The Eastern Stars - Mark Kurlansky [36]
Hitters feared Marichal because of his unusual variety of pitches and his ability to conceal the ball until the last moment. Art Shamsky, a top hitter for the Cincinnati Reds at the time, called Marichal “the toughest pitcher I ever faced.” Shamsky was what is called a contact hitter: he would always try to get his bat on the ball, even if it led to an out. He prided himself on rarely striking out. He could make contact with Koufax, but Marichal would strike him out. “Hitting is all about seeing the ball out of the pitcher’s hand,” Shamsky said. “With that high kick you couldn’t see the ball until it was there.”
In a game that loves statistics, Marichal had spectacular numbers—sometimes even better than Koufax’s. The press, the people who choose the Cy Young Award, stereotyped them both. Koufax, the Jew, was an “intellectual” pitcher, whereas Marichal, the Dominican, was a “hot-blooded Latin” pitcher. Giants manager Al Dark, who had three Latins on his roster, mused publicly on whether Latins could truly understand the game of baseball. He said that Latins lacked “mental alertness.”
The press called Marichal “the Dominican Dandy,” a slightly denigrating label implying that he did not know what to do with his money and so indulged in clownish foppishness. Nothing better illustrates the impact of Marichal than the fact that, years after he stopped playing, the press would still occasionally refer to some Dominican player as a dandy.
Since baseball players earn their living playing their childhood game, they have much less pressure than most people to act like adults in the workplace. There is no shortage of incidents of American ballplayers having temper tantrums and outbursts of violence. But when a Spanish-speaking player does it, he is being a hot-blooded Latin. Marichal did not originate the stereotype of the hot-blooded Latin ballplayer. The original hot-blooded Latin was Adolfo Luque, a Cuban who was one of the all-time great pitchers, enshrined in American literature because Hemingway mentions him in The Old Man and the Sea. Luque never hesitated to threaten other players, umpires, or fans. Once, when heckled by an outfielder named Bill Cunningham, who was shouting at the pitcher from the bench, Luque put down his ball and glove, marched over to Cunningham, and threw a mighty roundhouse punch—which Cunningham side-stepped. Luque’s fist landed squarely on the jaw of outfielder Casey Stengel. A brawl ensued and Luque was ejected from the game, but he returned in a rage, swinging his bat clublike at players and umpires. Latins are like that, a lot of people in baseball concluded.
All the worst fears about Marichal were confirmed on August 22, 1965. The Giants were playing against their main rival, the Los Angeles Dodgers, with Marichal pitching against Koufax. At bat, Marichal got into an argument with Dodgers catcher Johnny Roseboro, who, Marichal claimed, deliberately threw the ball too close to Marichal’s head. In some versions the throw nicked Marichal’s ear. Words escalated and finally Marichal hit the catcher with a bat. Roseboro needed fourteen stitches.
Marichal gave baseball an enduring and unfair image of Dominicans as rough and violent people—a backward people. It was the baseball version of a long-standing Dominican stereotype. In the tough Latino neighborhoods of New York where Dominicans move in on the Puerto Ricans, the Puerto Ricans often insist that Dominicans don’t wear socks—that is, that they are primitive.
But Marichal was an inspiration to Dominican players. He was one of the greats. A player becomes eligible for the Hall of Fame five years after retirement, which in Marichal’s case was 1981. He failed to get positive votes from seventy-five percent of the members of the Baseball Writers of America, which is the requirement