book that lists him as being born in 1906 also has him as being 6'3" and weighing 220 pounds, which illustartes how hard it is to get accurate information on these "unknown" greats. Makes one appreciate those who do all the hard work to separate fact from hearsay. The mystery thing comes from various articles mentioning the Mize quote about the great year he was having but they were walking Dihigo to get to him (if I remember correctly, I believe I first read this quote in the NHBA). Several of those writers apparently didn't know about the Trujillo Cup and speculated that Mize meant Cuba or Venezuela. That's were my mystery comment comes from. Again, thanks for the wonderful history lesson.