Juan Antonio Marichal was the first Latin American baseball player to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. This notable Dominican was also one of the pioneers who left the Caribbean islands to play baseball in the American major leagues. As a pitcher, he developed a unusual style in which he pushed his body backward and powerfully kicked his left leg upward to where it was almost parallel with his body.
Background
Juan Antonio Sánchez Marichal was born in the town of Laguna Verde in the Dominican Republic on October 30, 1937, one of four children born to an impoverished family dedicated to agriculture and farming. His father died when he was just three years old, leaving his mother alone with few resources to take care of her family. As a result, her children, including Juan, worked from an early age to support the family. As a child, Marichal worked in the sugarcane fields and trapped lobsters to bring food to the family's table.
Education
During his youth Juan was mentored by Iris brother Garrido, who was a semi-professional baseball player, and by his brother-in-law Prospero Villalona. Both of them saw a future in Juan's game and encouraged him to practice and to play. Juan left school after the eleventh grade and was hired by the United Fruit Company as a pitcher on their team for $18 a week.
Career
He also played for Monti Christi, a local team. During a game between the United Fruit team and a team from the Dominican Air Forces, regarded as the "best team in the country" (Marichal aird Einstein 1967, 24). Juan's pitching led his team to a 1-0 victory. The next morning he received a visit from one of Dominican dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo's lieutenants, asking him to enroll in the forces so that he could play in the team. The telegram was succinct. "REPORT TO AIR FORCE RIGHT AWAY" (Marichal and Einstein 1967, 25). After receiving his mother's approval, he spent 14 months with the Air Force team, playing baseball the entire time.
By the time that Marichal was 19, he was being heavily recruited by American baseball scouts. In 1958, Marichal was signed by two scouts from the San Francisco Giants who gave him a $500.00 bonus. As is the custom of American teams, he was first placed in their minor league system. He was assigned to Michigan City, Indiana, where he established a 21-8 winning record during his first season. After stints with two other minor league clubs (18-13) and (11-5), Marichal was finally called up to the San Francisco Giants.
Sporting the number 27, Marichal had success with the Giants since his very first day with the team, hr a recent book titled The Game I'll Never Forget (Vass 1999), Marichal recounted how he pitched a one-hitter during his first game with the Giants. He won the game 2-0 and struck out ten men. During his first season he established a 6-2 record and a 2.62 ERA.
Juan Marichal was known in the United States as the "Dominican Daddy." He built an impressive record hr the major leagues: during the 1960s: he won more games (191) than any other pitcher in the majors; had ten shutouts hr 1965; led the National League in victories in 1963 and 1968; was an All-Star player from 1962 to 1969 and again in 1971; was the winning pitcher in All-Star games in 1962 and 1965; and in 1965, was selected as the most valuable player of the All-Star Game.
During the 1965 baseball season, Marichal was embroiled in a major controversy. While batting in a game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Giants, Marichal lost his temper and hit Dodgers pitcher John Roseboro on the head with the bat because he pitched a ball that came too close to his ears. At the time when there was more civility in the game of baseball than today, there was national outcry over Marichal's "uncivilized" behavior. He received large amounts of hate mail and was eventually fined $1,750 and suspended for nine games. Because of his suspension, Marichal missed several games of the season and was blamed for the Giants losing the season to the Dodgers.
Marichal spent 16 years in the major leagues and did not experience a losing season until 1972. In 1973, the Giants traded him to the Boston Red Sox, and in 1975, the final year of his career, he played with the L.A. Dodgers. By the end of his career, he had pitched 50 shutouts, completed 235 games, and struck out more than 200 batters.
He retired in 1975 to his native Dominican Republic. A savvy man with good financial vision, Marichal invested the money that he had made during his career wisely. He retired to a 1,000-acre farm, where he supervises the farming of sugar-cane, bananas, green plantains, and coffee. In 1983 he became the first Dominican and the 180th player to be inducted in the U.S. National Baseball Hall of Fame. In 1996 Leonel Fernández, president of the Dominican Republic, appointed Marichal to the post of minister of sports, physical education, and recreation. This position placed him in charge of supervising all amateur sports and the building and management of sport facilities and events.
Personality
Marichal, like many of his predecessors in baseball, blamed negative publicity and criticism on racism throughout his career. In a 1967 profile of Marichal in The Saturday Evening Post, A1 Stump wrote:
Inequality seems to be an obsession with Marichal. He believes that he and the rest of the major league Latins Cepeda, Clemente, Mota, Versalles, Cardenas, Aparicio, Oliva, Rojas, Pascual, Davilillo, González, Javier, Pizarro, Santiago, Pérez and the Alou brothers, among others are victims of a subtly functioning prejudice. It is, he thinks, a prejudice that goes beyond the evident limitations of the American Negro player. "Our skins may be lighter," he has said, "but the breaks we get from baseball and on the outside are much less than the Negro player gets.".