A Baseball Night
Bucking the traffic successfully as thousands of workers exit downtown Santo Domingo at the end of the business day—and thousands more converge around the downtown stadium that is home to Escogido and Licey in the Dominican Winter League—requires either a police escort or a magician for navigation.
Juan Marichal’s driver remained relaxed as he steered the boss’s car through narrow openings. He identified back ways past parking guards and used little maneuvers that brought Marichal close to a back door of Estadio Quisqueya.
On the way, Marichal, pleased to be attending a game, started talking about one of his favorite topics: how much everybody in the Dominican loves baseball. “It’s the No. 1 thing in the country,” he said. “It’s the thing that everybody cares about the most. Everybody knows the game.”
A little walking is still necessary. Marichal and son Juanchi, wearing identical short-sleeved Escogido red jerseys and matching red baseball caps, slither past several small groups of people before fans begin to recognize Juan and hail the Hall of Fame pitcher for his autograph or for a photo.
This happens a lot when Marichal is out in public, and while he is almost always obliging, he also knows the little celebrity tricks about avoiding being surrounded and trying to stay on the move.
Marichal and his party of three were able to enter the ball field through a back gate that accessed Escogido’s administrative offices instead of passing through a more crowded public gate past a ticket-taker. After warm greetings with a few team officials in the offices, Marichal was led through the stands by security men and deposited in a field-level box where Escogido general manager Moises Alou watched the team he had assembled for the winter season.
The son of Marichal’s long-time compadre Felipe Alou, Moises Alou, then 44, had only recently retired from active major league service. During his 17-year career ending in 2008, Alou batted .303 and was a six-time all-star. The old pitcher and the generation-younger administrator greeted one another warmly.
Both Escogido and Licey are Santo Domingo teams, and the 1955 stadium is home for both squads. It holds about 20,000 fans and seemed about two-thirds full. The teams’ proximity to each other makes them natural rivals. Escogido is nicknamed the Lions and Licey is nicknamed the Tigers. From the time he was a teenager, Marichal has been affiliated with or a fan of Escogido, whose own origins pre-date his. The club was founded in 1921.
The Dominican Winter League, probably the highest quality league in the majors’ offseason, starts in October and runs to February. The top teams then compete in the Caribbean Series against the best teams from Venezuela, Mexico, and elsewhere. One of Marichal’s earliest broadcasting gigs was doing commentary on the Caribbean Series.
“It looks like a pretty good crowd,” noted Marichal as he scanned the stands. “A lot of people wait until the American players come.”
Over the years, dating back to Satchel Paige and Cool Papa Bell, many of the finest players in the world have competed in winter ball. The Dominican attracts not only the best players who grew up in the country and feel an obligation to show off their talents for the home folks, but also other major leaguers who are trying to gain more experience or work on developing new skills or staying sharp in the offseason.
Even early in the season, the rosters of Dominican teams are dotted with the names of major leaguers working on their swing, trying to develop a new pitch, or trying to put up eye-catching numbers that will gain them a chance as a free agent.
Licey had jumped to a 4–0 lead before Marichal made it to his box seat behind Alou. As he popped out of a tunnel in the grandstand and walked down a flight of concrete stairs to the seats, heads swiveled and whispers followed. “There’s Juan Marichal,” many said. Marichal either did not hear or chose to ignore the comments and just kept walking.
Someone asked Alou if he heard much about Marichal over the years from his father and uncles, Matty and Jesus. He laughed. “All the time,” he said.
Note is taken when a major leaguer steps up to bat for either team. There’s Jake Fox. There’s Willy Aybar. Starlin Castro has shipped in from the Cubs. Carlos Gomez, the swift young outfielder for the Milwaukee Brewers, was in the game.
“He’s going to be a force,” Moises Alou said of the rookie. “He just got here.”
The game was being televised and there were probably eight major leaguers sprinkled throughout the lineups, giving the teams name recognition with the fans.
When players on the outskirts of Escogido’s dugout got a glimpse of Marichal sitting a few feet away, some tipped their caps.
Periodically, a fan jogged down the stairs attempting to reach Marichal for an autograph or to take a picture. Security discreetly intercepted the person a few sets of stairs north of Marichal’s seat. Once in a while the fast-talking individual offered a reasonable explanation of why he had to talk to Juan, or Juan recognized the man and asked that he be allowed to pass. The TV camera had spotted Juan in the stands and by then had probably beamed his image to the nation.
Marichal’s cell phone rang and the call was from his ESPN Deportes broadcast partner, who was in the house. He wanted to know if he could hook Juan up at his seat for some guest commentary about the game. Juan agreed but also said, “I think we’ve been on TV already.”
Technicians and a cameraman came to provide Marichal with earphones and a microphone and to monitor the technology that would allow Marichal to be a guest color man without leaving his seat.
Between innings the mascot of Escogido and the mascot of Licey, a tiger and a lion, got into a mock rumble, with the fans taking sides consistent with their general rooting interests.
At the end of a half inning, a group of attractive young women danced to rousing music on top of the Licey dugout across the field.
Each squad had its own dance team, and the Escogido bunch had the same amount of foot-stomping energy. There was one difference. When the Licey girls danced, the nearest players’ eyes were riveted to their gyrating backsides. When the Escogido girls danced, the players in the dugout turned completely around, ignoring the field, and stared at the fetching lasses until they finished wiggling.
If Marichal had a TV comment on these goings-on, they were lost in translation. This was a whole new look for color commentary. Marichal sat in his box seat next to the Escogido dugout, barely elevated from the plate, the on-deck circle almost close enough to reach out and touch, and he talked for a few innings. He could have chosen to sit in an enclosed press box but preferred to be closer to the action, out in the pleasant, 75-degree night air and with the crowd.
Unfortunately from a rooting standpoint, Marichal’s club fell behind early and was never truly in the game, losing 8–4.
Marichal said he was a little surprised by how many major league players had begun playing so early in the winter season after only a short rest from their regular season. More would be coming in December, a few weeks ahead, he knew.
Throughout the evening, Marichal bantered with Moises Alou, a few visitors from the stands, and son, Juanchi. The Marichals were asked if they wanted a cold drink, and Juan was looking for diet soda. He has diabetes and generally watches his diet carefully. When his Diet Coke arrived, Juanchi appropriated the container to read the nutritional information. He okayed the contents before letting his father have it. He was watching out for Dad.
After the game, the Marichal party adjourned to one of the pitcher’s favorite restaurants, in his mind the best place to eat meat when he is in Santo Domingo. The unexpected name of the restaurant, worth a chuckle to Americans, was Davy Crockett, and it had an American Old West decor. The owner must have watched Disney when he was young, been a Fess Parker fan, or studied the lore of the Alamo.
Since it was a late-night dinner, only a few other tables were occupied, but the diners at one small table and the group of eight at another table recognized Marichal. One man at the large table said hello to Marichal and then told baseball stories to his dinner companions. After the initial wave of hellos, no one interrupted Marichal’s dinner as he ordered, conversed with guests, and ate. A celebrity of similar magnitude in the United States might have had trouble swallowing a forkful without strangers intruding on his meal. Marichal ate his steak and baked potato in peace, talking baseball between bites.
Marichal explained how his life-long allegiance to Escogido began. When he was a boy, he rooted for a different team, Aguilas. But when he was in his late teens and ready for a breakthrough in his career, it was Escogido that showed interest. Someone he knew told him that another observer had bad-mouthed him to Aguilas and that’s why that team wouldn’t give him a tryout.
Talk turned to the famous Marichal-Warren Spahn game in 1963 that lasted 16 innings. Juanchi, as the youngest of six children, was too young to see his father pitch in person, and there was neither the interest nor the prevalence of technology for every baseball game to be taped and archived 40 years ago. More than anything, Juanchi would love to see a video of the Spahn game. However, there is no indication that such video exists. He has only seen snapshots of Marichal pitching—a slice of cake, one could say, when he wants to devour the whole thing.
Early on, Juanchi discovered that being the son of a celebrity in the Dominican can be a mixed blessing. Yes, you might get to hobnob with famous people such as President Fernandez. However, the occasional awkward situation does arise. One day when he was younger, during a visit from the president, Juanchi was going through his baseball cards while they were both waiting for his father.
Juanchi showed off an old Mickey Mantle card he had, his favorite, and to his shock and dismay the president said, “This is for me? Thank you.” “No!” Juanchi declared. Afterwards he felt bad, and on a subsequent trip to Cooperstown for the annual Hall of Fame induction ceremony, Juanchi obtained two Mickey Mantle autographed baseballs and gave one to the president.
Marichal told another story that involved Mickey Mantle. In the late 1950s, the Washington Senators had a pitcher named Pedro Ramos from Cuba. Ramos loved the American West and he gave into his flamboyant inclinations, wearing a cowboy hat and cowboy boots and driving a Cadillac. One time, Marichal said, Ramos was pitching in relief for the Senators against the Yankees in a critical situation and struck out Mantle to escape danger.
Ramos took the ball and tossed it to a batboy because he wanted to save it. After the game, Ramos asked the batboy to take the ball to the other clubhouse and ask Mantle to autograph it. Mantle was very nice and he signed the ball, Marichal said.
A day or so later in the same series between the teams, Ramos was again in the game in relief and Mantle came up to the plate again. This time, Mantle hit a ball so hard and so far for a home run that according to Marichal it might still be traveling. He joked that the ball might have landed on a train and gone hundreds of miles. Anyway, no one knew how far the ball went or where it landed.
After the game, Mantle signaled to the batboy, gave him a note for Ramos, and sent him to the Senators clubhouse. The message to Ramos read, “I would ask you to sign the ball, if you can ever find it.” Marichal laughed uproariously at the story, his eyes twinkling.
As Marichal stood to leave, the man at the head of the table for eight stood also and shepherded the old pitcher to his own dinner guests for a hello. Marichal continued talking baseball after the man gave a monologue about Marichal’s career achievements with the Giants. Decades after the fact, the man was still incensed that Marichal had not been voted the Cy Young Award instead of Dean Chance in 1964.
Marichal seemed less upset. He had long before come to terms that he had not won a Cy Young trophy for a combination of reasons. For one thing, for the first several years of his career the sport gave the award to only one pitcher in both leagues, not one in each league. Also, when Marichal had his best seasons, there was always another pitcher who had a career year.
As his driver moved slowly through Santo Domingo’s nowdarkened streets, with residents home for the night and turning out the lights for bed, Marichal reflected on a career of greatness with the San Francisco Giants. There had been seasons of more than 20 wins, seasons of stingy earned run averages, All-Star Games, the World Series, a no-hitter. And all of those good pieces added up to something very special, a place in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
The man with the high-kicking delivery had left his mark on the sport he loved and on the country he loved. Whereas once Marichal had been an anonymous poor boy on a farm, his dazzling pitching skill made him one of the most beloved citizens in the Dominican Republic. It was good to be Juan Marichal. Even in the half-darkness in the back seat of a car, it was easy to read his pride.