FERNANDO VALENZUELA
The Life and Legacy of a Dodgers Legend
FRONT COVER: The look skyward, the awkward style, the imagination of what’s coming next. That’s what Fernando Valenzuela looked like pitching for the Dodgers. His pitching delivery will be forever remembered, but not as much as the man who put it in motion. This moment came on April 7, 1986. LOS ANGELES TIMES
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All Rights Reserved • ISBN: 978-1-63846-145-6
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This book is an unofficial account of Fernando Valenzuela’s life and career by the Los Angeles Times, and is not endorsed by Major League Baseball or the Los Angeles Dodgers.
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Fernandomania @ 40 is an award-winning documentary series produced by the Los Angeles Times that examines star pitcher Fernando Valenzuela’s impact on the Dodgers, Major League Baseball and the Latino community in Los Angeles. Watch the entire series at latimes.com/fernandomania. LOS ANGELES TIMES
Fernando Valenzuela was the man who connected L.A. to the Dodgers
BY BILL PLASCHKE • OCT. 22, 2024
Fernando Valenzuela literally roped me into his life.
It was in the spring of 1989, my first full year covering the Dodgers for The Times, and I was still in awe of this legend that I had not yet met.
Valenzuela sensed this, and one day I was carefully navigating around his locker when I felt a rope fasten around my foot. He had corralled me with his trademark toy lasso. He didn’t say anything, he just smiled and tugged me a few feet before I hopped out of the rope and he silently walked to the field. We didn’t speak that day, but we didn’t need to speak, he had made his message clear. I was welcomed here.
It was with the same sense of innocent playfulness and inclusiveness that he embraced all of Los Angeles, forging a connection between a city and its baseball team that remains unmatched in professional sports.
Fernando Valenzuela roped us all in, leaving a legacy far greater than a manic screwball and a majestic mania.
Valenzuela, who died on Oct. 22 at age 63, didn’t just change the face of a baseball team, he altered the geography of a city.
Valenzuela put “Los Angeles” in front of “Dodgers.”
He welcomed the many folks that had long
felt alienated by the Dodgers’ land-grabbing arrival in 1958. He built a bridge between Chavez Ravine and the wary communities sprawling out around it. He joined east with west. He spread blue into neighborhoods that previously looked at his team and only saw red.
He made the Dodgers inclusive. He made them lovable. He made them ours.
Today his influence can be seen from the moment one enters Dodger Stadium during a game, any game. The place looks like him. The place feels like him. The place is him. With a large Latino population in the stands, the place teems with a sense of breathtaking diversity and wondrous community wrought by him.
His influence is so strong, it is literally stitched across fans’ backs. Valenzuela broke no lifetime pitching records, his career is more Ken Holtzman than Sandy Koufax, yet throughout the Southland the majority of souvenir Dodger jerseys still bear his name.
In fact, he hadn’t thrown a pitch in 27 years, yet this summer at Dodger Stadium his jersey was still seen in the stands more often as the one bearing the name of Shohei Ohtani.
And just listen to the cheers. The ovation given Valenzuela during every in-game introduction or video board sighting is traditionally louder for him than any other former
or current Dodgers. He has not thrown a pitch in 27 years yet it’s like he just tossed a complete game yesterday.
He’s the most popular Los Angeles Dodger, ever.
He’s the most impactful Los Angeles Dodger, ever.
All this, from the most humble beginnings of any Los Angeles Dodger, ever.
“That’s what’s so beautiful about Fernando,” former pitching coach Ron Perranoski once said. “Things like him just don’t happen.”
Flashback to Fernandomania, and what was that like? Imagine this summer with Ohtani, only double the amazement and triple the excitement.
You know the story. Doesn’t every Dodger fan know the story? Valenzuela came from the tiny Mexican village named Etchohuaquila, parents were farmers, one of 12 children, slept in a bed with five brothers, quit school in the sixth grade, taught himself to throw off one of the town’s only pitching mounds, the stuff of legend that is still beyond belief.
In 1978 a Dodger scout named Mike Brito was sent to the Mexican town of Silao to see a flashy young shortstop. When he arrived there were no vacant hotel rooms, but instead of leaving, he slept on four chairs at a bus station.
OPPOSITE: Conventional wisdom would tell you Fernando Valenzuela was waving to the crowd after a stellar pitching performance on this July evening in 1984. But, no. He was motioning to his fans after hitting one of his three home runs that year. He finished his career with 10 home runs in 17 seasons in the majors.
MICHAEL EDWARDS / LOS ANGELES TIMES
The next day he attended the game involving the shortstop and, while doing so, he noticed a 17-year-old pitcher with a weird delivery and a dozen strikeouts. He gave the anonymous kid’s name to his bosses and, a year later, the Dodgers signed Valenzuela.
And to think, his story gets even better.
As a 20-year-old rookie in 1981, he won his first eight starts with an ERA of 0.50, seven complete games, five shutouts, a record-setting debut that even left the great Vin Scully awestruck.
After watching him swat an RBI single
during his fifth win, Scully famously intoned, “I swear Fernando, you are too much in any language.”
After Valenzuela’s seventh victory he was asked if he could win every game he pitched.
“That would be very difficult,” he said through Jaime Jarrín, the Dodgers legendary broadcaster and Valenzuela’s interpreter. “But not impossible.”
The incredible start led to incredible Dodger Stadium crowds and finished in a World Series championship. Valenzuela became the first player to win Cy Young and
rookie of the year awards. He was already the most celebrated Dodger before his 21st birthday, and he rode this wave of adulation for 11 years, capped by a 1990 no-hitter after which Scully urged Dodger fans, “If you have a sombrero, throw it to the sky!”
Several months later, Valenzuela’s world came crashing down. He was released by the Dodgers in the spring of 1991. By then his arm had been used so frequently it lost its magic. He threw 107 complete games in those 11 years. Compare that to Clayton Kershaw, who has thrown just 25 complete games in 17 seasons.
Valenzuela was deeply bitter about it all, and he spent the next several years nursing that grudge. He bounced around between five other teams before retiring after the 1997 season, after which he initially refused to return to the Dodgers in any capacity.
He finally joined their broadcast team in 2003, marking the beginning of the last phase of his Dodger career, two decades spent hanging out at the stadium with all the other media types in his usual understated manner.
He remained so unaffected by fame, he would eat his pregame dinner in the press box dining room in full view of anybody who wanted to sit down and chat. After games he would then wait in the dining room for traffic to clear, always available and approachable. He didn’t say much. He didn’t reveal much. He never talked about how much it
ABOVE: Despite being private about his personal life, Fernando Valenzuela was always arms open about his life as a Dodger. He would sign bats, balls and any other piece of memorabilia as evidenced by this 1984 trip to the Serra Medical Clinic in Sun Valley.
BRIAN GADBERT / LOS ANGELES TIMES
hurt him that the Dodgers waited until 16 years after his career ended to retire his No. 34, even though former clubhouse manager Mitch Poole had long since refused to give it to anybody else. He never talked about how it was so disappointing that he received only 6.2% of the votes when he was first eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2003, the writers never fully understanding his impact. He was clearly thrilled when the Dodgers finally retired his number in a grand weekend ceremony last summer — “It’s an amazing feeling, I never thought it would happen,” he said.
But it was also around this time when he began to show signs of illness. His weight loss became dramatic, and folks were wondering about his condition, but he never said anything about it publicly. In keeping with his humble nature he suffered in relative silence.
The first official sign that something was wrong occurred when he left the broadcast team in the final week of this season. But he did so for undisclosed reasons. Even then, gravely ill, he never wanted the story to be about him.
Fernando Valenzuela is gone, but the story can still be about him, should still be about him. He should be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame for his contributions to the game, and if the people who make those decisions don’t understand that, they’re all screwballs.
No matter what happens in Cooperstown, Fernando Valenzuela will never leave Chavez Ravine. He’ll always live in the worn jerseys, the hopeful faces, the hearts of millions of Angelenos who represent his greatest legacy.
LEFT: If you’re trying to find Fernando Valenzuela in this overly sterile hospital environment at the UCI burn unit in Irvine, just look to the right and the guy sitting down looking at the camera. He paid a surprise visit to Osvaldo Serrano, seated with a Dodgers cap, who suffered burns over 85% of his body during a car accident. This scene played out on Oct. 13, 1983 with plenty of Serrano’s family around to witness the act of kindness. DON KELSEN / LOS ANGELES TIMES
Valenzuela exuded a quiet pride and dignity and high baseball IQ
BY DYLAN HERNÁNDEZ • OCT. 22, 2024
Fernando Valenzuela vanished without saying a word, which, in retrospect, was the most Fernando Valenzuela thing he could have done.
Not until he was falsely rumored on social media to have passed away did the Dodgers issue an official statement acknowledging that he stepped away from their Spanish-language radio broadcast. His health problems were never specified.
Valenzuela didn’t demand attention. He didn’t want sympathy.
He didn’t suddenly become like this at the end of his life. This is how he was for the entirety of the 17 years I knew him, carrying himself with quiet pride and understated dignity.
Valenzuela died on Oct. 22, the Dodgers announced. He was 63.
As a Cy Young Award-winning rookie pitcher in 1981, Valenzuela forever changed the makeup of the Dodgers’ fan base, but he never behaved as if he was a big shot in the media dining room.
Many retired athletes, especially ones who have reached the peaks of their respective fields, miss the adoration they once received. They enjoy holding court. They like reliving their glorious pasts.
Valenzuela wasn’t like that.
He was typically joined for dinner by two or three people and rarely more. Sometimes, he was alone, headphones in his ears, looking down at his phone.
He wasn’t desperate for the validation of others. He knew who he was and what he was about.
That made sense. How else would Fernandomania have been possible? How else could a 20-year-old from a small town in Mexico who didn’t speak English or understand anything about this strange city have worked up the nerve to stare down the New York Yankees in the World Series?
His reticent demeanor, coupled with his enormous stature in the game, gave many people the impression that he was unapproachable. The opposite was true.
When I’d ask him what he was watching, he’d show me his phone screen, which was usually streaming a baseball game from Mexico. He’d tell me about the team he owned. He’d tell me about his son who was still playing. He’d tell a related story, crack a joke and complain about his golf game. He was always warm.
He had a quirky sense of humor, and he didn’t have any problems making fun of himself. In 2014, after a then-17-year-old Julio Urías pitched in his first major league
spring training game, I went around the Dodgers’ complex looking for Valenzuela and found him in the media dining room. Valenzuela howled with laughter when I relayed an exchange I’d just had with Urías.
I’d asked Urías if his father had ever told him stories about Valenzuela. Urías’ response: “My grandfather did.”
Valenzuela the broadcaster was a man of few words, but that wasn’t because he lacked insight.
One day in my early years as the Dodgers beat writer for this newspaper, Valenzuela sat next to me in the press box during a road game in Colorado. Valenzuela started telling me ahead of time what type of pitch was about to be thrown and why. He was right enough times to convince me that he knew everything about baseball, which prompted me to ask him about some disconcerting trend for the Dodgers. I can’t recall what I asked, but I remember his response.
“I don’t know,” he said.
I think he realized he sounded dismissive.
“Look,” he told me, “I really don’t know. Nobody knows. If someone tells you they know, they’re lying. Nobody knows anything about baseball.”
His words stuck with me. So if you’re one of those sycophants who has a problem with
OPPOSITE: Fernando Valenzuela had command of the batters when he was pitching as evidenced by his near perfect form delivering a pitch. He also had command of his words when he was a broadcaster. His knowledge of the craft of pitching was such that he often predicted the next pitch without seeing any signs.
MARSHA TRAEGER / LOS ANGELES TIMES
the questions I ask Andrew Friedmen, well, blame El Toro.
My conversations with Valenzuela were often brief, but I made sure I said hello to him every day.
Before the 2011 season, I was assigned to write a story on the 30th anniversary of Fernandomania. Valenzuela graciously spent time with me, answering questions about his career and legacy. He joked about how he’d probably fall down if he attempted his look-to-the-heavens windup when throwing out the ceremonial first pitch opening day.
A few days later, he asked me why I hadn’t spoken to him since the interview. I said that when I saw him, he looked as if he was occupied and didn’t want to be bothered. He conveyed to
me that he felt used. From that point forward, I made it a point to acknowledge him every day I was at the Dodger Stadium. When I’d touch him on his shoulder, he’d look at me with mock disgust and ask me if my hand was clean. Like I said, he had a quirky sense of humor.
The man lived by a code.
That code led to an estrangement from the Dodgers that lasted more than a decade. His arm diminished by an 11-year run with the team that included six 250-plus-inning seasons, he was upset about how he was waived a week before his $2.55-million contract would have become guaranteed. Valenzuela didn’t return until he was hired by them as a broadcaster a dozen years later.
I suspect his sense of justice was part of the
reason why it meant so much to him to have his jersey officially retired by the Dodgers last year. Valenzuela’s signature No. 34 had only been unofficially retired — former equipment manager Mitch Poole made sure no other player wore it — because of an unofficial team policy of solely retiring the numbers of Hall of Famers.
Never mind that Valenzuela should be in the Hall of Fame. How could the Dodgers not retire his number considering what he meant to the team, not only in terms of wins and also, but also financially? Today, many of the fans who pack Dodger Stadium are the children of Valenzuela’s fans, or, in some cases, grandchildren.
Valenzuela knew his worth. He just didn’t talk about it.
RIGHT: Lots of smiles and a ton of Dodger experience in this image taken before Game 2 of the 2017 World Series. The Astros won in seven games but cheated to do it by stealing signs and alerting their batters. As for the people shown, the only one you may need some help identifying is Steve Yeager on the right.
ROBERT GAUTHIER / LOS ANGELES TIMES
LEFT: Fernando Valenzuela remained true to himself his entire career. It’s likely that when this image was taken in 1980, he had no idea how big his career would get. But there were signs that year as he compiled a 2-0 record in 10 games and a perfect 0.00 earned-run average. The best was yet to come. JAYNE KAMIN-ONCEA / LOS ANGELES TIMES
Fernando Valenzuela, force behind Fernandomania, dies at age 63
BY ED GUZMAN • OCT. 22, 2024
His journey from a small town in Mexico to rousing success in Major League Baseball inspired generations of fans and created a seismic shift in the demographics of the Dodgers fan base.
His unorthodox pitching motion, distinct physique and seemingly mysterious aura left an indelible mark on people from all walks of life, whether it was Los Angeles’ Latino community grappling with the displacement created when the Dodgers built their stadium, Mexican immigrants and their families or artists inspired by his wizardry on the mound.
Dodgers legend Fernando Valenzuela died Oct. 22 at age 63. He is survived by his wife, Linda, four children, seven grandchildren and extended family.
(Editor’s note: His death certificate, issued three weeks later, suggested that he died of septic shock, decompensated alcoholic cirrhosis and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis cirrhosis as underlying causes. It also suggested that Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a condition that can cause changes in brain tissue and affects muscle coordination and memory, may also have contributed to his death.)
Valenzuela’s impact endured for so long and so powerfully that the Dodgers retired his jersey number in 2023 despite a
long-standing rule that the team only did so for those who were in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
It was a fitting bookend to a public baseball life that had an unprecedented beginning, a surprising and stirring stretch in 1981 that became forever known as “Fernandomania.”
And though the left-hander never quite reached those heights in his playing career again, Valenzuela remained a beloved and enigmatic hero who was never far from fans’ hearts, as evidenced by the preponderance of No. 34 Dodgers jerseys in the stands and ovations he would receive at home games when he was shown on the scoreboard while working games at Dodger Stadium as part of the team’s Spanish-language broadcast team.
“On behalf of the Dodger organization, we profoundly mourn the passing of Fernando,” Dodgers team president and chief executive Stan Kasten said in a statement. “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 difficult stretches, with the star contesting his release from the team and taking years to eventually accept an ambassador role with the franchise.
How did the man who remained guarded in the spotlight all his life forge such a close and enduring connection with Dodger fans?
“Fernando is the uncle who made good,” playwright Luis Alfaro said during The Times’ award-winning “Fernandomania at 40” series 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.
During that heady 1981 season, Valenzuela used an assortment of pitches that included a screwball to become the first, and to this day only, player to win the National League Cy Young and Rookie of the Year awards during the same season. With a windup in which he would look skyward almost as if he sought guidance from a higher power, he won his first eight starts — five by shutout — shocking longtime baseball observers.
“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 those shutouts, a 1-0 win over the Mets in New York, adding:
OPPOSITE: There was probably not a tribute wall big enough to hold all the love Angelenos wanted to leave for Fernando Valenzuela. This snapshot in history happened during Game 2 of the World Series in 2024. The common theme: “RIP El Toro.” ALLEN J. SCHABEN / LOS ANGELES TIMES
ABOVE: For years after Fernando Valenzuela left the Dodgers as a player, his No. 34 jersey could be seen around Dodger Stadium. But never was it more heart-warming than after his death. Here, a sombrero wearing fan shows his respect at Dodger Stadium after Valenzuela died.
ALLEN J. SCHABEN / LOS ANGELES TIMES
“And somehow this youngster from Mexico, with the pixie smile on his face, acts like he’s pitching batting practice.”
After a midseason players’ strike interrupted the regular season, the Dodgers would go on to win the World Series, beating the New York Yankees in six games. During the team’s postseason run, Valenzuela was the winning pitcher in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series, holding the Montreal Expos to one run in 8 ⅔ innings and helping the Dodgers secure the pennant.
been predominantly a white fan base. It’s a profound legacy that has lasted for generations and could be felt as tributes to Valenzuela came in immediately after his death.
“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, said in a statement. “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,” Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. “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.”
He started Game 3 of the World Series, following two losses by the Dodgers in New York, and gutted out a complete-game, 5-4 victory despite throwing 147 pitches, giving up nine hits and walking seven. It was the first of four consecutive victories by the Dodgers to clinch their fifth championship in franchise history.
The Dodgers, longing for a Mexican star to connect with the Latino population in L.A., had finally found one in Valenzuela, whose impact would transform what had
“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 said in a statement. “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 remarkable season, perhaps surpassed only by the events leading up to it.
The youngest of 12 children, Fernando Valenzuela was born in Etchohuaquila, a small farming village in the state of Sonora, Mexico, on Nov. 1, 1960. His parents,
Avelino and Emergilda, and his six brothers and five sisters lived in a whitewashed adobe house with five rooms and no running water in a community that during Valenzuela’s youth consisted of a few dirt roads and had a population of 140.
In addition to helping tend to the family’s crops, Valenzuela and his brothers played baseball. Valenzuela stood out even at a young age and by 1977, he was signed by Etchohuaquila’s local team, the Navojoa Mayos.
“By that point, I told myself, ‘now it’s a career, it’s not for fun,’” Valenzuela told The Times in 2021.
Facing players much older than him, Valenzuela successfully pitched for several teams before moving on to the Yucatan Leones of the Mexican League in 1979 by the age of 18.
By this point, he was on the radar of Dodgers scout Mike Brito. Himself a distinct figure, with his Panama hat, mustached grin and ubiquitous cigar, Brito first spotted Valenzuela when he was pitching for Guanajuato in 1978. The Dodgers scout was on hand to see a shortstop on the other team, but Valenzuela quickly got his attention.
Brito continued to follow Valenzuela’s career and lobby the Dodgers to sign the left-hander. By July 1979, the Dodgers purchased Valenzuela’s contract from the Leones for $120,000 — considered a substantial amount at the time for a Mexican player. But it ultimately proved to be a groundbreaking transaction. Major league teams had largely ignored scouting in Mexico before then. Prior to Valenzuela’s Dodgers debut in 1980, fewer than 40 players born in Mexico had appeared in the majors, according to Baseball America. That number has since grown to nearly 150. After spending the rest of the 1979 season with the Class High-A Lodi Dodgers, starting
three games and posting a 1.12 earned-run average, the organization determined that Valenzuela needed to add another pitch to his arsenal to continue to move up. Brito suggested he learn a split-fingered fastball, but no one in the Dodgers system threw one.
Then Brito remembered Bobby Castillo, a former Lincoln High and L.A. Valley College star who had spent parts of three seasons with the Dodgers, threw a screwball. Despite language barriers — Castillo did not speak Spanish and Valenzuela did not speak English — Castillo taught Valenzuela the screwball in the Arizona Instructional League.
Valenzuela caught on quickly.
“I’m not lying to you: Within a week,
“
“The only Dodger performance worth noting was by pitcher Fernando Valenzuela, who made his major league debut,” The Times wrote after the game.
Thrust into a pennant race, Valenzuela appeared in 10 games and gave up no earned runs in 17⅔ innings as the Dodgers forged a tie atop the NL West with the Houston Astros at the end of the regular season. Faced with a one-game playoff at Dodger Stadium, manager Tommy Lasorda elected to start Dave Goltz — a high-priced right-hander the team had signed before the season but who had performed poorly — over Valenzuela, then 19 years old, who had pitched two innings the day before.
“Within a week, Fernando was throwing the screwball as good as [Bobby Castillo].”
DODGERS SCOUT MIKE BRITO
Fernando was throwing the screwball as good as [Bobby Castillo],” Brito told The Times in 2011, using Castillo’s nickname.
With an expanded arsenal, Valenzuela thrived with the Dodgers’ Double-A affiliate in San Antonio in 1980. The left-hander won 13 games and tossed 11 complete games while striking out a Texas League-best 162 batters in 174 innings.
Valenzuela was called up in September when rosters expanded and he appeared in his first game 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 first rookie pitcher to start on opening day in Dodgers history.
“Tommy liked to make jokes, so I said ‘hahaha,’” Valenzuela said about being informed of the assignment. “And he said, ‘it’s not a joke, it’s serious.’ And that’s when I said, ‘yeah, why not?’”
Valenzuela scattered five hits, went nine innings and defeated the Astros, 2-0, to kick off a remarkable display of pitching that captured the imagination of baseball fans and quickly became a source of pride for Mexicans and Mexican Americans. He went the distance again in his next start, a 7-1 victory over the Giants in San Francisco.
Goltz lasted three innings, giving up four runs in a 7-1 loss as the Dodgers’ season came to an end. Valenzuela, for his part, pitched two scoreless innings and gave up one hit.
It was a hint of things to come, but once again, a confluence of events put Valenzuela in the spotlight.
Valenzuela was on the Dodgers roster coming out of spring training in 1981, firmly in the team’s starting pitching rotation behind left-hander Jerry Reuss and right-hander Burt Hooton. The day before the season opener against the Astros at Dodger Stadium, Reuss suffered a calf injury during a team workout. Hooton and other starting pitchers were not ready to step in, allowing Valenzuela to become
Then came three more shutouts — at San Diego, at Houston and at home against the Giants — before he pitched another complete game and beat the Expos 6-1. Then another shutout at New York against the Mets before a 3-2 win at home against the Expos to cap off an 8-0 start that featured a 0.50 ERA. By this point, the buzz and attention surrounding the portly left-hander had reached a fever pitch, and the impact was as wide as it was sudden.
The Dodgers, who had broadcast games in Spanish since 1959, saw a ratings increase and interest in expanding their radio network into Mexico. Jarrín, the team’s lead play-by-play announcer, was thrust into the spotlight himself, serving as an interpreter for Valenzuela during news conferences before and after games.
“To the point that, in those years, the radio station ratings were usually 3.4,” Jarrín said 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 community began to flock to Dodger Stadium during his starts. The Dodgers,
Valenzuela is unbeaten, untied and unscored in win over Astros
BY MARK HEISLER • APRIL 10, 1981
Dodger backs nudged against the proverbial wall a little early in the 1981 baseball season, like on Wednesday, the day before they were to open. That was when it was learned that the part of the starting rotation that had managed to stay healthy had succumbed, all except for one 20-year-old rookie left-hander, Fernando Valenzuela, who had just become a one-man rotation.
But, as you may have heard, Valenzuela is not your average 20-year-old rookie or anything like it or anything like anything. What he did Thursday afternoon was to throw a 106-pitch, five-hit shutout and the Dodgers opened with a 2-0 victory over the Houston Astros before 50,511 in Dodger Stadium.
This caused a certain amount of paging through record books. Valenzuela is the first rookie ever to pitch an opener for the L.A. Dodgers. He is the youngest pitcher to start an opener in the major leagues since Catfish Hunter 15 years ago. Lifetime, he is still unbeaten in the major leagues (3-0) and he is up to 26 2/3 innings without allowing an earned run.
It makes it a little more remarkable that Valenzuela threw batting practice on Wednesday, before they told him he was now Thursday’s starting pitcher, and that he exhibited absolutely no sign of nerves that
anyone saw between then and game time. He said later he slept “like a kid, like an angel.”
“We don’t know what’s going on inside him,” Davey Lopes said. “All he does is smile. All we know is the bottom line. The kid hasn’t given up an earned run in the big leagues. I know he will. It’s inevitable.”
It is, isn’t it?
He had a great chance to give one up in the sixth, when the Astros got runners to second and third with one out and Valenzuela working on a 1-0 lead.
Valenzuela then broke Jose Cruz’s bat with a fastball and Cruz hit a soft liner to shortstop. The next hitter was Art Howe. He hit a hard one-bouncer up the middle and Valenzuela flagged it down, cleanly and almost nonchalantly. If Valenzuela had been 100 years old and in the majors for 90 of them, he couldn’t have looked more in control.
It also didn’t make it any easier for Valenzuela that he was in against Joe Niekro, the knuckleball conqueror of the Dodgers in last October’s one-game playoff. Niekro pitched three shutout innings, but the Dodgers got a run in the fourth on Steve Garvey’s triple to right-center and a sacrifice fly that Ron Cey slashed into left-center and Cruz caught on the run. They got another in
the sixth on Pedro Guerrero’s RBI double. That was two runs more than Valenzuela was going to give up Thursday afternoon.
For reasons like the events of Thursday, whether or not Al Campanis has Valenzuela’s 20-year-old birth certificate in his desk or not, the world refuses to believe he is 20. They wouldn’t believe it if Campanis produced Mr. Valenzuela, Mrs. Valenzuela and the hospital Fernando was born in.
“He may be 20,” Astros manager Bill Virdon said Thursday, “but he pitches 30.”
“They’re trying to tell me that guy’s 20,” Angels Manager Jim Fregosi said laughing last weekend. “He was 20 when I started playing.
It hardly needs to be mentioned, but the Dodgers needed a game like this, after Wednesday’s news of the calf injury to Jerry Reuss and Burt Hooton’s ingrown toenail, added to the earlier injuries that had slowed Bob Welch and Dave Goltz. Campanis said Thursday he thinks he has enough pitching, but on Wednesday there was what you might delicately call some concern.
“Hell, yes,” Lopes said. “Nobody knew what was going on. One guy (Dave Stewart) is going down and then he’s not going down. One guy (Don Stanhouse) is designated for assignment.
OPPOSITE: Fernando Valenzuela, flanked by agent Tony DeMarco, left, and John Gavin, the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, takes time out from his historic 1981 season to visit the White House. Valenzuela met with President Ronald Reagan during the luncheon.
LARRY SHARKEY / LOS ANGELES TIMES
“Everybody’s head was spinning. Jerry has a calf muscle. Burt’s going to a podiatrist to have his nail extracted. They tell us Fernando is starting and he’s out there pitching batting practice. …”
Pitchers generally throw two days before their next start and not the day before. Valenzuela, however, told everyone who asked — and Ron Perranoski, the pitching coach was the first, right after they learned Reuss was questionable — it was OK, he’d just been throwing easy. Nobody was figuring a complete game, this being the opener and Valenzuela having gone no more than six innings all spring, but he did that, too. You figure it out.
“He started off a little slow, stuff wise,” catcher Mike Scioscia said. “As the game progressed, he got stronger. From the seventh through the ninth, he had awesome command of everything.
“He wasn’t one bit nervous. He’s so cool out
there. I don’t think he even broke a sweat.”
At about this time, Valenzuela was hipdeep in press, speaking through Mike Brito, the scout who signed him. (That was when Valenzuela was 18, one year and 10 months ago.) Now, Valenzuela said, looking around, he was nervous. But before?
“When I get on the mound,” he said. “I don’t know what afraid is.”
Rematch of the teams in last October’s improbable weekend or no rematch, the fans were on the docile side, except when Valenzuela got to what proved to be the last hitter of the game, Dave Roberts. They stood and cheered when Valenzuela got to two strikes, after which he threw Roberts a terrific screwball for his fifth strikeout, shook a lot of hands, smiled about 1,000 embarrassed smiles in post-game interviews and went out in search of a burrito salad, leaving the world to wonder just how phenomenal a phenomenon can be.
KEN HIVELY / LOS ANGELES
RIGHT: It became a familiar, and much loved, sight. Fernando Valenzuela, with hands, eyes and right leg all working upward, won his opening day start with the Dodgers with a 2-0 win over the Houston Astros. The Dodgers and Astros had a bit of a rivalry back in 1981, but nothing like what happened after the Astros cheated during the 2017 World Series against the Dodgers.
TIMES
LEFT: It was never preordained that Fernando Valenzuela would become a Dodger. Scout Mike Brito discovered him in 1978 and a year later the left-hander was purchased by the Dodgers for $120,000 from the Yucatan Leones. At the time, it was considered a lot of money to pay for a Mexican ball player. RICK MEYER / LOS ANGELES TIMES
Wave goodbye to Valenzuela: Can’t find a place in the rotation
BY BILL PLASCHKE • MARCH 29, 1991
VERO BEACH, Fla. — The slow death of Fernandomania reached its conclusion Thursday when Dodger officials decided they had seen their once-great pitcher struggle for the last time.
In a tiny, windowless office in Dodgertown, Fernando Valenzuela was told that he no longer was a Dodger. Intending to give him his unconditional release, the Dodgers put him on waivers. “They call me into the office and say, ‘This is very hard for us,’ ” Valenzuela recounted. “I said, ‘What is so hard? Just say it!’ And so they said it.
“I said, ‘OK, thanks.’ And that is all I say.’ ”
Words did not come easily as 10 years worth of memories were ushered away by a team that simply felt Valenzuela, at 30, could no longer pitch.
“I have said that the end of this spring, I wanted to leave with the best five starting pitchers,” Manager Tom Lasorda said. “We have five starters, and Fernando is not one of them.”
Valenzuela spoke softly, his eyes often wandering into space.
“Baseball is fun for me,” he said. “But today, it is not fun.”
Said Dodger owner Peter O’Malley: “All careers must end.”
Valenzuela does not agree that this is the
end of his and hopes to prove the Dodgers wrong after he clears waivers Tuesday. He is not expected to be claimed before then, because the claiming team would have to pay his full salary, $2.55 million.
If unclaimed, he will become a free agent and can deal with any team. In that case, the Dodgers would owe him $630,494.
“I still feel good, I still feel I can pitch,” Valenzuela said. “I hope I can get with a new team, start a new life.”
In conversations earlier this spring, Valenzuela said he wanted to stay in the National League, preferably in the NL West. Teams with interest will probably include San Francisco and Houston, with the Giants probably Valenzuela’s top choice.
“We will discuss it internally,” said Ralph Nelson, the Giants’ assistant general manager.
Valenzuela said he would retire only if nobody has called by the first month of the season.
“I want to start with a team in the beginning,” said Valenzuela, who plans to play golf in the meantime. “If they call me in June or July, I will say, ‘Sorry, I’m on the back nine.’ ”
The Dodgers’ decision was not made quickly. They had been discussing this since last winter, when some officials did not want
to re-sign Valenzuela as a free agent even though last season he pitched a no-hitter and his 13 victories were more than the totals posted by all but two National League left-handers.
Many felt he cost the club the division title last season by going 1-3 with an 8.40 earned-run average in his final six starts. That led to a 4.59 ERA, the worst of any regular National League starter.
And many felt his shoulder had never recovered from the injury he suffered in 1988. In the last two seasons, he had a 23-26 record with a 4.02 ERA.
Even Valenzuela, from the moment he signed his contract this winter, sensed that he might not start the season with the Dodgers.
“I saw him and congratulated him on the contract and he said, ‘Thank you, but I don’t know if I will stay here,’ ” said Jaime Jarrín, the Dodgers’ Spanish-language broadcaster who became Valenzuela’s interpreter during his standout 1981 season that spawned Fernandomania.
Valenzuela struggled in his first start this spring but then allowed only two hits in five innings in an emotional victory March 17 over the Milwaukee Brewers in Monterrey, Mexico. It was his first pitching appearance in his native country in 10 years.
OPPOSITE: One of the questions to ponder: Are there more fans who want Fernando Valenzuela’s autograph or photographers who want to take his picture doing, well, just about anything.
JAYNE KAMIN-ONCEA / LOS ANGELES TIMES
On that same day, Orel Hershiser decided that because of his injured shoulder, he could not start the season in the rotation. Many figured that ensured Valenzuela a spot on the team.
But he struggled in his next start, giving
up four runs — three earned — and eight hits in 4 2/3 innings against the Philadelphia Phillies. That led to what Lasorda acknowledged was the last straw.
On Wednesday afternoon, Valenzuela gave up eight runs in 3 1/3 innings against the Baltimore Orioles. After spending a restless night, Dodger officials met early Thursday morning and decided they could not endure that sort of performance during the regular season.
Instead of allowing Valenzuela to make one more spring start Monday as scheduled, they decided to release him with a spring record of 1-2 and a 7.88 ERA.
One group of people have little doubt that Valenzuela can still pitch. The Dodger players lost another clubhouse favorite only days after Mickey Hatcher’s release.
“Just like Hatcher, it’s one of those things that’s tough to swallow. … It’s just very surprising,” said catcher Mike Scioscia, the only Dodger who has played with Valenzuela throughout his Dodger career. “There is no doubt, he can still pitch and get guys out. I still have a lot of confidence in the guy.
“Some guys get in tough situations and they melt. This guy fights all the way to the end.”
Pitcher Tim Crews said that when he heard the news, he thought it was a joke.
“I said ‘Man, I don’t believe it,’ ” Crews said. “I know things haven’t been going too well for him, but with a competitor like him, he will win games for you. He will resurface
somewhere, just watch.”
Mike Morgan, who probably will become the Dodgers’ fifth starter, is one of Valenzuela’s closest friends. He also was shaking his head.
“I don’t think Fernando is the kind of guy to let somebody in a suit tell him his career is over with,” Morgan said. “I’m not going to sit here and say he had a great career, because he is still going to have a great career.”
Morgan paused and added: “This is a tough business. A guy throws a no-hitter and the next thing he knows, management says, ‘If you have a bad spring, you’re gone.’ And Fernando is gone.”
Critics have long speculated that Valenzuela’s diminished performance was hastened by the many innings he pitched every season — 2,348 2/3 innings in 10 full major league seasons.
The Dodgers answered those critics Thursday by saying that Valenzuela never had tremendous control, meaning his “normal” games involved more pitches than normal. They also said it was difficult to judge his arm strength because he never wanted to leave a game.
“With so many three-ball counts, he would pitch a normal game and it would be a lot of pitches,” pitching coach Ron Perranoski said. “And he would never tell us if he wasn’t feeling right. We had to figure it out by looking at him.”
The Dodgers also wonder how many innings Valenzuela pitched before he signed with them in 1979.
“We don’t know how long he had been throwing all these innings,” Perranoski said. “Heck, he could have been doing it since he was 14.”
Some say that the real reason for the end
ABOVE: Fernando Valenzuela’s career tailed off in his final years with the Dodgers. Some say he never recovered from a shoulder injury in 1988. In his last two seasons with the Dodgers he had a 23-26 record with a 4.02 earned-run average.
JAYNE KAMIN-ONCEA / LOS ANGELES TIMES
of Valenzuela’s Dodger career occurred in the last couple years. They said it was not a problem of overuse, but of adaptation.
“Management never realized that since his shoulder problems, Fernando was not the same pitcher,” one veteran said. “They would leave him in blowout games in the seventh and eighth innings, and then five days later he would be worthless. They did not protect him.”
Valenzuela agreed that he was a new pitcher of whom old heroics were expected.
“I tried to do good every time, I really did, but I can’t always do things the same way I did them,” Valenzuela said. “No human being can do that.”
The problem was that from the beginning, Valenzuela seemed like more than a human being. He was a chubby, long-haired pitcher who rose from the Mexican village of Echohuaquila to help them win four division titles and two World Series championships and appeared in six All-Star games.
Valenzuela is best known for capturing the imagination of an entire country during his rookie season in 1981, when he won both the Cy Young and rookie of the year awards while causing a sensation known as Fernandomania.
“He turned a game into a religion,” Jarrín said. “Here was a hero who did not speak English, who did not have a good body, who came from a humble background … but who walked like a general. All of a sudden, people who did not care about the game, because of Fernando they cared.”
Jarrín added: “You would come to the park on nights he would pitch and there would be hundreds of people waiting outside, selling T-shirts and postcards with his picture on them. It was unbelievable.”
Jarrín lowered his voice. “There will never be another one like him. This will never happen again. Never.”
Earlier in the day, on a minor league field, the scout who had signed Valenzuela was staring at the bench.
“Look at that kid, that number 20,” Mike Brito said, wearing a smile and his white Panama hat. “A left-handed pitcher. Just signed him from Mexico. Wait till he eats a little American food, drinks some of that good American milk, just wait. …”
ABOVE: OCT. 10, 1981: Manager Tommy Lasorda congratulates Fernando Valenzuela #34 of the Los Angeles Dodgers after defeating the Houston Astros during the 1981 National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, California. JAYNE KAMIN-ONCEA / LOS ANGELES TIMES
Fernando returns to Dodgers, rejoins team as a broadcaster
BY PAUL GUTIERREZ • JUNE 5, 2003
They’ve given away bobblehead dolls with his cherubic face smiling on them.
They’ve plastered his image on the outfield wall as a reminder of his successful past while playing highlights of his career on the video board during games.
But not since his release late in spring training before the 1991 season have the Dodgers been able to bring Fernando Valenzuela back to Chavez Ravine.
Until today.
Valenzuela, whose hasty departure left a bitter taste in the mouths of many Dodger fans, will be introduced at a Dodger Stadium news conference to announce his return to the club as a radio analyst for Spanish broadcasts, joining Hall of Famer Jaime Jarrín and Pepe Yñiguez.
Valenzuela, 42, agreed to a three-year contract to serve as a color commentator for all home games and road games at National League West rivals and will begin his new duties Friday.
Contacted on his cellular phone Wednesday afternoon, Valenzuela was playing golf and declined to comment.
“They [the Dodgers] asked me not to talk about it and I don’t want to get in trouble,”
Valenzuela said with a laugh. “They asked me to wait until the press conference so I want to respect that.”
But while Valenzuela, the Mexican lefthander who turned every fifth day at Dodger Stadium into a Cinco de Mayo fiesta at the height of Fernandomania, was keeping mum, word of his return to the franchise he led to the 1981 World Series title had many in the organization excited.
Especially Jarrín, who was Valenzuela’s right-hand man early in his career.
“Before, I was his interpreter and translator,” said Jarrín, who has been broadcasting Dodger games in Spanish since 1959. “Now, he’s my sidekick.
“He talked about being nervous, but if he wasn’t nervous before 50,000 fans up there on the mound, I don’t think he’ll be nervous in front of a microphone.”
Valenzuela seemingly came out of nowhere in 1981, when, after an opening-day emergency start, he threw five shutouts in his first eight starts en route to becoming the first player to win both the Cy Young and rookieof-the-year awards in the same season.
Baffling batters with his screwball, Valenzuela was a six-time All-Star, threw
a no-hitter in 1990 and went 141-116 in 10-plus seasons with the Dodgers. But he was only 32-37 with the Angels, Baltimore, Philadelphia, San Diego and St. Louis before his career ended in 1997.
Estranged from the organization since his release, he has not returned to Dodger Stadium, even though he lives in nearby Los Feliz.
Dodger Senior Vice President Derrick Hall tried for the last two years to bring Valenzuela back in the fold, and with Jarrín’s help, it came to fruition.
“This is a guy that is as important to this franchise as any other player,” Hall said. “He’s arguably the most popular L.A. Dodger in history. He just was not ready [to return]. We’ve always made an effort to reach out to our Hispanic fans and … now they’ll be able to experience Fernandomania on a nightly basis.”
Jarrín sensed that healing would occur with Valenzuela again a Dodger.
“There will be some because the fans will see him,” Jarrín said. “They love him. And now he’s back home. The prodigal son is returning.”
OPPOSITE: Fernando Valenzuela’s move to the broadcast booth has been met with different views. Some say this is where he belongs. Others ask, after he was cut from the team, why would he come back? Clearly, Valenzuela erased any bad feelings he had against the Dodgers and found a new home not on, but above, the field.
CARLOS CHAVEZ / LOS ANGELES TIMES
At long last, Dodgers are retiring Fernando Valenzuela’s number
BY BILL PLASCHKE • FEB. 4, 2023
It is more than digits on a uniform, it is a symbol of community, a monument to connection, a deep blue landmark that has long bonded a city and its baseball team.
Thirty-four is the Dodgers’ true magic number.
And now, finally, officially, gloriously, it will live forever with Fernando Valenzuela.
In a long-awaited move that will rock Chavez Ravine at its Fernandomania roots, the Dodgers announced Saturday that they are retiring Valenzuela’s No. 34.
It is an appropriate honor for arguably the most impactful Dodger in Los Angeles franchise history. It is the fulfillment of the persistent wishes of the passionate fan base that Valenzuela helped create. It’s about damn time.
“The single question I get asked more than any other is, ‘When are you going to retire Fernando’s number?’” said Stan Kasten, the Dodgers’ president and chief executive, in an interview with The Times. “The answer is, this year.”
The stoic Valenzuela was clearly moved by the honor.
“It’s an amazing feeling,” Valenzuela said. “I never thought it would happen. I thank the fans and the Dodgers for making it happen.”
The announcement was made at the
Dodgers’ FanFest celebration on a stage in right field at Dodger Stadium.
Kasten’s proclamation, with Valenzuela at his side, was met with surprised cheers and shrieks from several thousand fans who surged toward the stage while holding up smartphones and Valenzuela jerseys.
“Thank you to all the fans for your support,” said Valenzuela. “It’s great.”
He then addressed the crowd in Spanish, saying, “I give thanks to all of you. This was possible because of all the support you gave me.”
What took so long? Blame it on tradition.
Seriously. Even though Valenzuela has been retired for 26 years, he has been prevented from participating in the Dodgers’ greatest tradition because of, well, the tradition.
It has long been an unofficial club policy to only retire the numbers of those Dodgers who are in the Baseball Hall of Fame. With the exception of the retirement of infielder Jim Gilliam’s No. 19 in 1978 after his sudden death from a massive brain hemorrhage, every Dodgers ownership group has abided by that mandate.
Valenzuela only lasted two years on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot before being dropped for lack of votes, meaning he seemingly never had a chance to add his No. 34 to
the list of 11 current retired numbers.
So what changed? The climate around an increasingly proactive fan base changed. The noise around the 40th anniversary of Fernandomania lingered. The obvious exclusion finally became too great for the Dodgers to ignore.
In an underground campaign inspired by longtime clubhouse manager Mitch Poole, after Valenzuela left the team in 1991 no new players have been allowed to wear the No. 34. In an overt campaign by the fans, Kasten has been confronted with the appeal daily during his walks around the stadium. When the team unveiled a statue of Sandy Koufax last summer, the questions only intensified.
Considering Guggenheim Baseball Management has made the team’s history a cornerstone of their stewardship, it became an obvious fix. Even if it meant breaking their own rules, the Dodgers realized their choice was really no choice at all. The small-town Mexican kid with the funny delivery and vicious screwball overcame the odds again.
“When we came here, we respected the history of the franchise, and that included respecting its policies,” said Kasten of Guggenheim’s purchase in 2012. “But every now and then we also sit down and review those policies … and after all of the public
OPPOSITE: Dodger fans rise to their feet as Fernando’s Valenzuela’s number 34 is retired. It now sits between two pretty good names: Sandy Koufax (32) and Roy Campanella (39).
JASON ARMOND / LOS ANGELES TIMES