BROOKLYN – For its first All-Star Game and accompanying ceremonies, the NY-Penn League wanted to have a keynote speaker who represents dignity and class.
They seemed to make the right choice in Hall of Famer Juan Marichal.
When he played in the 1960s, the former San Francisco Giants great -who was on hand Sunday to throw out the first ball and sign autographs while the Cyclones took on the Aberdeen Ironbirds in the last game before the All-Star break- had to go through many of the same inequities Jackie Robinson suffered through in the 1940s and 1950s.
“Those days were very tough,” Marichal recalled. “All my teammates are white and it was a different time. At times when we traveled, I couldn’t go out to eat with the white players; I had to wait until someone brought something out to the bus. We couldn’t stay in the same hotels or live in a different neighborhood.”
But unlike Robinson, Marichal had to learn English. He taught himself the language while traveling on the road in the minors. The Dominican native arrived in the US in 1958 and started playing in San Francisco two years later.
Over the next 16 seasons, the “Dominican Dandy” was one of the most feared pitchers in the majors. He finished 243-142 with a 2.89 ERA and 2,303 strikeouts. Marichal won more than 20 games six times in his career and threw a no-hitter in 1963 against the Houston Colt 45’s. But even with such stats, pitching was king in the 1960s and, often, his great numbers were overlooked.
“In 1968, I won 26 games and completed 30 games, but I couldn’t get one vote for the Cy Young, because Gibson had a 1.12 ERA,” Marichal said. “So, you know how big the rivalry was back then.”
With Don Drysdale, Sandy Koufax, Tom Seaver, Steve Carlton, and Gibson to face, Marichal has some tough competition. Back then, a team’s ace faced the top pitcher on the opposing team, so the Giants’ fireballer usually had to be on his game.
“I faced Gibson many times and faced Sandy Koufax three times,” he explained. “But when I stopped facing Sandy, I had to face Don Drysdale. No one on my team wanted to face him.”
Drysdale was tough because he used all sides of the plate and brush hitters back. It was something which was commonplace back then.
“You had to pitch in and out,” Marichal said. “Then, the zone didn’t belong to the hitters; it belonged to the pitchers. Today, if you pitch too far inside, the umpire would stop you right there. I don’t think it’s fair. If you are trying to hurt somebody, that’s different.”
Marichal also feels that pitch counts are hurting pitchers these days. There were times, the Hall of Famer threw over 240 pitches in a game, and he knows today’s players could never go that far into a game.
“The only way you preserve pitching arms is throwing; that makes the arm stronger,” he said. “There is no way to have a strong arm if you don’t throw enough. If you are used to going five innings and then go six or seven, you won’t have your good stuff. They need to start that from the minor leagues and give pitchers strong arms.”
He knows that his patented high leg kick will never be reproduced. When Marichal signed in 1957 he was a sidearm pitcher, but a year later his manager in Springfield, MA had him start throwing overhand.
“[My manager] said it would more effective against left-handed hitters,” he said. “It seemed to me that was impossible to do without the high leg kick, which I started that day.”
And that kick turned a classy career into a Hall of Fame enshrinement in 1983.
