(See Cover) SCENE ONE THE TIME: 1948. THE PLACE: A typical, two-room bohio, or farmhouse, on the outskirts of Laguna Verde, Dominican Republic. The name Laguna Verde, meaning Green Lagoon, is hyperbole. A ragged hamlet located about 15 miles from the Haitian border, it is the home of 500-odd campesinos who scratch out a living by growing maize and rice in sun-baked clay that scarcely tolerates thorny scrub and cactus. Inside the Marichal bohio (palm-bark walls, thatched roof, oddments of homemade furniture), a nine-year-old boy sprawls shirtless on the concrete floor, unraveling the thread from an old silk stocking. With infinite care, he winds the thread round and round a scrap of rubber until he has a ball about 9 in. in circumference. The boy's mother enters the room unnoticed and watches, frowning, while he wraps the ball tightly with adhesive tape, tests his handiwork with a couple of bounces off the floor. Crude, maybe even a little lopsided—but a fair facsimile of a baseball. The mother speaks sharply.
Widow Marichal: Juanito! What do you want with this ball business? SCENE TWO
THE TIME: 18 years later. THE PLACE: Crosley Field, Cincinnati. Juan Antonio Marichal Sanchez, 27, star pitcher of the National League-leading San Francisco Giants, is feeling lousy. His neck is stiff, his shoulder aches, his elbow hurts. He is dosed with vitamins, painkillers and anti-allergens. Caramba! But never fear. He stands there on the mound with a big grin on his face, firing baseballs at the Reds as if he didn't have a care in the world. In the fourth inning, with the bases loaded, he strikes out Cincinnati's Johnny Edwards on five pitches. In the eighth, with Cincinnati runners on first and third, and a count of three balls and two strikes on Batter Art Shamsky, he cuts loose a back-breaking curve. Strike three! Meanwhile, he has scored one Giant run himself, driven in two others with a 385-ft. double. The Giants win, 5-3, and Juan Marichal (pronounced Mah-ree-chal) marches off to the clubhouse with what he wants—his tenth straight victory of the year. He is earning $70,000 a year, is the No. 1 pitcher in baseball at this point in the season, and is a hero to thousands of fans.
Does that answer your question, Mother Marichal?
Figuring in the Argument. Baseball fans, being chronic dyspeptics (too much warm beer, too many cold hot dogs), doubtless will debate forever who is the best pitcher of the 1966 season, the decade, the century, and All Time. There is a strong possibility that Juan Marichal will figure in the grander argument.
"The thing I hate about that s.o.b.," said ex-Philadelphia Phillies Catcher Gus Triandos two weeks ago, after watching Juan shut out the Phillies, 1-0, on six hits in 14 innings, "is that it all seems so easy for him. It's one thing to go hitless against a pitcher like Sandy Koufax or Don Drysdale or Jim Maloney; at least you can look out there and see the cords standing out on his neck. He looks like he's working, and he looks like he's worried. Marichal—he just stands there laughing at you."