Author John Rosengren sent this out to the members of the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America. I’m guessing he’d have no problem of me presenting it to you loyal readers as well.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the infamous brawl between Juan Marichal and John Roseboro. You no doubt have seen the photographs — some of you may even remember the game when it occurred on August 22, 1965 — showing Marichal clubbing Roseboro in the head with his bat. But there was so much more to the fight than that isolated moment.
Not only did you have the Dodgers and Giants locked in a tight pennant race late in the summer, Marichal was a Dominican anxious about his family’s safety during the civil war back home; Roseboro was a black man living in South Central L.A. shaken by the Watts riots a week earlier. That Sunday afternoon in August 1965 the national pastime reflected the tensions in society and nearly sullied the two men forever. Yet Marichal and Roseboro were able to rise above the moment, eventually reconciling and becoming friends.
There’s more to the story. It took me a full book to tell. The Fight of Their Lives: How Juan Marichal And John Roseboro Turned Baseball’s Ugliest Brawl Into A Story Of Forgiveness And Redemption
came out last year in hardcover and was released this spring in paperback.
is available on Amazon.com,
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