He was near death in the summer of 2002, but rallied after phone calls and messages from many baseball friends, including Marichal. If the other team got two hits, man, they were lucky.”15 Roseboro marveled at Koufax’s otherworldly talent: “I think God came down and tapped him on the shoulder and said ‘boy, I’m gonna make you a pitcher.’ God only made one of him.”16. I am sorry I did that. Roseboro’s Dodger days ended after the 1967 season when he was swapped to the Minnesota Twins as part of the price for shortstop Zoilo Versalles, who the Dodgers hoped could replace Wills. “I had a philosophy that if you tried four or five you only needed one to succeed in order to survive outside of baseball when you were done. IMPORTANT NOTE: The PSA CardFacts Condition Census is a work-in-progress and should only be used as a guide. By then, however, Roseboro had forgiven Marichal, and personally appealed to fans to do the same. When Roseboro died at age 69 in 2002, Marichal was an honorary pallbearer and a speaker at the funeral. Fifty years ago this weekend, the San Francisco Giants' Juan Marichal brought a baseball bat down upon the head of the Dodgers' John Roseboro in a pounding moment in sports history. He became a catcher in high school because nobody else wanted the job. . [36], The Dodgers went on to win the 1965 National League Pennant by two games over the Giants. The Giants won both of them in the middle of a 14-game streak, but the Dodgers got even hotter later to win the pennant, and eventually defeated the Minnesota Twins in seven games in the World Series. After the incident, National League President Warren Giles suspended Marichal for nine games, fined him $1,750, and also forbade him from traveling to Dodger Stadium for the final, crucial two-game series of the season. They barked at each other. The boys grew up in a small world with little obvious prejudice. He and Jeri later had a second daughter, Stacy, and adopted son Jaime. Roseboro ate most meals in his room. Roseboro and his wife, Barbara Fouch Roseboro, also owned a Beverly Hills public relations firm. Many historical player head shots courtesy of David Davis. update=copyright.getFullYear(); The second one was a little inside. Full Site Menu. Roseboro was the talk of the World Series: Could he stop the Go-Go White Sox, the majors’ leading base stealers? National League President Warren Giles fined Marichal $1,750 and suspended him for eight playing days. Marichal thought some sportswriters had refused to vote for him because of his attack on Roseboro. John’s unemployment made it worse. > John Roseboro Statistics and History. Related Video All these white guys just keep hiring their pals as coaches. They apparently hadn’t known, and had to find out for themselves, that Roseboro had thrown out 60 percent of runners during the regular season. He didn’t have blazing speed and he played the position of statues, first base. The Dodgers’ glory days ended temporarily after the young underdog Orioles swept them in the 1966 World Series. [22][23] Roseboro made his presence felt in the 1963 World Series against the New York Yankees when he hit a three-run home run off Whitey Ford to win the first game of the series. He moved up to Class C the next year as a center fielder until he was drafted into the army in mid-1953. The two pitchers’ lifetime statistics were nearly identical. Copyright © 2000-2020 Sports Reference LLC. And like Maury, he would do anything to win.”18, But even in the 1960s, African Americans still weren’t welcome in some hotel restaurants. Every one was a failure that left him in debt, unable to meet his child-support obligations. Marichal did get elected in 1983, and thanked Roseboro in his induction speech. 1957-1970. [19] The Dodgers battled the San Francisco Giants in a tight pennant race during the 1962 season with the two teams ending the season tied for first place and met in the 1962 National League tie-breaker series. Join SABR’s Golden Lineup to help us celebrate our 50th Anniversary! “It was everybody he had once stood up for, standing up for him,” Barbara said. Roseboro hooked on with the Washington Senators under manager Ted Williams. If he had only said something, I would not have swung. He preferred football even after he broke a leg his freshman year. So Marichal contended Roseboro returned a pitch close to his nose. In his first at bat against Marichal after the incident, Roseboro hit a three-run home run. [1] He was also named as a reserve player for the National League in the 1958 All-Star game. Early in the game, Marichal threw close to Wills and to Ron Fairly, the right fielder. “I think I’d have blown my brains out if it hadn’t been for Barbara,” he said.23 Barbara Walker Fouch was a long-distance friend he had met in Atlanta, a former model who ran her own public-relations firm. “He shot that ball back to me and almost hit me in the face,” starting pitcher Carl Erskine remembered. Roseboro also personally appealed to the Baseball Writers Association of America not to hold the incident against Marichal after it passed him over for election to the Hall of Fame four years in a row. All images are property the copyright holder and are displayed here for informational purposes only. Wills couldn’t persuade him to come down to the restaurant. [29] Marichal afterwards stated that he thought Roseboro was about to attack him and raised his bat, striking Roseboro at least twice over the head with it, opening a two-inch gash that sent blood flowing down the catcher's face and required 14 stitches. [1] He played in his final major league game on August 11, 1970 at the age of 37. That is why I want him present when I meet Warren Giles. Barbara gathered up her daughter Nikki and moved to Los Angeles, where she opened a new PR agency and took in John as a partner. Win Expectancy, Run Expectancy, and Leverage Index calculations provided by Tom Tango of InsideTheBook.com, and co-author of The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball. “I said, ‘John, the catcher is not supposed to throw harder than the pitcher.’”10, Within a month, Roseboro won the everyday job, and Walker soon retired to join the coaching staff. “It’s too bad,” John Roseboro said, “because a ballplayer would like to be remembered for something better than a bloody brawl, but that’s what everyone always remembers.”1 What everyone remembers is August 22, 1965: the day Juan Marichal bashed Roseboro in the head with a bat. [5] He was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers as an amateur free agent prior to the 1952 season and, began his professional baseball career with the Sheboygan Indians of the Wisconsin State League. “I don’t remember proposing,” he wrote later, “but maybe I did.”7 When the Dodgers promoted him to Triple-A Montreal in 1956, John and Geraldine married during the season. [14], After having a below par season in 1960, Roseboro rebounded in 1961 posting career highs with 18 home runs and 59 runs batted in. 20 The account of the brawl is drawn from these sources: Roseboro, Glory Days; Leahy, The Last Innocents; Curley Grieve, “A Bat-Swinging Brawl,” San Francisco Examiner, August 23, 1965: 1; Bob Hunter, “Candlestick Brawl Brewed Two Days,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, August 23, 1965: C1; Mike Mandel, SF Giants, An Oral History (Privately published, 1974). “I’ll take care of it,” Roseboro told teammates. [4] Baseball historian Bill James ranked Roseboro 27th all-time among major league catchers.[2]. 32 Bruce Weber, “A Fan Weaves a Tale of Fighting and Forgiveness,” New York Times, December 7, 2011. Later, he served as a minor league batting instructor (1977) and catching instructor (1987) for the Dodgers. The next day they won another one-run decision, this time in 12 innings, to take the pennant. Several Dodgers had murder on their minds. Cronkite School at ASU Upset with that unusual attempt, the future Hall-of-Famer hit Roseboro over the head with his bat three times, opening a two-inch gash that sent blood flowing down the catcher's face that would require 14 stitches. Several strokes, prostate cancer, and heart disease led to 51 emergency room visits over 14 years. Johnny Roseboro deliberately dropped the ball so he could get behind me. [9][10] In his first full season, with the team having moved to Los Angeles, Roseboro hit for a .271 batting average along with 14 home runs and 43 runs batted in. I have many close white friends in baseball and I never met a racist yet. He was the starting catcher in the 1959, 1963, 1965 and 1966 World Series, with the Dodgers winning the championship the first three times. Full-year historical Major League statistics provided by Pete Palmer and Gary Gillette of Hidden Game Sports. Roseboro broke a finger on his throwing hand in his first professional season at Class-D Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and played the outfield while he was recovering. 26 Brian Burwell, “The only breaks for blacks are broken promises,” New York Daily News, April 19, 1987: C44. You can't deal with reality. 8 Roseboro, 107. Are you a Stathead, too? Roseboro recalled that even with his explosive velocity, Koufax threw a very light ball while Drysdale’s right-handed fastball “felt like a big rock” that bruised his hand through the mitt.14, “Drysdale was a good pitcher, but he had to work hard to win,” Roseboro said. John Junior Roseboro (May 13, 1933 – August 16, 2002) was an American professional baseball player and coach. A left-handed hitter, he had a career batting average of .249 with 104 homers. Johnny’s career was launched after the unfortunate automobile accident that paralyzed longtime Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers Hall of Fame catcher Roy Campanella. 15 Steve Delsohn, True Blue (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 75. Do you have a sports website? - Johnny Roseboro in Chasing Baseball: Our Obsession with Its History, Numbers, People and Places (Dorothy Seymour Mills, McFarland Publishing, 01/11/2010, 'One. He caught only 37% of base stealers while the others nailed 65%. I might expect Koufax to throw at me but I did not look for someone to throw at me from behind me. 1 John Roseboro with Bill Libby, Glory Days with the Dodgers (New York: Atheneum, 1978), 3.

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