Juan Marichal
| Juan Marichal | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Marichal in 2009
|
|||
| Pitcher | |||
|
Born: October 20, 1937 Laguna Verde, Monte Cristi, Dominican Republic |
|||
|
|||
| MLB debut | |||
| July 19, 1960, for the San Francisco Giants | |||
| Last MLB appearance | |||
| April 16, 1975, for the Los Angeles Dodgers | |||
| MLB statistics | |||
| Win–loss record | 243–142 | ||
| Earned run average | 2.89 | ||
| Strikeouts | 2,303 | ||
| Teams | |||
| Career highlights and awards | |||
|
|||
| Member of the National | |||
 Baseball Hall of Fame
|
|||
| Inducted | 1983 | ||
| Vote | 83.7% (third ballot) | ||
Juan Antonio Marichal Sánchez (born October 20, 1937) is a Dominican former professional baseball player. He played as a right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball most notably for the San Francisco Giants. Marichal was known for his high leg kick, pinpoint control and intimidation tactics, which included aiming pitches directly at the opposing batters' helmets.
Marichal also played for the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers for the final two seasons of his career. Although he won more games than any other pitcher during the 1960s, he appeared in only one World Series game and he was often overshadowed by his contemporaries Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson in post-season awards. Marichal was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1983.
Juan Marichal 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 named 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 due 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 by doctors 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 Major League Baseball, and his goal was viewed to be unrealistic. At age 11, he briefly held a job cutting sugar cane for the J.W. Tatem Shipping conglomerate.
...
Wikipedia