SAN FRANCISCO — On a wind-whipped morning outside the San Francisco Giants’ home ballpark last week, Juan Marichal stood in the shadow of the bronze statue immortalizing his high-kicking likeness and asked an unexpected question.
Have you ever seen “San Andreas”?
Smiling wryly, the Dominican Dandy, who turns 87 next month, explained that he finds his cameo in the disaster movie starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson unsettling. There’s a scene in which a massive California earthquake upends the Juan Marichal statue, sending it toppling into a tsunami of rubble and destruction.
When the movie came out in 2015, he got a lot of calls and texts. So whenever Marichal visits Oracle Park, like this morning, the Hall of Famer finds it reassuring to behold the 9-foot version of his younger self. On this day, it is shining beneath a soft September sun unscathed.
“I love that statue,’’ Marichal said, looking at himself delivering a fastball in his prime. “That artist who did it, did it perfect.”
I’m writing about the Giants statues and Juan Marichal said to check out what happens to his in ‘San Andreas’ pic.twitter.com/zQrdZYHgTl
— Daniel Brown (@BrownieAthletic) September 24, 2024
The greatest pitcher in San Francisco history always gets nostalgic looking at this sculpture, but there’s an extra dose of wistfulness today. More than once, Marichal’s eyes redden. His voice, not exactly booming in the first place, sometimes drifts lightly into the breeze.
A day earlier, he eulogized Orlando Cepeda during a pregame ceremony honoring the charismatic Giants power hitter who died on June 28.
Not long before that, Marichal was here to honor Willie Mays, who died June 18. His other teammates from a glorious age of Giants baseball died years ago: Willie McCovey passed in 2010 and Gaylord Perry in 2022.
Suddenly, Marichal is the last statue standing, the sole survivor of the Giants’ bronze age.
Together, those five statues tell the story of a profound era of San Francisco history, a tale of men whose play — and grace and charisma — left a legacy that Giants fans still feel today.
Their likenesses are scattered around various entrances at Oracle Park, in part because the Giants want Mays, McCovey, Marichal, Perry and Cepeda to serve as goodwill ambassadors in perpetuity.
For much of the park’s existence, visitors could check out the statues outside the gates while the flesh-and-blood versions were somewhere inside spinning yarns about a bygone age. But that era is slipping away.
Marichal, at the invitation of The Athletic, agreed to take a tour of the park and imbue the sculpted metal with life again. We stopped at the base of each player’s likeness, where Marichal, the torch bearer for his generation, sometimes rested a caring hand on the statue as if greeting an old friend.
Willie Mays: ‘Like a dream’
When this park opened, in 2000, The Say Hey Kid statue stood alone as the first-born child of sculptor William Frederick Behrends. He added another bronze member of the Giants family every few years.
Located near the main entrance, the Mays statue serves as a gateway to Giants baseball. The artwork depicts Mays’ majestic right-handed swing at the peak of his follow-through.
“It was how he played, with style,’’ Marichal said, gazing up. “He was the greatest player ever. It was so beautiful. He ran beautifully. He fielded the ball beautifully.”
Marichal points out something else. Mays’ eyes seem fixed on a distant horizon. It’s an expression Marichal remembers well.
“It looks like he hit a ball over the fence,’’ he said. “Because he’s looking real far away.”
It’s a testament to artists — Behrends with his chisel, Mays with his bat — that this sculpture can make Marichal feel like a kid again. At this stop, the pitcher tears up a few times talking about how Willie Mays fueled his improbable big-league aspirations.
“My career, I tell people, was like a dream,’’ he said. “Right from the beginning, I wanted to be a baseball player. And sometimes I would leave for school – and I never got there. I stopped on my way and started playing baseball with all the kids.
“When my mother found out, she kept saying, ‘Son, you have to study. You have to be prepared for the future.’ And I’ll be honest, I said, ‘I’m going to be a baseball player.’’’
Having grown up in a tiny, impoverished Dominican town, Marichal endured a challenging ride through the minor leagues before being summoned to the majors on July 19, 1960.
“And who was going to be one of my teammates? Willie Mays. Don’t you think that’s a dream?” Marichal said. “Playing with the best player ever right behind me? Oh, my God.”
Marichal threw a one-hit shutout in that big-league debut, with 12 strikeouts.
It is a measure of his career that there was an even better performance to come, and for that, he owes more gratitude to Mays.
“I don’t know if you remember that 16-inning game,” Marichal said.
He means the greatest game ever pitched. In a duel at Candlestick Park on July 2, 1963, the up-and-coming Marichal and a 13-time, 20-game winner each took a scoreless game into the 16th. As extra innings rolled on, Marichal repeatedly rebelled against manager Alvin Dark’s attempts to send in a reliever.
“I said, ‘Mr. Dark. Do you see that man on the mound?’ I was pointing to Warren Spahn,’’ Marichal said, recalling a conversation after the top of the 14th. “That man is 42 years old. I’m only 25. As long as that man stays on the mound, nobody is going to take me out of this game.’
“Oh, my God, he got mad. But (Dark) walked away. I got a chance to stay one more inning.”
It wound up being two more innings, and after the top of the 16th, Marichal waited along the foul lines for Mays to come in from the outfield. The pitcher admitted to the outfielder he was out of gas after 227 pitches and begged for a merciful ending.
“So he tapped my back three times and said, ‘Don’t worry. I’m going to win this game for you.’’’ Marichal recalled.
With one out in the bottom of the 16th, Mays hit a home run to left for a 1-0 victory.
Such was life around the most ebullient player the game has ever known.
“Everybody loved him,’’ Marichal said. “You wanted to be around him, because everywhere you went, they gave him everything free. And when you went with him, you’d get something too.”
Orlando Cepeda: ‘We both started to cry’
During this tour, there is no formal interview, no probing questions. The ask of Marichal is for him to gaze upon each statue and then share whatever memories wash over him in the moment.
In the case of Cepeda, he stayed quiet longer than usual.
“My brother,’’ Marichal finally said.
Then he fell silent again.
“The Baby Bull,” as Cepeda was known, is why Marichal is here. The pitcher splits his time between a home in Miami and another in the Dominican. But he made this trip to San Francisco on Sept. 15 because the Giants held a celebration of life for Cepeda, with an emphasis on celebration. There was dancing and Latin jazz on the field as the video scoreboard scrolled through photos of Cepeda looking like the life of every party.
To Marichal, it was perfect. This was the soundtrack of their time together, back when Cepeda would pack a stack of vinyl for Giants road trips. Alas, with no iPod in the 1960s, the native of Puerto Rico lugged around a record player.
“The rookie players had to carry that thing for him,’’ Marichal said with a laugh. “His records, the music equipment, everything. Orlando loved music so much.
“And let me tell you, I think he knew every musician in this country. Everywhere we went, he brought somebody to the game. He’d leave them passes.”
When Cepeda debuted with the Giants in 1958, he was the second black Puerto Rican to play in the majors, after Roberto Clemente. As a pioneering player, he helped pave the way for players like Marichal. At one point, the 1960s Giants had seven Latin-born players, an outlier during that era.
“I remember when I arrived at the clubhouse in 1960, Felipe Alou and Orlando gave me a welcome to the team,’’ Marichal said. “And right from the beginning, we started a relationship that never ended.”
Though their friendship endured, their time as teammates was too short. The Giants traded Cepeda to the Cardinals on May 8, 1966.
“Wanna know the whole story about that?” Marichal said. “There were rumors that he would be traded. We were playing in St. Louis, and he went 2-for-4. And after the game — which we won — we started walking together to the clubhouse. And I said to him, ‘There’s no way. No way they’re going to trade you.’’’
Then they stepped inside the Giants clubhouse.
“There was a group of writers and television reporters because they’d just announced his trade for Ray Sadecki,’’ Marichal said. “We both started to cry. He didn’t want to leave this city. Orlando loved San Francisco.”
So it means something extra to Marichal that Cepeda has a permanent home at the Giants ballpark. Statues can’t be traded.
Gaylord Perry: Man on the moon
The first thing Marichal said upon arriving at this stop was to say, “What a pitcher.”
It would be reasonable if the second thing he did was inspect Perry’s statue for a little extra bronze polish hidden under the bill of the cap. After all, Perry was so famous for loading up the baseball that a reporter once tried to crack the case by interrogating Marichal in 1974.
“This writer asked me questions about Gaylord. He asked me about the spitball,’’ the pitcher said. “I said, ‘No, Gaylord doesn’t do that.’”
Roughly a month later, Perry released a book. It was called, “Me and the Spitter: An Autobiographical Confession.”
“I said, ‘Hey, Gaylord, you make a liar out of me!’’’ Marichal said with a laugh.
Such was the nature of their surprisingly deep friendship. The reserved kid from the Dominican Republic and the wisecracking son of North Carolina farmers hit it off from the start.
During their time as Giants teammates, from 1962 to 1971, they developed a friendly rivalry on the mound — and in infield drills.
“When the team was having batting practice, we used to go to second base and chase ground balls. For the whole year, we’d have a bet. Whenever you missed a ball, it was a point,’’ Marichal said. “So we collect after the season, but most of the time we end up tied.”
Marichal said those drills helped keep them in shape, and that’s hard to argue. Over their careers, Perry threw 303 complete games and Marichal had 244.
“We competed against each other, but there was no jealousy or whatever,’’ Marichal said. “We just did what you were supposed to do.”
Though Marichal was evasive years ago about the spitball question, he is here now to emphatically confirm what sounds like an urban legend.
As the story goes, Giants manager Alvin Dark watched Perry’s lousy batting practice swing and declared that man would walk on the moon before Gaylord hit a home run.
On July 20, 1969, astronaut Neil Armstrong took one small step for man, and soon after Perry launched a solo shot to left-center field off the Dodgers’ Claude Osteen for the first homer of his career.
“That’s a true story! People don’t believe me,’’ Marichal said. “Can you believe Gaylord hit a home run the same day? Unbelievable.”
Willie McCovey: ‘Stretch’ of the imagination
The McCovey statue resides beyond the right-field fence and across the cove that bears his name. Fittingly, only McCovey could have ever dreamed of hitting one to this distant territory.
“He hit balls so far — with no steroids,’’ Marichal cracked.
McCovey’s likeness captures this power by portraying his twisting torso uncoiling from a mammoth long ball. Seeing this swing again, Marichal recalls one of the longest balls “Stretch” ever hit, even if it didn’t count.
In the ninth inning of his duel with Spahn, the 6-foot-4, 198-pound left-handed batter blasted a ball down the right-field line at Candlestick Park.
“It was so high it went over the foul pole,’’ Marichal said. “It was fair when it left the ballpark, but the ball kept curving and the umpire called it foul. And that’s why the game went 16 innings.”
A modern replay review might have saved Marichal a lot of work — but robbed him of his masterpiece.
Improbably, McCovey’s glove — not his bat — played a role in the second-best game Marichal ever pitched, his lone no-hitter, against the Houston Colt .45s. This was during the early ’60s, when the Giants struggled to find playing time for both McCovey and Cepeda.
Both were natural first basemen. Both were unnatural outfielders.
“We tried them both, and neither one could play that position,’’ Marichal chuckled.
The pitcher recalled an earlier game against Cincinnati, where a slope served as a warning track near the base of the outfield fence at Crosley Field.
“So any time a ball was hit to the fence, (the outfielder) had to climb that little hill,’’ Marichal explained. “And Orlando turned to climb the little hill, and the ball hit him in the back.
“I think it was Sam Jones pitching that day, and he said to the manager, ‘Take that man outta there before he gets killed!’’’
But McCovey came through with the glove when it mattered as Marichal held Houston hitless into the seventh inning on June 15, 1963. With one out and Bob Aspromonte on first after a walk, Carl Warwick smashed a line drive to left.
“Willie was playing left field, and he doesn’t know how to play the position so he was playing very close to the fence,’’ Marichal recalled. “He was so tall. The only thing he have to do is lift his arm and he caught the ball. A couple could have been a home run. He saved it.”
It was the first no-hitter by a Giants pitcher since Carl Hubbell in 1929.
McCovey, of course, is better known for his 521 career home runs. That’s why Marichal delights that the body of water shimmering under the late-morning sun serves as a proper tribute.
“McCovey Cove,’’ Marichal said. “I love when I see those guys on the boats chasing to get the ball on the water. And the dogs! Oh, my. Wonderful.”
Juan Marichal: What a kick
The statue depicts the high leg kick of course, there was no other option. His left leg is up at a 90-degree angle, evoking the classic Roger Angell line about the pitcher looking like “some enormous and highly dangerous farm implement.”
It’s such a hypnotic sight that it takes a while to notice the fastball grip tucked into his right hand and shielded from view by his back leg.
Hitters had the same problem. Marichal delighted in recalling facing Mickey Mantle twice in Game 4 of the 1962 World Series and striking him out both times. The pitcher recalled Mantle quoted in a New York newspaper saying: “The first thing you see is his leg go up, then his glove and the next thing you see is the baseball — and then it’s too late.’’’
The farm implement laughed.
“That made me feel so good,’’ Marichal said. “Coming from Mickey Mantle? Oh, my God!”
Most casual fans could identify the distinctive silhouette of this statue. But once upon a time, it might have depicted a sidewinder.
As an 8-year-old shortstop, Marichal saw Bombo Ramos, a pitcher for the Dominican national team, baffling batters with a sidearm delivery. “I fell in love with his style,’’ he said.
Even after the Giants signed him, Marichal emulated Ramos’ arm angle until late in his 1959 season at Class-A Springfield, Mass.
That’s when manager Andy Gilbert asked him why he threw sidearm.
“Because that’s how I learned,’’ Marichal told him.
“Do you want to learn how to throw again?” Gilbert replied.
It took some persuading, but Gilbert told Marichal that throwing overhand would make him tougher against left-handed hitters. Marichal didn’t know the mechanics of throwing overhand, he said they didn’t even use the word “mechanics” back then. So in his trial-and-error experimentation, “I got to kick my leg. And that style started on that day.”
It was such a signature move that people passing by didn’t even notice the version of Marichal with both feet planted on the ground. Never mind that he was right in front of his statue or wearing a Giants cap and a warmup jacket that said “Gigantes.”
He wishes, on this day, that he had company.
“I was thinking while I was at the McCovey statue: It could have been nice if we had the five Hall of Famers here,’’ Marichal said. “That could have been the story. The five.”
Alas, an epic era of Giants history is down to one.
Tears welled in his eyes as he reflected on his preposterous journey into this bronze brotherhood. Marichal grew up in a wood-framed house with a thatched roof consisting of banana leaves. Water seeped in during the rainy season. His first field was a Dominican farm, where he fashioned his own baseball equipment with bats made from the branches of the wassam tree and gloves cut from canvas tarps.
Now he walks along the gleaming statues, Mays, McCovey, Cepeda, Perry … and the boy who dreamed.
“I get goosebumps,’’ Marichal said. “People tell me, ‘Oh, I went and took a picture of your statue.’ It makes me feel good that people come and that after every game, fans come and take a picture.
“Every day I come here, I thank God for who I am today. I tell people, ‘If you went to my hometown and saw where I grew up, you wouldn’t believe that I’m a Hall of Famer.’ You wouldn’t believe that somebody from there could walk that road and climb to this point.”
This quintet of statues will have company someday. Maybe a Barry Bonds here, maybe a Buster Posey there.
Until then, these five players serve as the pillars of Giants baseball. They are bronze statues. They are the gold standard.
(Photo illustration by Eamonn Dalton. Photos via Daniel Brown, Juan Marichal Jr. Additional photography: Louis Reqeuna / MLB via Getty Images, Los Angeles Examiner, USC Libraries, Corbis via Getty Images and Bettman/Getty Images)
