AFTER A DECENT INTERVAL, OUR TRIBUTE TO PAISA VALENZUELA

 By Juan Montoya

When one thinks of beisbol, who else comes to mind but Fernando Valenzuela, the hulking and devastating screwball pitcher from a little town in dirt-poor northern Mexico?

The youngest of 12 children, Valenzuela fell in love with the game as a youngster and would follow the baseball team in Navojoa, a part of the Mexican professional league. Fernando dreamed big. He dreamed of playing in the U.S. Major Leagues.

These were big dreams indeed for a youngster who shared a three-room house with his 11 siblings and played with his friends on a weed-overgrown empty lot in their poor neighborhood. The Mexican-born pitcher's humble beginnings and success on the mound made him popular with Los Angeles' Latino community.

Although he was big for his size and could outhit most kids his age, he found he could bewilder even the more experienced players by manipulating his pitches. Soon, he was the de facto starting pitcher on the lot.

His skills caught the eye of a Mexican minor-league scout. As he was advanced in the minor leagues, he began to learn the finer points of the game, from like sign-calling, sliding, and to read what pitches to throw certain batters.

By the time he was 17, he was playing in the Mexican Central League with the Guanajuato Tuzos, posting a 5-6 record with an enviable 2.23 Earned Run Average (ERA).

Valenzuela, the 1981 NL Rookie of the Year and Cy Young Award winner, died at age 63 last Tuesday, one day shy of the 43rd anniversary of his 147-pitch complete game that led the Dodgers over the Yankees in World Series Game 3. After losing the first two games at Yankee Stadium, the Dodgers won four in a row for their first title since 1965.

When the Central League was absorbed by the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol, Valenzuela was elevated to Mexico’s professional league when he was only 18 years old. That year, the Los Angeles Dodgers bought out his contract and brought him to California.

He didn’t last long in the minors. After a brief stint with the Lodi Dodgers, he was promoted to the San Antonio Missions. During the 1980 season he led the league with 162 strikeouts and in September, with the L.A. Dodgers making a bid for the Western Division championship, Valenzuela was called up and he responded by pitching 17 and two-thirds shutout innings of relief over the course of ten games, posting two wins and a save.

Baseball fans – especially Hispanic ones – couldn't wait to see Fernando play during the 1981 season. If the brief post-season appearance in 1980 was any indication of things to come. They could only imagine what 1981 would be like.

Fernando didn’t disappoint. With the park full of Hispanic fans from the Los Angeles area every time he pitched, it was time for the ride of a lifetime. He won his first eight games, four of them by shutouts, and posted a dominating 0.50 ERA.

His unusual windup fascinated fans, as he reached the top of his motion and looked skyward before launching his pitch. It drove the fans crazy, and there was a high demand for his rookie card across the country. Combined with his clean lifestyle (neither smoked nor drank alcohol), he became a role model kids could imitate. “Fernandomania” was here.

That year he became the only pitcher in Major League history to win both the Cy Young Award and the Rookie of the Year Award. In addition, he also won the National League Strikeout Leader Award, striking out 180 batters. One can only guess what kind of numbers he would have posted had the last third of the 1981 season not been marred by a players’ strike.

Nonetheless, that year he pitched Game 3 of the 1981 World Series against the New York Yankees, a series that the Dodgers went on to win, their first since 1965. Over the next 10 years, he was a regular starter with the Dodgers, capping his career with an amazing season where he posted a 21-11 record and led the league in wins and innings pitched. He narrowly lost the Cy Young Award to Mike Scott of the Astros that year.

Sandwiched in between his pitching awards, Fernando in 1981 and 1983 won the National League’s Silver Slugger Award for pitchers. In 1990, his last years with the Dodger, he hit .304 in 69 times at bat, with one home run, five doubles and 11 runs batted in. In 936 career at-bats, he posted a respectable 10 home runs, and 84 runs batted in.

His pinch-hitting batting average was .368 He was even called to play the outfield and first base during extra-inning games when he didn’t pitch.

In the 1986 All-Star Game, he made baseball history when he struck out five consecutive American League batters, tying a record set by another left-handed screwballer, Carl Hubbell in the 1934. In fact, he was nominated to the All-Star game six times. That year he also won the Golden Glove Award of the National League.

He had one last great moment with the Dodgers on June 29, 1990, just hours after he had seen Oakland Athletics pitcher Dave Stewart throw a no-hitter against the Toronto Blue Jays on television. He told his teammates that he was going to throw one, too. He went out on the mound that evening and threw a 6-0 no-hitter against the St. Luis Cardinals.

When he got married in California, his godfather was no other that President Ronald Reagan, a fervid “Fernandomania” fan.

Jumping between the Mexican League and the big leagues, he put together another solid season for the San Diego Padres in 1996, going 13-8 with a 3.62 ERA. He retired that year with a final record of 173-153 and a 3.54 ERA.

In all, Valenzuela played with five other National League teams after he left the Dodgers. His powerful screwball was gone by the time he played with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1997, and he played with the winter league in Mexico until 2006 at the age of 44. On 2005, he was named one of three starting pitchers on Major League Baseball’s Latino Legends Team.

Following his baseball career, he returned to the Dodgers organization in 2003 as a Spanish-language commentator for National League West games. In 2006, he served on the coaching staff of Team Mexico during the World Baseball Classic held in the spring of that year.

Few players from such humble beginning have gone on to achieve what Valenzuela did, but the message of his achievements is clear: No matter how poor or disadvantaged you may start out in life, persistence, a constant effort to improve your skills, and not being afraid to try something different may give you results that may even surprise you.