El Toro.
That was the nickname followers bestowed upon Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela early in his profession. Bulls are an emblem of virility and manhood in Hispanic tradition, and the Bull — thick-built, hard-charging, but swish in his assault — manifested that fearsome animal via most of his profession with the Blue Crew.
Many writers — together with myself — have chronicled the southpaw’s significance to Latinos in Southern California and past. How, for one magnificent season in 1981, a Mexican immigrant electrified a metropolis that had lengthy handled its Mexican residents as little higher than the assistance, profitable the Cy Younger and Rookie of the Yr whereas propelling the group to its first World Sequence win in 16 years.
How he confirmed Main League Baseball that Latinos might be superstars as an alternative of simply fiery-tempered underachievers. How he impressed Latinos to root for a franchise whose authentic sin was constructing a ballpark on the positioning of barrios that town had demolished within the title of progress.
As a substitute, I thought of El Toro.
Our love for bulls is conditional. They’re revered as a result of they battle to an inevitable defeat. Bulls get flipped or lassoed or gored — sacrificed for public spectacle, then discarded once they can’t compete anymore. In the event that they’re fortunate, their heads get stuffed and mounted.
Sadly, that was the arc of Valenzuela’s profession.
Dodgers supervisor Tommy Lasorda performed him till his once-powerful left arm hung like a torn rubber band — yet one more overworked, underappreciated Mexican in Los Angeles. The group thanked El Toro for his sacrifice by releasing him earlier than the beginning of the 1991 season. For the final seven years of his huge league run, the hero was diminished to a journeyman who bounced round 5 groups, a sideshow signed principally to pack the stands with still-adoring followers who fortunately shouted out his nickname — ¡Toro!
Valenzuela visits with youngsters throughout a Dodgers clinic in East Los Angeles in 1981.
(Rick Meyer / Los Angeles Instances)
The Dodgers introduced Valenzuela again in 2003 as a coloration commentator for its Spanish language broadcasts however by no means leaned on his baseball information to teach the following technology of gamers. They brandished him like a trophy to show how a lot they liked their Latino fan base, a reminder of what as soon as was, whilst many questioned what might have been.
His profession numbers — 173 wins, 153 losses, a 3.54 earned run common and a wins above alternative (WAR) worth of 37.4 — are good however not precisely Corridor of Fame-worthy. The Dodgers didn’t even trouble to retire his jersey quantity, 34, till final yr.
However, many Dodgers followers have argued that Valenzuela deserves a spot within the Corridor due to his cultural impression.
I wasn’t certainly one of them.
I assumed that sort of reasoning was too transactional, too centered on how a lot cash Main League Baseball makes off Latino gamers and followers. Apart from, the Corridor of Fame is meant to signify the very best of the very best, not gamers who excelled for a number of seasons.
However as I witness the outpouring of affection and grief since Valenzuela left us for the Nice Ballpark within the Sky, I’ve modified my thoughts.
In a sport now diminished to algorithms and pitching clocks, Valenzuela represents greater than a group or a profession. He was the magic of baseball at its greatest.
Baseball, greater than some other sport, sees gamers emerge each technology or so who essentially change not simply the sport, however the creativeness. They personify intangibles that sabermetrics can by no means quantify and that followers yearn to come across: Hope. Ardour. Pleasure. Brilliance.
Babe Ruth was one such participant. Jackie Robinson, after all. Ichiro Suzuki. Shohei Ohtani.
So was Fernando Valenzuela.
What involves thoughts for individuals — even those that weren’t alive when Valenzuela retired for good in 1997 — isn’t the San Diego Padre or St. Louis Cardinal. They don’t even actually consider the Dodger. They give thought to Fernandomania. Few can inform you a selected play he was concerned in, or a recreation apart from his 1990 no-hitter. They consider the mythic Valenzuela of 1981, the shy, portly pitcher with the unorthodox supply who conquered all by giving his all.
The what-could’ve-been shrinks within the shadow of what was: an encounter with the divine. Regardless of how fleeting the second, it adjustments everybody fortunate sufficient to witness him, whether or not in actual life or on TV or in on-line clips years later and even only a image of him on the mound. His magical yr made our lives higher, and challenges us to be higher.
He could also be gone, however his spirit by no means might be.
I by no means met him, and I by no means wanted to. They at all times say to by no means meet your heroes, in spite of everything. Apart from, El Toro will ceaselessly reside in my thoughts, his eyes trying as much as the heavens as he mowed down opponents like a bull within the streets of Pamplona.
Might Fernando Valenzuela be part of baseball’s different immortals in Cooperstown.
