What Fernando Valenzuela Meant To Me

Fernando Valenzuela passed away this week.  He was 64 years old.  That’s a fairly young age to have shuffled off this mortal coil.

I say this because I’m 56 with creaky knees, a bad back and a permanently receded hairline.  If you’re reading this, I know you agree as I’m familiar with the median age of my target audience.

A Yankees-Dodgers World Series is upon us.  This is the first time since 1981 that these two historic franchises have met in the post-season.  1981 is also the first time most of us heard the name Fernando Valenzuela.  His passing brought me back to a different time.

Fernandomania was perhaps the first athletic craze I remember as a child.  And trust me, it was everywhere.  Valenzuela, however, was more than just a fad, proven by his legacy and impact that remains prevalent in Los Angeles to this day.  Valenzuela represented an entire population of not only proud Mexicans and Mexican Americans but Latinos worldwide.

Valenzuela was not the first Latin ballplayer that people of my generation were familiar with, nor was he the most iconic but in many ways, he was the only one of his kind.  Latin baseball players traditionally came from Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela, not Mexico.  Few if any burst onto the Major League scene and played for a team, in a town, in front of so many people that looked like him.  He won his first eight starts, five of them by shutout, and became the first rookie to win the Cy Young Award.  He remains the only pitcher to ever do so. 

You can look up all his statistical achievements online, but I’d rather talk about what Valenzuela meant to me.

I don’t watch baseball anymore but there was a time, even though I despise both these teams, that a Yankees-Dodgers World Series would have been obligatory viewing.  These days, I’ll probably have it on in the background at best. 

Although the sport no longer matters like it once did, its history does, and a Yankees-Dodgers series drums up a lot of childhood memories. 

I’ve become quite adept at not showing when things bother me, but it has now been a full year since both my father and best friend passed away.  One of them (Dad) was a Yankees fan, the other (Mario) a Dodgers fan, so news of Valenzuela’s passing on the verge of this historical World Series kind of kicked me in the gut.

I worked at my bar for karaoke night as I do every Tuesday and glanced up to see the Valenzuela news as it hit one of our TV screens.  Valenzuela had become a household name in 1981, long before the phrase “going viral” had ever been uttered.  He was gone.  Moments later, a singer in the bar belted out Rush’s “Subdivisions.”  I was 14 when that song was released in 1982.  It was my favorite song at the time, Signals the first cassette tape I’d ever purchased, and for the record, no one ever sings that song for karaoke.  The weird got weirder.  Another singer immediately followed that up with Night Ranger’s “Don’t Tell Me You Love Me,” also released in 1982, another one of my favorite songs from that era.  While not overly sentimental songs, the tunes serve as a reminder that my childhood was about to change.

Within minutes, Brother Lou sent me a text on the string that still includes our best friend’s phone number.  We refuse to remove him from our group texts.  Miles away, Lou also understood the significance of Valenzuela’s passing.

I moved overseas and first met Mario aka Kid Sheraton in 1983.  Kid Sheraton was a Dodgers fan.  This was long before he raised two beautiful twins in South Florida, a decade before there was professional baseball in Florida and long before anyone knew what the hell a Marlin was.  At 15, Mario and I would stay up talking about girls, music and trading baseball cards until the sun appeared on the horizon.  Valenzuela cards were always untouchable.  Mario, fully Latino, and me, partially so, gradually growing into our identity and living in a Latin American country, understood Valenzuela’s cultural significance, his rarity and far-reaching cult of personality.  Likeable, dominant, unforgettable.  His quirky, unconventional delivery, his oddly shaped body, his laser-like focus at only 21, Valenzuela represented progress and acceptance, long before any talk had emerged of building walls to keep out his kind.

He changed the game and simultaneously showed millions what was possible.  Kinda seems like we’ve forgotten that. 

I can write a thousand words about football or gambling or anything else on this website but it’s these more personal posts that resonate with the reader.  I thank you for that.  It reminds me why I run this website in the first place and why I remain fascinated by the cultural phenomena that have encompassed my upbringing.

It’s funny what triggers us emotionally, a song, a text, a memory, a baseball game, a pitching motion, a Valenzuela-like glance to the heavens.  I about lost my shit when all those things happened within minutes of each other.  Deep breaths were necessary.  But this “coincidental” chain of events reminds me that I’m human, vulnerable, and grateful for the multitude of memories, even though I still choke up thinking about them.

I can’t lie.  I miss those guys every day.

Maybe I’ll have to watch this World Series after all.

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