The award that bears the name of the first Dominican player to enter the Cooperstown Hall of Fame will annually recognize the best player in the Caribbean country in each Major League season
The Dominican talent of Big leagues will have an important new recognition for its work year after year, starting in 2021, with the creation of the Juan Marichal Award, which will reward the best Dominican player in each season of MLB, in the same way that he does Luis Aparicio Award for Venezuelans.
According to the joint statement issued by the Ministry of Sports of the Dominican Republic (MIDEREC), the Dominican Baseball Federation (FEDOBE) and the Dominican Republic Professional Baseball League (LIDOM), the award has the approval of the legendary Juan Marichal, the first Dominican in history to achieve immortality in Cooperstown.
“It is an honor to have this privilege and I am very grateful that this award bears my name. Count on me, but now I am in rehabilitation from an eye operation, so in November, God willing, I will be ready to travel wherever we have to go ”, were the words of Marichal at the time of learning about the initiative.
This first edition of the award will be announced on October 31, but from now on, it will be held every October 20 and the award will be awarded at the beginning of December of each year, according to the authorities, but the Organizing Committee it is still in the evaluation stage of the referred delivery date.
The award, which is also endorsed by the Dominican Republic Baseball Commissioner’s Office and of the Caribbean Professional Baseball Confederation (CPBC), will be granted through a vote carried out by the Association of Sports Chroniclers of Santo Domingo and will include Spanish-speaking journalists covering baseball from the United States.
During the presentation, the words of Vitelio Mejía, President of LIDOM, who indicated that the award has a double relevance in doing justice to a legend of Dominican baseball and in the same way, it does it for the player who, due to his merits, wins an award of that nature.
In the same way the Dominican Baseball Commissioner, Junior Noboa and the president of FEDOBE, Juan Nunez, they pointed to what it means to win an award of this nature and even more so when it bears the name of Juan Marichal.
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