Fernando Valenzuela

Baseball Player

• Born: November 1, 1960
• Place of Birth: Etchohuaquila, Mexico

MEXICAN-BORN BASEBALL PLAYER

Valenzuela was a pitching phenomenon who became a pop-culture icon through his dominance on the diamond. His pitching career ran from 1980 to 1997. As a highly visible athlete, he was influential in fostering pride in Latino identity.

Early Life

Fernando Valenzuela was born on November 1, 1960, in Etchohuaquila, Mexico. As an avid baseball player, Valenzuela excelled beyond his local peers and soon advanced to the Mexican professional leagues. At the age of seventeen, he began playing professional baseball for the Guanajuato team of the Mexican Central League.

Within a year of his professional debut, Valenzuela attracted the attention of scouts from Major League Baseball (MLB). Mike Brito, a talent scout from the Los Angeles Dodgers, recruited Valenzuela in 1978 from the Leones de Yucatán baseball club. In 1979, the Dodgers purchased Valenzuela’s Mexican contract, initially allowing him time to develop in a Class-A farm club in Lodi, California, and then in a Class-AA club in San Antonio, Texas.

Life’s Work

In September 1980, Valenzuela was called up to the Dodgers’ major-league team, where he immediately became one of the most celebrated rookies of the era. In addition to helping the Dodgers in 1980, Valenzuela led the team to a 1981 World Series victory over the New York Yankees. Valenzuela’s success combined with his charismatic personality made the young Mexican wildly popular among Dodger fans. The hype that surrounded him was referred to as “Fernandomania.”

Valenzuela thrived on the attention he received in Los Angeles. With his signature glance to the sky before each pitch, the left-handed Valenzuela perfected his delivery and became one the most feared pitchers in the National League. Using his trademark screwball, Valenzuela racked up 180 strikeouts and finished with an earned run average of 2.48 in 1981. For this performance, Valenzuela became the first pitcher in MLB history to win both the National League rookie of the year award and the National League Cy Young Award. Fans also recognized Valenzuela’s achievements by voting him into several All-Star games. Indeed, Valenzuela’s popularity proved influential when he was a National League All-Star selection for six consecutive seasons, from 1981 to 1986.

In addition to Valenzuela’s phenomenal pitching, he hit remarkably well for a pitcher. His batting statistics in 1981 and 1983 earned him the coveted Silver Slugger award, an honor given to the best offensive player at each position.

By the close of the 1980s, Valenzuela was considered a veteran pitcher. Although sportswriters claimed that his career was declining, he proved that he was still a valuable pitcher on June 29, 1990, when he recorded a no-hitter against the St. Louis Cardinals. Despite Valenzuela’s late-career achievement, his tenure as a Dodger came to an end in 1991 when he was released.

Valenzuela went on to spend the next several years moving between the Mexican Leagues and a variety of MLB teams, including the California Angels, Baltimore Orioles, San Diego Padres, and the St. Louis Cardinals. In 1997, Valenzuela officially retired from Major League Baseball as a Cardinal.

After retiring, Valenzuela held a variety of jobs, including as an assistant coach for the Mexican team in the World Baseball Classic in 2006 and 2009. He has been a Spanish-language commentator for the Dodgers since 2003. He became a US citizen in 2015.

In 2019, the Mexican Baseball League honored Valenzuela by retiring his number across the entire league. In 2023, the Los Angeles Dodgers officially retired his number 34 in a pregame ceremony.

Significance

Valenzuela was not only a dominant pitcher who helped his team win a World Series—he also was a cultural icon who inspired a devoted following. He became a Dodger at a time when Latinos made up a large segment of the team’s fan base. Baseball historians have even noted that the late Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley had commented on the need for a “Mexican Sandy Koufax” who would engage the large Latino population of Los Angeles. Having tapped into this population, Valenzuela enjoyed immense popularity throughout his career and provided a positive image with which young and often less-fortunate Latinos could identify.

Bibliography

Bretón, Marcos, and José Luis Villegas. Away Games: The Life and Times of a Latin Baseball Player. Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P, 2000. Print.

Burgos, Adrian. Playing America’s Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line. Berkeley: U of California P, 2007. Print.

"Dodgers Finally Retire Fernando Valenzuela’s No. 34." Los Angeles Times, 11 Aug. 2023, www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/story/2023-08-11/photos-dodgers-retire-fernando-valenzuela-number. Accessed 3 Sept. 2024.

"Fernando Valenzuela." Baseball Reference, 2024, www.baseball-reference.com/players/v/valenfe01.shtml. Accessed 3 Sept. 2024.

Katz, Jeff. Split Season: 1981—Fernandomania, the Bronx Zoo, and the Strike That Saved Baseball. New York: Thomas Dunne, 2015. Print.

Regalado, Samuel O. Viva Baseball! Latin Major Leaguers and Their Special Hunger. Champaign: U of Illinois P, 1998. Print.