Juan Antonio Marichal Sánchez (born October 20, 1937), nicknamed "the Dominican Dandy", is a Dominican former right-handed pitcher who played 16 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1960 to 1975, mostly with the San Francisco Giants. Known for his high leg kick, variety of pitches, arm angles and deliveries, pinpoint control, and durability, Marichal won 18 games to help the Giants reach the 1962 World Series, and went on to earn 191 victories in the 1960s, the most of any major league pitcher. He won over 20 games six times, on each occasion posting an earned run average (ERA) below 2.50 and striking out more than 200 batters, and became the first right-hander since Bob Feller to win 25 games three times. His 26 wins in 1968 remain a San Francisco era record.
Marichal led the National League (NL) in wins, innings pitched, complete games and shutouts twice each. He was often overshadowed by his contemporaries Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson; in each of Marichal's four best seasons, either Koufax or Gibson won the Cy Young Award, always by unanimous vote. He pitched a no-hitter in June 1963, and two weeks later outdueled Warren Spahn for a 1–0 victory in 16 innings; Marichal also had three one-hitters–including one in his major league debut–and six two-hitters. One of the most outstanding performers in All-Star history, he was named to the team in nine seasons, recording an ERA of 0.50 in eight appearances and being named Most Valuable Player of the 1965 contest.
On August 22, 1965, Marichal was one of the principal figures in one of the most violent incidents in major league history. While batting in a heated game against the archrival Los Angeles Dodgers, he struck catcher John Roseboro in the head with his bat after Roseboro had thrown the ball back to the mound, brushing past Marichal's face; the blow opened a gash in Roseboro's head that required stitches, and set off a huge brawl between the teams. Marichal was suspended and received a then-record fine, also paying a financial settlement, but the two players later reconciled, and eventually became close friends. Roseboro would later lobby to get Marichal elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame after he failed to get elected on his first two ballots due to this incident. Marichal would later become a pallbearer at Roseboro's funeral.
Marichal's 243 wins, 2.84 ERA, 244 complete games and 3,444 innings pitched with the Giants are San Francisco team records; his 2,281 strikeouts, 446 games started and 52 shutouts with the club place him behind only Christy Mathewson in franchise history. At the time of his retirement, he ranked sixth in National League history in strikeouts (2,282) and shutouts (52); his 244 complete games ranked ninth among NL pitchers active after 1920. Marichal was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1983; he was the first Dominican player and the first foreign-born player ever elected.
Juan Antonio Marichal Sánchez was born on October 20, 1937, in the small farming village of Laguna Verde, Dominican Republic, the youngest of Francisco and Natividad Marichal's four children. He has two brothers, Gonzalo and Rafael, and a sister, Maria. His father died of an unknown illness when Marichal was three years old. His house did not have electricity, but food was plentiful since his family owned a farm. As a child, Marichal worked on the farm daily and was responsible for taking care of his family's horses, donkeys, and goats. He lived near the Yaque del Norte River and often spent time swimming and fishing. One day, while Marichal was playing by the river, he fell unconscious owing to poor digestion and was in a coma for nine days. Doctors did not expect him to survive, but he slowly regained consciousness after his family gave him steam baths under doctor's orders.
His older brother Gonzalo instilled a love of baseball in young Marichal and taught him the fundamentals of pitching, fielding, and batting. Every weekend, Marichal played the sport with his brother and friends. For their games, they found golf balls and paid the local shoemaker one peso to sew thick cloth around the ball to make it the proper size.They employed branches from a wassama tree for bats and canvas tarps for gloves. Among his childhood playmates were the Alou brothers, Felipe, Jesús, and Matty, who all later played with Marichal on the San Francisco Giants. From the age of six, Marichal aspired to become a professional baseball player, but his mother discouraged this, instead urging him to get an education. At the time, there were no players from the Dominican Republic in the major leagues, and his goal was viewed to be unrealistic. At age 11, he briefly held a job cutting sugarcane for the J.W. Tatem Shipping conglomerate.
In 1954, sixteen-year-old Marichal joined a summer league in Monte Cristi, playing for a team called Las Flores. Although he began as a shortstop, Marichal switched to pitching after taking inspiration from Bombo Ramos of the Dominican national team. He left high school after being recruited to play for the United Fruit Company team in 1956.
Marichal was discovered by Ramfis Trujillo, the son of late Dominican dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo. Ramfis was the primary sponsor of the Dominican Air Force Baseball Team (Aviación Dominicana), against which Marichal pitched a 2–1 victory in his native Monte Cristi. From the moment the game ended, Marichal was a member of Aviación Dominicana team, enlisted to the Air Force right on the spot by Ramfis's orders. He made his professional debut in 1958 with the Michigan City White Caps of the Midwest League and was named an all-star and the rookie of the year. He pitched his first season in the Dominican Professional Baseball League in 1958–59 for the Leones del Escogido and was named the rookie of the year. Marichal started and won the first game at Cheney Stadium in 1960, home of the new Tacoma Giants, the Giants AAA affiliate.
San Francisco Giants (1960–1973)
Marichal was promoted to the major leagues for the first time in July 1960. He entered the major leagues on July 19 as the second native pitcher to come from the Dominican Republic. He made an immediate impression: in his debut against the Philadelphia Phillies, he struck out Rubén Amaro to begin the game and retired the first 19 batters, then took a no-hitter into the eighth inning only to surrender a two-out single to Clay Dalrymple. He ended up with a one-hit shutout, walking one and striking out 12; his game score of 96 was the highest for any pitcher in his major league debut. He started 10 more games that season, finishing at 6–2 with a 2.66 ERA.
Injuries affected him in 1961, but he still made 27 starts and won 13 games for the Giants. On August 2, he threw another one-hitter, a 6-0 win at Dodger Stadium in which he struck out 11, allowing only a Tommy Davis single to lead off the fifth. In 1962, the Giants and Dodgers battled each other in a tight pennant race. A sprained ankle kept Marichal out of action between September 5 and 22, and the Giants lost his last two regularly scheduled starts of the year. The teams finished the season tied and faced off in a best-of-three tiebreaker series to determine the league champion. Starting the decisive Game 3, Marichal held the Dodgers to one run until the sixth, when Tommy Davis hit a two-run home run to give Los Angeles a 3–2 lead. When Marichal exited to start the bottom of the eighth, the Dodgers led 4–2, but San Francisco rallied in the ninth to win the game 6–4. In the World Series, Marichal started Game 4 with the Giants down 2 games to 1, and had a 2-0 lead through four innings. But while attempting to bunt in the top of the fifth, he smashed the thumb on his pitching hand, and was placed on the disabled list for the remainder of the Series. The Giants went on to win the game 7–3, but lost the Series in seven games.
After his 18-win campaign in 1962, Marichal finally cracked the 20-victory plateau in 1963, when he went 25–8 with 248 strikeouts and a 2.41 ERA. He appeared in every All-Star game of the 1960s beginning in 1962. On August 4, 1965, Marichal had a career-high 14 strikeouts in a 4-3, 10-inning road win over the Cincinnati Reds. In May 1966, he was named NL Player of the Month with a 6–0 record, a 0.97 ERA, and 42 strikeouts; he had pitched 31 consecutive scoreless innings between May 17 and May 31, including a 14-inning 1-0 shutout of the Phillies on May 26. On September 21 of that year, Marichal had perhaps the most remarkable moment of his batting career, hitting a walk-off home run off ace Pittsburgh Pirates reliever Roy Face for a 6-5 win; it was just the second of his four career home runs. On July 14, 1967, he surrendered the 500th home run of Eddie Mathews' career. On September 12, 1969, Marichal pitched his third one-hitter, a 1-0 win over the Reds in which the only hit was Tommy Helms' single to lead off the third; Helms was then caught stealing, with the only other baserunner being a sixth-inning walk.