That's so much clubhouse influence that I believe we need to consider it when evaluating Orlando Cepeda's status as a Hall of Famer. Cepeda recalls an earlier time in baseball history. But in the case of fans like myself, raised in the last decades before the stathead revolution, we are looking backward to a time that was different not only in our memories but in reality, a time of actual rather than supposed statistical innocence, when one rarely heard of On-Base Percentage, and stats to measure offensive prowess like Equivalent Average were decades away from being developed. Juan Gonzalez is a tremendous slugger, but his career OBP of .339 gets taken into consideration by knowledgeable fans when he gets evaluated, as it should. I know I was innocent, for I was one of those who knew in 1958 that Orlando Cepeda was my favorite player.
Some people never learn.
It's more of a gut feeling. This kind of ongoing mediocy needs to be criticized at every instance. I'm not sure I would have voted for Orlando Cepeda for the Hall of Fame. But Orlando Cepeda was not Joe Carter , and the necessity for pointing out the follies of the likes of Bruce Jenkins shouldn't force us into the kind of entrenched thinking which underestimates Cepeda just to make a point. After making adjustments for era, Cepeda's career numbers are even more impressive, making him in my eyes just short of Hall of Fame performance.