Giants great is rushed to the hospital

Giants legend Orlando Cepeda, a baseball Hall of Famer, was rushed to a hospital in the Bay Area on Monday night, a team official confirmed after speaking to one of Cepeda’s relatives.

Team spokeswoman Staci Slaughter said she had no information on Cepeda’s condition or the nature of his illness.

She said family members were just arriving at the facility.

In April, Mirian Ortiz — Cepeda’s wife of 26 years — died from complications relat-

ed to pneumonia at age 62.

Cepeda, 80, who lives in Fairfield, seemed in good health last month when he toasted Willie McCovey at McCovey’s 80th birthday party at AT&T Park.

The “Baby Bull” broke into the major leagues in 1958, the year the Giants moved to San Francisco from New York. He hit a home run in his second at-bat and became one of the pre-eminent hitters in the game, though overshadowed on his own team by McCovey and Willie Mays.

A first baseman and outfielder, Cepeda was traded to St. Louis in 1966 for pitcher Ray Sadecki in what remains one of the worst trades in club history. Cepeda won the National League Most Valuable Player award the following season in helping the Cardinals win the World Series.

Cepeda played briefly for the A’s before his 1974 retirement. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1999 on a Veterans Committee ballot and has worked for the Giants as a community representative since 1987.

The Giants have retired Cepeda’s uniform number, 30. He is one of five San Francisco greats honored with a statue at AT&T Park, along with McCovey, Mays, Juan Marichal and Gaylord Perry.