Restoration
1960s San Francisco Giants Orlando Cepeda
Orlando Cepeda, “The Baby Bull”, is one of the most famous baseball players to come out of Puerto Rico. This is his jersey, both before and after my restoration. The story follows.
In a 16 year career, Cepeda was 1958’s National League Rookie of the Year, an 11 time All-Star, and was selected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Giants and a bronze statue of him stands at one of the four corners of the stadium naming him as one of the four greatest Giants of all time. His number 30 is retired by the Giants.
This game worn gray flannel McGregor jersey came my way from collector Mark H. While it still had Cepeda’s retired number 30 on back, the front had been converted to say “Springfield” as it was unceremoniously sent to the minor leagues along all the other team uniforms, typical practice in the early 1960s. The light table confirms that the 30 on the back is original, but that the front crest was a replacement.
Four different manufacturers made San Francisco Giants road uniforms 1958-1966; MacGregor, Rawlings, Wilson and Spalding. Each used their own slightly different patterns for the front team crest, and each used their own style of back numbers. Life then was less complicated; as long as it said “San Francisco” on the front and “30” on the back, the details didn’t seem to matter. Of course, I used the proper McGregor font pattern for this restoration.
Along with the original back numbers, Cepeda’s name remains hand chain stitched in red embroidery thread on a small rectangle of felt, stitched into the back of the neck.
After removing the SPRINGFIELD lettering from the front, the light table helped by showing the ghosts of the original arch and letter placement. The new lettering was pre-stitched then was media blasted and dyed to give it the patina of age to match the 60 year old jersey it was being sewn to. Notably, the original lettering was clocked slightly to the left making the left side of the crest a little lower than the right side. Replicating the imperfection, I stitched the lettering directly over the barely visible shadows.
Here is the end result, looking just as it did when worn on the field some sixty-odd years ago. The back was left untouched.
Mark surprised me a few weeks later, sending me these photos, and the short message “Got the Cepeda back from you just in time to have it signed!” Seeing this star of my childhood weathered by age is a humbling reminder to me that none of us stays young and invincible forever. I am so happy for Mark to have had a chance to meet the man and briefly reunite his old game jersey with him. This is truly why I do what I do. ******* It may surprise some of you to know that this is my retirement job, and “The Dream Shop” name refers mostly to it being my dream job after a long corporate career. I do every day what I love and help make other people happy at the same time. Who could ask for more than that?
As a postscript, I always recommend that any changes I make be properly documented with at least a Letter of Restoration, if not a full letter of authenticity. Doing so helps cement the historical progression of the jersey therefore aids in protecting its historical value.