Juan Marichal - Early Life

Early Life

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.

In 1954, sixteen-year-old Marichal joined a summer league in Monte Cristi, playing for a team called Las Flores. Although he began at shortshop, Marichal switched to pitcher 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.