This post is part of a media project called SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage. Pick a number, and consider the list of athletes attached to it. Who wore it best? Or, what’s the most compelling story linked to it? Any person, place or thing is in play with Southern California connections. Star power, transformational achievement, longevity, notoriety and quirkiness all factor in. Whatever leads to a lively discussion and interpretation.
The most obvious choices for No. 46:
Burt Hooten: Los Angeles Dodgers
Todd Christensen: Los Angeles Raiders
The not-so-obvious choices for No. 46:
Don Aase: California Angels
Dan Petry: California Angels
Jerry Shipkey: USC and UCLA football
The most interesting story for No. 46:
Juan Marichal, Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher (1975)
Southern California map pinpoints:
Dodger Stadium
Reference books on the subject:
“The Fight of Their Lives: How Juan Marichal And John Roseboro Turned Baseball’s Ugliest Brawl Into A Story Of Forgiveness And Redemption,” by John Rosengren, 2014
“Glory Days with the Dodgers, and Other Days with Others,” by John Roseboro with Bill Libby, 1978
Juan Marichal’s matriarchal Baseball Hall of Fame plaque in Cooperstown, N.Y., seems to have one dandy of a typo.
After all he accomplished for the San Francisco Giants in a 16-year MLB life, the last line of his career ledger reads: “Los Angeles N.L., 1975”
When The Associated Press posted a story explaining how the nastiest of the rival Giants had accepted a one-year, $60,000 contract with the intent of actually trying to help the Dodgers win games in 1975, the lede read: “Baseball, like politics, apparently makes strange bedfellows.”
The Los Angeles Times’ Jim Murray launched into his own interpretation: “There’s a new game in town today. It begins, ‘Juan Marichal, playing for the Dodgers, is like …’ And you supply your own punch line.” Murray offered his own suggestions: “Like King Faisal at a bar mitzvah … like Brezhnev at a White House prayer meeting … In the view of most Dodger fans, Juan Marichal belongs in the Nuremberg trials, not in Dodger Blue.”
Long Beach Press-Telegram columnist Bud Tucker lamentated: “It wouldn’t matter if the guy could win 25 games. Adolph Hitler is Adolph Hitler and Juan Marichal is Juan Marichal.”
Marichal’s decades-long existence as L.A.’s Public Enemy No. 1 is chapter and verse part of the Dodgers-Giants historic and on-going rivalry. As Herald-Examiner columnist Melvin Durslag once wrote: “If all the Dodger hitters that Marichal has put in the dirt were laid end-to-end, they would stretch from Chavez Ravine to Santo Domingo.”
A book published in 1964 about the history of this rivalry by Lee Allen called “The Giants & The Dodgers: The Fabulous Story of Baseball’s Fiercest Feud” included a cover illustration shows a Brooklyn Bum mascot chasing after a Giants player with a baseball bat.
Marichal flipped the script during a game at Candlestick Park in 1965. He would be forever linked for assaulting Dodgers catcher John Roseboro.
And when the dust settled, years later, they used that moment as something teachable. That forgiveness, friendship and the foundation of sports can heal. Even if L.A. never saw Marichal as anything more than a heel.
A heated National League pennant race laid the groundwork to a Sunday afternoon August 22, 1965 game in San Francisco. Nerves were already frayed from the recent Watts Riots in Los Angeles. The TV audience could have been seeking some distraction with access to one of the few Dodgers’ road games allowed on local KTTV-Channel 11.
Roseboro’s second-inning RBI single against Marichal to put the Dodgers up 2-0. The bottom of the third inning played out this way as documented in Retrosheet.org:
The newspapers recapped it the next day:
For what was deemed an assault with a deadly weapon, Marichal served a nine-day suspension and a record-setting $1,750 fine, for “nearly committing baseball’s first homicide” as Murray wrote.
Outraged himself was Dodgers outfielder Ron Fairly, who earlier in that game had been brushed back by a Marichal pitch. Fairly said it would have been more fair a punishment to rule for a $9 fine and a 1,750-day suspension.
Roseboro, who needed 14 stitches and missed two games, eventually filed e a lawsuit against Marichal seeking $110,000 in damages. The case wasn’t settled until than four years later, in February of 1970, and Roseboro received $7,500.
But Marichal couldn’t run from his history. His suspension made a difference in how the 1965 National League pennant sorted itself out. As Marichal missed two starts, the Dodgers won the division by two games, then defeated the Minnesota Twins in the World Series.
The title didn’t tarnish the terrible event. It may have only magnified it.
One-time Dodgers Hall of Fame executive Branch Rickey once said about Marichal: “No pitcher has made such magnificent use of his God-given equipment.”
Marichal built a Hall of Fame resume during hiss first 14 seasons in San Francisco: Six 20-win seasons, leading the league in ’63 (25-8) and ’68 (26-9), with 52 shutouts among 244 complete games, and 10 All-Star Games. He threw a 1 hour, 41-minute no-hitter against visiting Houston in 1963. The rub was that Marichal never won a Cy Young Award. That had to do with voting circumstances and strong competition, but he was by far the game’s most productive right-handed pitcher in the 1960s posting with 191 wins — and 197 complete games. He won what many consider the greatest single performance in MLB history — as a 22-year-old, Marichal went all 16 innings of a 1-0 win over 42-year-old Warren Spahn in 1963.
Personal aside: As a 9-year-old, I was at Dodger Stadium on May 25, 1971 to see Marichal throw a complete-game, 9-1 win against Bill Singer, which included Marichal launching a three-run home run down the left-field line in the sixth inning that broke open a 1-0 game.
Marichal’s career record at Dodger Stadium was 21-4, part of an overall 37-18 mark with 10 shutouts against the Dodgers. Included in that was once sending Dodgers star Willie Davis to the hospital after hitting him with a pitch. He also had another near-fight with Bill Buckner for a brush-back incident. Both of these came after the Roseboro incident.
By the start of the 1975 season, Marichal was for all intents and purposes done with baseball at age 37, with a lot of mileage on his treads.
Back injuries from bulging discs plagues him, starting after the Giants’ 1971 NL West title run where they again outlasted the Dodgers. Marichal’s 18-11 record with a 2.94 ERA earned him his final All Star appearance that year. But for the ’72 and ’73 seasons, he was a combined 17-36 with an ERA near 4.00.
The Giants, who in the previous two seasons sent Willie Mays to the New York Mets and Willie McCovey to the San Diego Padres, unceremoniously sold Marichal’s contract to the Boston Red Sox. He ended up with a respectable 5-1 record in his nine starts of an American League career, but also a 4.89 ERA covering 57 innings. He missed 2 1/2 months in the middle of the season but actually came back stronger.
The Red Sox released him after the 1974 season, and he went home to his farm in the Dominican Republic to find quiet.
In the spring of 1975, the Oakland Athletics showed interest in bringing Marichal back for a Bay Area victory lap, needing to replace departing free-agent Catfish Hunter. But the Dodgers also needed starting pitching help, coming off a loss in the 1974 World Series to the A’s. Tommy John wouldn’t be available — he had just undergone the yet-unnamed Tommy John Surgery and was about to miss the whole season. While Andy Messersmith, Don Sutton and Doug Rau were available, veteran Al Downing and 21-year-old Rick Rhoden were next up. Was that enough?
Dodgers senior vice president Al Campanis asked some of the Dodgers’ Dominican Republic-native players to check in on Marichal.
“I hadn’t expected to hear from the Dodgers — of all teams — because it was my belief they were heavy on pitching and they wouldn’t call on me anyway because of things that happened in the past,” Marichal told the Long Beach Independent. “My friend, Manny Mota, was still in the Dominican when the Dodgers contacted me and he strongly advised me to try to pitch again. I wasn’t sure. But since Manny was with the Dodgers, I decided to give it another try. If it hadn’t been for Manny, I doubt if I would have returned to baseball.”
Campanis wasn’t all that willing to take credit for his part in the recruiting when asked about it.
“Listen, nobody hated Juan Marichal more than I did,” Campanis admitted. “But there are times when things change, when your affections replace any ill feelings.”
Hate can be a strong word to use here.
Still, it seemed almost far too appropriate.
When the signing occurred on March 12, ’75, Vin Scully was quoted as saying: “I’m glad they didn’t do this on the first of April … Nobody would have believed it.” The team did wait until April Fool’s Day to make it official.
“If I don’t have any problems with my back, I can win for this team,” Marichal told the Sporting News at the time. “Everyone asks me, ‘How’s your arm?’ It’s not my arm. It’s my back that’s been the problem. If I’m not OK and can’t pitch I’ll tell them. I signed a contract with that agreement.”
And now, the Dodgers had his back?
Marichal famously wore No. 27 with San Francisco — he said he picked that number because Feb. 27 is Dominican Republic Independence Day. In Boston, he wore No. 21, which he said was a way to pay homage to Dominican hero Roberto Clemente (and No. 27 was already worn by a backup catcher named Carlton Fisk).
In Vero Beach, Fla., Dodgers equipment manager Nobe Kawano had Marichal try on the No. 57 because he thought was there was a visual similarity to 27. The Dodgers’ Willie Crawford had No. 27. Reversing the numbers to No. 72 seemed out of sorts at that time.
By the end of spring, Marichal was one of 11 pitchers who went back to L.A. with the team. Kawano upgraded him to No. 46 — the lower the number, perhaps not such a longshot. During the final game of the annual Freeway Series exhibition against the Angels, some 18,000 at Dodger Stadium saw Marichal pitch six innings, give up three runs on four walks and seven hits, and retire 10 of the last 11 he faced.
When he walked off the field at the end of his stint, Marichal heard a reluctant appreciation.
“I was wondering what the fans would do,” Marichal said. “It was much better than when I was with the Giants. I really like that.”
Still, the rational for seeing him on the team’s Opening Day roster would test many people’s patience.
The Dodgers’ rationale: If despised former Giants like Leo Durocher or Preacher Rowe or Sal “The Barber” Maglie could come over to join the Dodgers’ side at some point in their careers, why not Marichal?
Listen, the Dodgers once traded Jackie Robinson to the Giants — although he retired instead of accepting it. Duke Snider hit the last of his 407 home runs in a San Francisco uniform. Why couldn’t Marichal pitch his final innings with the team he once tormented?
Because …
Well …
Just because.
“I’ll just go back to my farm and listen to games on the radio,” Marichal said when asked what might happen if this experiment didn’t work out. He had a 1,065-acre ranch that produced crops of rice and bananas. “I’m going to be happy on my farm. I was before I came here.”
In Los Angeles, resentment grew by the bushels.
Dodgers manager Walter Alston waited until Game 5 of the 1975 to give Marichal his first start, on April 12 at Houston. He got through three scoreless innings against the Astros and had a 2-0 lead until he gave up a two-run homer to Cliff Johnson. After Enos Cabel laced a double over the third-base bag to score two, giving Houston a 5-2 lead, Alston came to the mound, took Marichal out, and brought in Jim Brewer to finish the inning.
An estimated two million fans were said to be in the Dominican Republic listening to Marichal’s comeback during a special radio broadcast.
“I tried to do so good but everything went wrong,” Marichal told the Los Angeles Times. “I know I’m not in shape yet. My legs are sometimes still sore from running. I really need two more weeks to be in top shape. And if I don’t …”
He stopped for a long silence.
“Then, there’s no excuse,” he finished.
Dodgers catcher Joe Ferguson, who said during spring he though the Marichal signing was a publicity stunt, chimed in: “I think you have to give him a little time. He’s not the Juan Marichal of five years ago.”
The official end to the Marichal Remake came quicker than anticipated.
On Wednesday night April 16 at Dodger Stadium before some 36,000 fans, Marichal faced the robust lineup of the Cincinnati Reds.
He got out of the first inning clean against Pete Rose, Joe Morgan and Johnny Bench. In the second inning, Marichal left the Reds with the bases loaded. In the third, Rose doubled and scored on Bench’s single to center. Tony Perez hit a two-run homer. Cesar Geronimo singled to center. Dave Concepcion singled to right.
Alston came out. Marichal’s game was done. As was his career.
Even though the Dodgers rallied from a 4-0 deficit to win 7-6 in the bottom of the ninth — a seventh-inning grand slam by Jimmy Wynn to tie it and a walk-off single by Steve Garvey to win it — this was a no-win situation for Marichal. His final pitching line: 2 1/3 innings, six hits, two walks, four earned runs and no strikeouts.
After the game, the Dodgers’ Mota took Marichal to Tonita’s restaurant in L.A., a popular hangout for Latin players. They were joined by the Reds’ Perez, Geronimo and Concepcion — the trio who had the last three hits off Marichal to effectively end the comeback idea.
Marichal waited until the next day to inform Alston and the Dodgers that he was done. There was no pride in posting an 0-1 record and 13.50 ERA.
“I think retiring is the best thing I can do,” he said. “Don’t feel sorry for me.”
Alston added: “Marichal showed me a lot. It takes a man to do what he did. A lot of guys would make excuses, but Juan did not. Really, he didn’t pitch that badly.”
If the experiment lasted just about one month, it felt longer to many. The point was made that if only Marichal had been able to hang on for one more game, he would next have faced the Giants.
“It would look even worse if something happened against the Giants — the one team I wanted to beat was San Francisco,” he said.
He couldn’t even give Dodgers’ fans that satisfaction.
Don Sutton, who the night before Marichal’s final start took a no-hitter into the seventh inning against Cincinnati before claiming a 2-1 win, admitted that having Marichal as a teammate was pretty swell.
“I used to hate him like everyone else on our club, but since he’s been here, he’s been a good friend,” Sutton told the Associated Press. “We talked quite a bit about pitching. We’re similar. We throw breaking balls for strikes and spot the fastball.”
Campanis’ damage-control offering: “The cost is only incidental. We feel we were right in taking a chance on him. When you are looking for a starting pitcher, you always try to obtain as many candidates as possible. Juan was a real gentleman about what has happened … I made a mistake — and I’ll be the first to admit it.”
Garvey said of Marichal: “It takes a lot of courage to do what he did. Probably more than anything else he’s done.” Added Ferguson: “He is one helluva nice guy. I hated to see it happen this way. It became a matter of pride to him, and he didn’t want to push it any more. … to force the issue. I only wish I had the privilege of catching in his prime.”
Later that summer, Marichal would be back at Dodger Stadium, but this time wearing a Giants’ uniform as part of the Old Timers’ Day. He had a photo op with Roseboro.
Yeah, just like old times. But not really.
When the Marichal 1975 signing happened, Rosoboro did his best to be cordial and supportive. Retired as a player after the 1970 season, Roseboro actually held a press conference to welcome Marichal to the team. He went on a local sports talk show and asked fans to forgive and forget.
“No resentment whatsoever,” said Roseboro, whose last time in uniform was as a coach for the California Angels. He was now was selling insurance in Glendale as well as selling cars in Pomona.
Prior to Marichal’s retirement announcement, Roseboro also made it clear: “I’d really like to see the dude win about 15 games for the Dodgers. That would sure ease a lot of problems out there. I think the first year, you want to retaliate, but after that, you say it’s just another baseball fight and you forget about it.
“I look at it as another fella who’s getting a chance to play a little longer and any time a guy 36 or 37 years old gets another chance to ply his trade, you root for him. I think people won’t forgive that he beat us regularly, but the fight thing — I think that’s something that happens every day in baseball. They can’t get down on him because he threw close to the hitters. He wouldn’t be a great pitcher if he didn’t. That’s part of the game.”
If Marichal backlash still lingered, it was most evident with Baseball Hall of Fame voters. In 1981, Marichal’s first year of eligibility, he got only 58.1 percent of the vote. Contemporary pitcher Bob Gibson got in on his first try.
“I can only assume they’re still punishing the guy for hitting John Roseboro on the head with a bat,” Tom Barnidge wrote in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
In 1982, Marichal was seven votes shy with 73.5 percent of the 312 needed. Contemporaries Hank Aaron and Frank Robinson were voted in.
Steve Daley wrote in the Chicago Tribune: “Certain writers in Southern California have never forgiven Marichal for swatting John Roseboro with a bat some years ago; they leave him off the ballot for that reason alone.”
Marichal needed help. He needed Roseboro.
Even if they stood on the same field together at the 1975 Old-Timers’ Game, they hadn’t talked in 18 years.
In the “Battle of Candlestick” Wikipedia entry — a more polite way to refer to something most call the “Marichal-Roseboro Brawl” — it noted that Marichal did not pitch against the Dodgers after that incident until April of 1966. It was in spring training in Florida, and Roseboro hit a three-run homer off Marichal in their first encounter — and declined to take a photograph with Marichal shaking hands even as the two team’s GMs pushed for it to happen.
As important as it was for Marichal to be the first Dominican inducted into Cooperstown, Roseboro had to somehow become a deal broker.
In the summer of ’82, Marichal was invited again back to Dodger Stadium to be celebrated as part of the team’s annual Old Timers’ Game. This time, he wore a Dodgers’ uniform — with the old No. 27 he wore for the Giants, and not with the Dodgers.
Roseboro showed up, posed for photo ops with Marichal, and it made news.
As another gesture of goodwill, Roseboro and his family accepted an invitation from Marichal years later to fly to the Dominican Republic for a charity golf tournament. Roseboro was impressed with the reception they got.
“It doesn’t surprise me that he would do something like that,” said John Werhas, a former Dodger infield who became a church pastor. “John Roseboro was probably as nice a human being as you’d ever meet.”
On the ballot taken in late 1982, Marichal pass the threshold with 83.7 percent of the vote and was joined in the Hall’s Class of ’83 with Alston, who got voted in by the veteran’s committee.
In Marichal’s 2013 SABR bio, writer Jan Finkel went over how “conventional thinking indicates that a group of voters chose to punish him for the Roseboro incident. However, there is some reason to believe that Marichal was forgiven fairly soon after.” He noted a June 10, 1966 Time magazine story that called him “The Dandy Dominican.” The authors didn’t dwell so much on the Roseboro incident.
Roseboro told the L.A. Times in 1990: “There were no hard feelings on my part, and I thought if that was made public, people would believe that this was really over with. I actually visited him in the Dominican. The next year, he was in the Hall of Fame. Hey, over the years, you learn to forget things.”
In a 2009 interview for the MLB Network with Bob Costas, Marichal recounted the 1965 incident with more details on what led to the bat-swinging incident.
As he remembered, the Dodgers and Giants had worked their way to the final Sunday series finale with tensions high since a previous game in this four-game series. Marichal, who in June threw two complete-game wins over Don Drysdale, once at Dodger Stadium and again at Candlestick Park, started off the fateful game one throwing high and inside to leadoff man Maury Wills.
Marichal told Costas he was just trying to pitch him up and in to make it more difficult for him to bunt. Wills ended up laying down a bunt single. Later that inning, Fairly took a dive at the plate on an inside pitch by Marichal. He then drove in Wills with a double.
With one out in the bottom of the third, as Marichal came to the plate for his first at-bat, he figured Koufax would want to retaliate by brushing him back. Marichal said he learned later that Koufax was told by Alston to hit him. Koufax declined. Roseboro knew that, and didn’t want Koufax thrown out of the game.
This was already a rare head-to-head matchup of the two aces — they purposely only faced each other three times ever in a Dodgers-Giants rivalry game.
Marichal said Roseboro took it upon himself to drop a pitch from Koufax during that at bat, so he could throw the ball back to Koufax just past Marichal’s right ear and get the message across.
That’s what started the war of words — and Marichal’s uncharacteristic reaction with the bat.
When Roseboro died in 2002, the headline in the L.A. Times showed that history couldn’t forget: “John Roseboro, 69, Dodgers All Star Catcher Gained Notoriety Following Melee in 1965.”
A four-time NL All Star and two-time Gold Glove winner who caught two of Koufax’s four no-hitters, Roseboro said as much about how he might be remembered in his 1978 autobiography, “Glory Days With the Dodgers and Other Days With Others“:
“The thing I’m remembered best for is the Juan Marichal incident. It’s too bad, because a ballplayer would like to be remembered for something better than a bloody brawl, but that’s what everyone always remembers, even those who weren’t there or who weren’t even following baseball back in 1965.”
Marichal also told Costas in that 2009 interview: “People ask me: Why did you end up with the Dodgers? Let me tell you the truth — I think the only reasons I signed with the Dodgers was because I wanted to people to know I wasn’t the type of person that would hurt someone over the head with a bat.”
In 2005, Gwen Knapp wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle on the 40th anniversary of the incident: “For both Marichal and Roseboro, the incident never really ended. That day … defined them in caricature, Marichal as violent perpetrator and Roseboro as victim. They were neither. But famous photographs from the brawl, showing Marichal with his bat poised to strike the catcher, created an indelible image. The pictures appeared in Life magazine and can still be purchased as baseball memorabilia.”
In May of 2011, a stage play called “Juan and John” that had debuted in New York two years earlier made its way to the Kirk Douglas Theater in Culver City. Roger Guenveur Smith wrote and starred in the one-man play.
One month earlier, the Dodgers’ Opening Day was marred by Dodgers-Giants related violence — Bryan Stow, a 41-year-old Giants fan, was assaulted by two Dodgers fans in the parking lot after the game and suffered serious head injuries.
Smith, in a lead-up to his play, recalled how he felt the day the Dodgers signed Marichal in 1975.
“It turned me off so much,” he said. “I couldn’t believe the Dodgers would betray history, that they would allow Juan Marichal to wear the hallowed Dodger blue.”
Smith started the play by taking out a lighter and burning a Marichal baseball card. That’s what Smith said he actually did as a 6 year old growing up in the Leimert Park/Crenshaw district of L.A. when he was watching that 1965 game on TV.
“Burn, baby, burn,” young Smith said as he watched the Marichal card disintegrate, repeating a mantra he had been hearing in the news at that when race riots in the nearby neighborhood of Watts had been quelled less than a week earlier.
“In playing Juan Marichal and John Roseboro, I have to invest in both men, for better or worse,” said Smith.
Roseboro’s widow, Barbara, attended the L.A. performance. She had said in a San Francisco Chronicle story that her husband was often approached about the incident, and he took ownership of it.
“He would always accept his responsibility,” she said. “He’d say: ‘I provoked it. I threw that ball too close to Juan’s ear.’”
Marichal and his family, along with Morgan Fouch Roseboro, John’s daughter, attended a special performance of “Juan and John” in New York. Marichal admitted afterward: “I don’t cry too often, but Roger, you made me cry tonight.”
In a 2014 book written by John Rosengren called, “The Fight Of Their Lives: How Juan Marichal and John Roseboro Turned Baseball’s Ugliest Brawl Into a Story of Forgiveness and Redemption,” whose cover displayed the most cringe-worthy photograph, the author made a case that this whole thing was just years of pent-up animosity between the rivals, going back to New York and Brooklyn.
Marichal was also consumed with anxiety about an on-going civil war in his native Dominican Republic that affected family members. The Watts Riots that had just happened in Los Angeles had the Dodgers’ players, especially Roseboro, on edge.
It was not just “another Latin player with a fiery temper who went out of control” and took it out on a Black man, Rosengren wrote.
“When the Dodgers traveled to San Francisco for another series between the bitter rivals, it wasn’t simply two teams contending for the pennant. Larger, darker forces worked their influence on the stage of America’s game.”
When Roseboro died at age 69 in 2002, Marichal was an honorary pallbearer. He also spoke at the funeral: “I wish he could have been my catcher.”
That’s how Marichal ended his eulogy after a long pause to gather himself. That’s also the quote Rosengren used to end his book.
In the play “Juan and John,” Smith repeats Marichal’s words as well.
Marichal was asked if, in fact, that was what he had said.
“Yes, I did,” he said. He paused for a moment and his eyes twinkled. “I might have won a few more games.”
Koufax also spoke at Roseboro’s funeral. At one point he turned to Marichal to say, “You would have loved pitching to John Roseboro.”
Who else wore No. 46 in SoCal sports history? Make a case for:
Burt Hooten, Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher (1975 to 1984):
When the Dodgers’ Marichal experiment ended, Hooten happily became a Plan B. And also was bestowed No. 46 since it was now available.
Hooten, traded by the Chicago Cubs to L.A. about two weeks after Marichal’s retirement in exchange for young pitchers Eddie Solomon and Geoff Zahn, posted an 18-7 season for the Dodgers in 31 starts with 12 complete games to go with a 2.82 ERA. He started that season 0-2 in three games for the Cubs.
How did he get the nickname “Happy.” Just look at his sad face.
In 1978, Hooten was second in the Cy Young voting to Gaylord Perry after going 19-10 with a 2.71 ERA. His one All-Star game came in 1981, the year the Dodgers won the World Series over the Yankees, and he was the NLCS MVP against Montreal allowing no runs in 14 2/3 innings. In 33 postseason innings that year, he allowed just three earned runs and went 4-1. And he won the clinching game of the World Series. In his career, Hooten won 112 of his 151 games with the Dodgers.
Kevin Gross, Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher (1991 to 1994):
The Downey native went Fillmore High, a small school off the 126 between Santa Paula and Santa Clarita, and then through Oxnard College. He came back to Southern California as a free agent in his ninth MLB season and stayed four years. The highlight: Throwing the 18th no-hitter in Dodgers history on Aug. 17, 1992 against the rival Giants at Dodger Stadium. He retired 19 in a row at one stretch and also went 1-for-3 at the plate with a single to lead off the bottom of the eighth. Gross, who gave up his only two walks in the second, hit the first batter in the top of the ninth, bringing up the tying run, but he escaped with a force out and two fly balls to left. That increased his record to just 6-12 for the season on a 99-loss Dodgers team, and he would go 40-44 as a Dodger (the first, in ’91, wearing No. 45). He finished his career with the Angels for a month and a half at age 36 in 1997 wearing No. 44.
Todd Christensen, Los Angeles Raiders tight end (1982 to 1988):
A running back out of BYU wearing No. 41 when he started with the New York Giants in 1979, a year after Dallas tried to convert him into a tight end, Christensen ended up in Oakland. He took No. 46, agreed to finally become a tight end after three seasons in ’80 and ended up going to the Pro Bowl in ’83 through ’87, five seasons in a row. He led the league with 92 catches in 1983 and 95 in ’86. He also led the league in ’83 with 1,247 yards and 12 touchdowns. After his football career ended, he set an age group record in the Masters Track and Field circiut participating in the heptathlon. In 1990 during the MLB lockout, he also tried out for the Oakland A’s.
Have you heard this story:
Jerry Shipkey, USC football fullback/linebacker (1943), UCLA football linebacker (1946 to 1948):
USC linebacker Jerry Shipkey, left, is shoved by UCLA quarterback Verl Lillywhite during a game at the Los Angeles Coliseum on Nov. 24, 1946. (Los Angeles Daily News via Wikimedia)
An All-CIF player out of Anaheim High, Shipkey is believed to be the only athlete to play in the Rose Bowl for both USC and UCLA. Shipkey entered USC under the Naval V-12 program, a college training program initiated in 1943 to meet both the immediate and long-range needs for commissioned officers to man ships, fly planes and command troops called to duty in WWII. He started the ’43 season on the USC JV team and was part of the Trojans’ 29-0 win over Washington in the 1944 Rose Bowl. “I was the seventh fullback of seven fullbacks, behind some great players, and (coach Jeff) Cravath turns around and says, ‘Shipkey!’ ” Shipkey told the Los Angeles Times in 1993. “Geez, I couldn’t believe it. I jumped up, started running onto the field, tripped over a sideline marker and fell flat on my face.” After serving in the Navy during World War II, he enrolled at UCLA and ran for more than 100 yards, scoring a game-winning touchdown against Cal during the Bruins’ undefeated season of 1946. He had 80 carries for 475 yards and three touchdowns that season and was in UCLA’s 45-14 loss to Illinois in the 1947 Rose Bowl. Shipkey was also an All-American shot putter at UCLA, finishing fifth in the 1947 NCAA championships. Shipkey was inducted in UCLA’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 1995. He spent six seasons in the NFL as a fullback and linebacker with Pittsburgh and Chicago, three times making the Pro Bowl, between 1948 and 1953.
Bill Bene, Los Angeles Dodgers/Anaheim Angels minor league pitcher (1988 to 1997):
The Long Beach native was the Dodgers’ first round draft pick, No. 5 overall, out of Cal State L.A. in the 1988 June Amateur Draft. A 6-foot-4, 205-pound right hander was already a bit of a wild card pick. An outfielder at Long Beach Jordan, he switched to pitcher at Cal State L.A.
A month before the draft, the 20-year-old had a 5-3 record with 41 strike outs and 43 walks to go with a 6.86 ERA and 13 wild pitches. “You never know what will happen when he pitches,” said CSLA coach John Herbold. “He might throw a no-hitter or he might walk the whole park.” He got up to 95 mph on the radar gun.
“It was a gamble, and I know if he doesn’t make it, a lot of people are going to take some heat,” Dodgers scouting director Ben Wade told The Times at the close of 1989. “But look at all he’s overcome, he’ll be fine.”
Bene would make it to Triple-A Albuquerque in 1994 as a 26-year-old. The Angels gave him a shot in 1997 with Triple-A Vancouver and Double-A Midland, but he was a combined 0-4 with an ERA of about 7.00. He never saw the MLB mound. After nine seasons in the minors, he was done. But he wasn’t finished making headlines.
Bene was sentenced to six months in prison in 2012 and ordered to pay more than $100,000 for selling illegal karaoke juke boxes between 2006 and 2010, as well as failing to report the $600,000 to the IRS. The crime was illegally copying and selling karaoke songs on hard drives with about 122,000 titles, said prosecutors.
We also have:
Craig Kimbrel, Los Angeles Dodgers relief pitcher (2022)
Don Aase, California Angels pitcher (1978 to 1984) Also wore No. 22 for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1990.
Dan Petry, California Angels pitcher (1988 to 1989)
Anyone else worth nominating?
2 thoughts on “No. 46: Juan Marichal (and John Roseboro)”