AUGUST 22, 1965 | SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – A tight pennant race turned ugly on the afternoon of August 22, 1965. With only a half game separating the San Francisco Giants and arch rival Los Angeles Dodgers, Giant pitcher Juan Marichal attacked Los Angeles Dodgers’ catcher John Roseboro with a bat. Roseboro suffered a gash that required 14 stitches to close. Marichal was suspended eight games and fined $1,750, a big chunk of change in those days.
As the story goes, when Marichal was on the mound for the Giants earlier in the game he knocked down Maury Wills and Ron Fairly with brushback pitches. As Jeff Merron reports on ESPN’s Page 2, Dodger catcher John Roseboro admitted that he intended to retaliate against Marichal when he came to bat, “I tried a knockdown from behind the plate, throwing the ball close to his nose when I returned it to the pitcher.” After coming close a couple times to Marichal, standing in the batter’s box, as he threw back to pitcher Sandy Koufax, Marichal turned on Roseboro. Striking the catcher with the bat.
Roseboro and Marichal patched things up in later years, but on that one afternoon in 1965, it was nasty.
CONTRIBUTING SOURSES:
August 22, 1965 box score/play-by-lay
Baseball brawls
1965 NL pennant race