His journey from a small city in Mexico to rousing success in Main League Baseball impressed generations of followers and created a seismic shift within the demographics of the Dodgers fan base.
His unorthodox pitching movement, distinct physique and seemingly mysterious aura left an indelible mark on individuals from all walks of life, whether or not it was Los Angeles’ Latino group grappling with the displacement created when the Dodgers constructed their stadium, Mexican immigrants and their households or artists impressed by his wizardry on the mound.
Dodgers legend Fernando Valenzuela died Tuesday at age 63. He’s survived by his spouse, Linda, 4 kids, seven grandchildren and prolonged household.
Valenzuela’s impression endured for therefore lengthy and so powerfully that the Dodgers retired his jersey quantity in 2023 regardless of a long-standing rule that the workforce solely did so for individuals who have been within the Baseball Corridor of Fame.
It was a becoming bookend to a public baseball life that had an unprecedented starting, a shocking and stirring stretch in 1981 that turned eternally generally known as “Fernandomania.”
And although the left-hander by no means fairly reached these heights in his enjoying profession once more, Valenzuela remained a beloved and enigmatic hero who was by no means removed from followers’ hearts, as evidenced by the preponderance of No. 34 Dodgers jerseys within the stands and ovations he would obtain at dwelling video games when he was proven on the scoreboard whereas working video games at Dodger Stadium as a part of the workforce’s Spanish-language broadcast workforce.
“On behalf of the Dodger organization, we profoundly mourn the passing of Fernando,” Dodgers workforce president and chief govt Stan Kasten mentioned in an announcement. “He is one of the most influential Dodgers ever and belongs on the Mount Rushmore of franchise heroes. He galvanized the fan base with the Fernandomania season of 1981 and has remained close to our hearts ever since, not only as a player but also as a broadcaster. He has left us all too soon. Our deepest condolences go out to his wife Linda and his family.”
Valenzuela’s relationship with the Dodgers included some troublesome stretches, with the star contesting his launch from the workforce and taking years to finally settle for an envoy position with the franchise.
How did the person who remained guarded within the highlight all his life forge such a detailed and enduring reference to Dodger followers?
“Fernando is the uncle who made good,” playwright Luis Alfaro mentioned throughout The Occasions’ award-winning “Fernandomania at 40” sequence in 2021. “He is the relative who is forever a superstar. He’s immortalized, he’s the María Félix of sports.”
For Valenzuela, it was a bond that was cemented early in his rookie season.
Throughout that heady 1981 season, Valenzuela used an assortment of pitches that included a screwball to develop into the primary, and to today solely, participant to win the Nationwide League Cy Younger and Rookie of the 12 months awards throughout the identical season. With a windup by which he would look skyward virtually as if he sought steerage from a better energy, he gained his first eight begins — 5 by shutout — stunning longtime baseball observers.
Beginning pitcher Fernando Valenzuela delivers in a recreation early in his profession, left, and towards the top of his profession with the Dodgers. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Los Angeles Occasions)
“It is the most puzzling, wonderful, rewarding thing I think we’ve seen in baseball in many, many years,” Vin Scully exclaimed on the air after the fifth of these shutouts, a 1-0 win over the Mets in New York, including: “And somehow this youngster from Mexico, with the pixie smile on his face, acts like he’s pitching batting practice.”
After a midseason gamers’ strike interrupted the common season, the Dodgers would go on to win the World Sequence, beating the New York Yankees in six video games. In the course of the workforce’s postseason run, Valenzuela was the successful pitcher in Sport 5 of the Nationwide League Championship Sequence, holding the Montreal Expos to 1 run in 8 ⅔ innings and serving to the Dodgers safe the pennant.
He began Sport 3 of the World Sequence, following two losses by the Dodgers in New York, and gutted out a complete-game, 5-4 victory regardless of throwing 147 pitches, giving up 9 hits and strolling seven. It was the primary of 4 consecutive victories by the Dodgers to clinch their fifth championship in franchise historical past.
The Dodgers, eager for a Mexican star to attach with the Latino inhabitants in L.A., had lastly discovered one in Valenzuela, whose impression would remodel what had been predominantly a white fan base.
“A shining light that illuminated baseball has gone out when Fernando Valenzuela passed away,” Jaime Jarrín, the Dodgers’ longtime Spanish-language announcer who retired in 2022, mentioned in an announcement. “I have lost a dear friend; a man of integrity; an exemplary father and husband who, without knowing it elevated me to an international pedestal.”
“Fernando was an outstanding ambassador for baseball,” Main League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred mentioned in an announcement. “He consistently supported the growth of the game through the World Baseball Classic and at MLB events across his home country. … Fernando will always remain a beloved figure in Dodger history and a special source of pride for the millions of Latino fans he inspired. We will honor Fernando’s memory during the 2024 World Series at Dodger Stadium.”
“To millions, Fernando Valenzuela was more than a baseball player. He was an icon that transcended the limits of hope and dreams,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass mentioned in an announcement. “He was the voice of a game that we hold close in our hearts. His charisma was palpable, and his excellence was undeniable.”
For Valenzuela, 1981 was a exceptional season, maybe surpassed solely by the occasions main as much as it.
The youngest of 12 kids, Fernando Valenzuela was born in Etchohuaquila, a small farming village within the state of Sonora, Mexico, on Nov. 1, 1960. His dad and mom, Avelino and Emergilda, and his six brothers and 5 sisters lived in a whitewashed adobe home with 5 rooms and no operating water in a group that in Valenzuela’s youth consisted of some dust roads and had a inhabitants of 140.
Along with serving to are inclined to the household’s crops, Valenzuela and his brothers performed baseball. Valenzuela stood out even at a younger age and by 1977, he was signed by Etchohuaquila’s native workforce, the Navojoa Mayos.
Baseball scout Mike Brito seems to be on as Fernando Valenzuela celebrates after the Dodgers gained the 1981 World Sequence in opposition to the NYew York Yankees at Yankee Stadium.
(Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Los Angeles Occasions)
“By that point, I told myself, ‘now it’s a career, it’s not for fun,’” Valenzuela instructed The Occasions in 2021.
Going through gamers a lot older than him, Valenzuela efficiently pitched for a number of groups earlier than transferring on to the Yucatan Leones of the Mexican League in 1979 by the age of 18.
By this level, he was on the radar of Dodgers scout Mike Brito. Himself a definite determine, along with his Panama hat, mustached grin and ubiquitous cigar, Brito first noticed Valenzuela when he was pitching for Guanajuato in 1978. The Dodgers scout was available to see a shortstop on the opposite workforce, however Valenzuela shortly acquired his consideration.
Brito continued to comply with Valenzuela’s profession and foyer the Dodgers to signal the left-hander. By July 1979, the Dodgers bought Valenzuela’s contract from the Leones for $120,000 — thought-about a considerable quantity on the time for a Mexican participant. Nevertheless it finally proved to be a groundbreaking transaction. Main league groups had largely ignored scouting in Mexico earlier than then. Previous to Valenzuela’s Dodgers debut in 1980, fewer than 40 gamers born in Mexico had appeared within the majors, in accordance with Baseball America. That quantity has since grown to just about 150.
After spending the remainder of the 1979 season with the Class Excessive-A Lodi Dodgers, beginning three video games and posting a 1.12 earned-run common, the group decided that Valenzuela wanted so as to add one other pitch to his arsenal to proceed to maneuver up. Brito urged he study a split-fingered fastball, however nobody within the Dodgers system threw one.
Then Brito remembered Bobby Castillo, a former Lincoln Excessive and L.A. Valley School star who had spent components of three seasons with the Dodgers, threw a screwball. Regardless of language limitations — Castillo didn’t converse Spanish and Valenuela didn’t converse English — Castillo taught Valenzuela the screwball within the Arizona Educational League.
Valenzuela caught on shortly.
“I’m not lying to you: Within a week, Fernando was throwing the screwball as good as Babo,” Brito instructed The Occasions in 2011, utilizing Castillo’s nickname.
With an expanded arsenal, Valenzuela thrived with the Dodgers’ Double-A affiliate in San Antonio in 1980. The left-hander gained 13 video games and tossed 11 full video games whereas placing out a Texas League-best 162 batters in 174 innings.
Valenzuela was referred to as up in September when rosters expanded and he appeared in his first recreation for the Dodgers on Sept. 15, 1980, when he pitched two innings in a 9-0 loss to the Braves in Atlanta. He allowed two unearned runs and recorded his first MLB strikeout, fanning Jerry Royster.
“The only Dodger performance worth noting was by pitcher Fernando Valenzuela, who made his major league debut,” The Occasions wrote after the sport.
Thrust right into a pennant race, Valenzuela appeared in 10 video games and gave up no earned runs in 17⅔ innings because the Dodgers cast a tie atop the NL West with the Houston Astros on the finish of the common season. Confronted with a one-game playoff at Dodger Stadium, supervisor Tommy Lasorda elected to begin Dave Goltz — a high-priced right-hander the workforce had signed earlier than the season however who had carried out poorly — over Valenzuela, then 19 years outdated, who had pitched two innings the day earlier than.
Goltz lasted three innings, giving up 4 runs in a 7-1 loss because the Dodgers’ season got here to an finish. Valenzuela, for his half, pitched two scoreless innings and gave up one hit.
It was a touch of issues to come back, however as soon as once more, a confluence of occasions put Valenzuela within the highlight.
Dodger pitcher Fernando Valenzuela races with Mike Scioscia of their first full exercise for the reason that strike on Aug. 1, 1981.
(Los Angeles Occasions)
Valenzuela was on the Dodgers roster popping out of spring coaching in 1981, firmly within the workforce’s beginning pitching rotation behind left-hander Jerry Reuss and right-hander Burt Hooton. The day earlier than the season opener in opposition to the Astros at Dodger Stadium, Reuss suffered a calf harm throughout a workforce exercise. Hooton and different beginning pitchers weren’t able to step in, permitting Valenzuela to develop into the primary rookie pitcher to begin on opening day in Dodgers historical past.
“Tommy liked to make jokes, so I said ‘hahaha,’” Valenzuela mentioned about being knowledgeable of the task. “And he said, ‘it’s not a joke, it’s serious.’ And that’s when I said, ‘yeah, why not?’”
Valenzuela scattered 5 hits, went 9 innings and defeated the Astros, 2-0, to kick off a exceptional show of pitching that captured the creativeness of baseball followers and shortly turned a supply of pleasure for Mexicans and Mexican People. He went the gap once more in his subsequent begin, a 7-1 victory over the Giants in San Francisco.
Then got here three extra shutouts — at San Diego, at Houston and at dwelling in opposition to the Giants — earlier than he pitched one other full recreation and beat the Expos 6-1. Then one other shutout at New York in opposition to the Mets earlier than a 3-2 win at dwelling in opposition to the Expos to cap off an 8-0 begin that featured a 0.50 ERA.
By this level, the excitement and a spotlight surrounding the portly left-hander had reached a fever pitch, and the impression was as huge because it was sudden.
“To the point that, in those years, the radio station ratings were usually 3.4,” Jarrín mentioned in 2021. “We were happy with 3.4. But at KTNQ, we’d get a rating of 8.6. Never had a radio station done that before. It was because of Fernando, Fernandomania and the Dodgers.”
L.A.’s Mexican group started to flock to Dodger Stadium throughout his begins. The Dodgers, who had develop into the primary franchise to attract 3 million followers in 1978, averaged 48,430 followers throughout Valenzuela’s dwelling begins and 42,523 general throughout the strike-interrupted 1981 season — the very best common attendance in Dodger Stadium historical past to that time.
Youngsters at Aldama Elementary Faculty in Highland Park spell out Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela’s identify.
(Jose Galvez / Los Angeles Occasions)
“It was like an East L.A. backyard party,” boxing historian and creator Gene Aguilera instructed The Occasions in 2021.“He was like a family member you would visit every four days at Dodger Stadium.”
The electrical environment was additionally shocking contemplating the fraught historical past at Chavez Ravine, when Latino households have been uprooted from neighborhoods there all through the 1950’s to finally clear the best way for the development of Dodger Stadium. L.A.’s Latino group by no means forgot that chapter within the metropolis’s historical past, however Valenzuela’s meteoric rise and everyman attraction proved onerous to withstand.
“Fernando was really key for bringing the hearts and minds of la raza to the stadium,” Richard Montoya, a filmmaker and playwright who staged a present concerning the historical past of Chavez Ravine, instructed The Occasions in 2021.
Added Richard Santillán, a professor emeritus and longtime season-ticket holder: “People laughed, my father laughed. My father would say he looks just like a typical mexicano. He was pudgy … he was what they’d call gordito.”
Although a 50-day strike worn out two months of the 1981 season, Valenzuela continued to attain milestones by the remainder of the 12 months — the second rookie pitcher to begin an All-Star Sport, the primary rookie to guide the NL in strikeouts, a World Sequence championship, a Cy Younger Award, a Silver Slugger Award, to call a couple of.
Valenzuela remained a constant top-line beginning pitcher over the following 4 seasons, averaging almost 16 wins. Earlier than the 1983 season, Valenzuela additionally turned the primary participant to win a $1-million wage in arbitration — along with his representatives utilizing Valenzuela’s huge drawing energy as a part of their argument.
The 12 months 1986 proved to be fruitful on a number of fronts for Valenzuela. In February, the Dodgers signed the left-hander to a three-year contract price $5.5 million, the biggest for an MLB pitcher on the time. In July, he tied a document by placing out 5 consecutive batters within the All-Star Sport — a mark set in 1934 by Carl Hubbell, himself a screwball pitcher.
Fernando Valenzuela indicators autographs for followers at Dodger Stadium.
(Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Los Angeles Occasions)
Regardless of the Dodgers ending 73-89, Valenzuela gained 21 video games to guide the NL and pitched 20 full video games to guide all of baseball — numbers unprecedented in MLB right now.
By this level, Valenzuela was firmly a cult hero amongst Mexicans and Mexican People. Latino artists wrote songs in his honor and painted murals of Valenzuela, and he was referenced within the 1987 comedic movie “Born in East L.A.” He was mobbed each time he made private appearances in East Los Angeles at parks and faculties.
By means of his first six seasons, Valenzuela gained 97 video games, threw 84 full video games and posted a 2.97 ERA whereas by no means touchdown on the injured record. However regardless of being solely 25 years outdated on the finish of the 1986 season, he didn’t preserve that kind for the remainder of his profession as accidents and put on and tear from overuse set in.
Valenzuela gained 29 video games throughout the subsequent three seasons and was left off the postseason roster in 1988 because the Dodgers stormed to a different World Sequence title.
In what turned out to be his ultimate season with the Dodgers, Valenzuela supplied followers one final thrill on June 29, 1990. Earlier within the day, Dave Stewart — Valenzuela’s former teammate on the 1981 championship workforce — threw a no-hitter for the Oakland Athletics in Toronto. Watching on tv within the clubhouse earlier than his begin at Dodger Stadium, Valenzuela turned to some teammates and mentioned, “That’s great, now maybe we’ll see another no-hitter.”
And Valenzuela delivered, beating the Cardinals 6-0 to mark the primary time in trendy baseball historical past that two no-hitters have been thrown on the identical day. The ultimate two outs got here when he induced Pedro Guerrero, one other former teammate on the 1981 workforce, to floor right into a double play.
He completed the 1990 season 13-13 with a 4.59 ERA — his ultimate win with the Dodgers approaching Sept. 14 at Cincinnati, a 155-pitch full recreation. The tip of his tenure with the Dodgers got here bitterly and abruptly the next March, when the workforce launched him on the eve of the 1991 season — on the day his $2.55-million contract would have develop into assured.
Earlier in spring coaching, the Dodgers had performed a pair of exhibition video games in Monterrey, Mexico — offering the 30-year-old Valenzuela a chance to pitch in his dwelling nation for the primary time in his MLB profession. Even 10 years faraway from the preliminary wave of Fernandomania, Valenzuela remained the star attraction.
Fernando Valenzuela delivers throughout a recreation for the Angels in 1991.
(Stephen Dunn / Getty Photos)
“We knew Fernando’s importance to his country before we came down here, but to see it, to feel, to hear it … it was an extraordinary moment,” former Dodgers proprietor Peter O’Malley mentioned on the time.
Nonetheless, citing his ineffectiveness throughout spring coaching and his 23-26 document the earlier two seasons, the Dodgers elected to maneuver on, which upset and shocked Latino communities throughout the Southland.
“He gave them everything he had,” one fan, Raul Montesinos, instructed The Occasions. “It’s like a worker when he’s all used up and the boss gets rid of him because he’s of no use anymore.”
Valenzuela vowed to proceed pitching, signing with the Angels in Might 1991 however lasting solely two begins earlier than being launched later that season. After a 12 months pitching within the Mexican league, Valenzuela returned to the majors in 1993 and pitched for the Baltimore Orioles, Philadelphia Phillies, San Diego Padres and St. Louis Cardinals over the following 5 seasons. His finest marketing campaign was in 1996, when he gained 13 video games for a workforce that gained the Nationwide League West division.
After being traded to the Cardinals in June 1997 after which launched by them a month later, he by no means pitched within the majors once more. Valenzuela was invited to spring coaching by the Dodgers in 1999, a proposal he declined. Over 17 seasons in MLB, 11 with the Dodgers, Valenzuela gained 173 video games. (He ranks ninth on the Dodgers’ profession wins record with 141.)
By 2003, the connection between Valenzuela and the Dodgers thawed sufficient that he joined the workforce’s Spanish-language broadcast workforce, serving to name video games with Pepe Yñiguez and Jarrín, the person who’d been by his aspect throughout the heady days of Fernandomania. Valenzuela was a part of the printed workforce by this season earlier than stepping away from the sales space in September to give attention to his well being, the Dodgers mentioned on the time.
Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela at Dodger Stadium on March 24, 2011.
(Al Seib / Los Angeles Occasions)
The printed sales space was an avenue that allowed Valenzuela to take care of a excessive — however guarded — profile, although he remained seen in different methods. He helped coach the Mexican nationwide workforce within the World Baseball Basic 4 occasions between 2006 and 2017; he turned a U.S. citizen in July 2015, going by the naturalization ceremony on the L.A. Conference Middle, about three and a half miles from Dodger Stadium; he headed an possession group that bought the Quintana Roo Tigres, a Mexican League workforce positioned in Cancun, in 2017; and in 2019, the Mexican League retired his No. 34 jersey.
That quantity had by no means been worn by any Dodger for the reason that workforce launched him in 1991, an unofficial acknowledgment of his impact on the franchise. However the Dodgers steadfastly stood by their coverage of retiring solely the numbers of gamers who have been already within the Baseball Corridor of Fame (although Jim Gilliam’s quantity was retired within the wake of his dying in October 1978).
And Valenzuela, regardless of his spectacular run early in his profession, didn’t garner sufficient assist for enshrinement (75% of the vote from members of the Baseball Writers Assn. of America is required). In his first 12 months on the poll in 2003, he netted 6.2% of the vote, surpassing the 5% threshold wanted to remain on the poll for one more 12 months. The quantity dropped to three.8% in 2004 and he fell off the poll in subsequent years.
However Valenzuela’s enduring legacy, with the Dodgers and its followers, and the game as an entire, supplied a chance to retire his quantity on Aug. 11, 2023, in a pregame ceremony at Dodger Stadium.
“It never crossed my mind that this would ever happen,” Valenzuela mentioned earlier than the ceremony. “Like being in the World Series my rookie year, I never thought that would happen. I didn’t think this would happen, because first of all you have to be in Cooperstown. It really caught me by surprise. It’s hard to put into words what this means.”
