Fernando Valenzuela’s ‘gift’ to the Dodgers, baseball, and those he inspired will live on

A tectonic shift in this nation’s character occurred the moment Jackie Robinson stepped onto a baseball field to debut as a Brooklyn Dodger in 1947. The impact of that moment still ripples through a country and a culture in unparalleled ways, making it a given that there was, and always will be, just one Jack Roosevelt Robinson.

That does not mean that other such moments, and momentous molders of significant social change, haven’t played vital roles in baseball and American cultures. Fernando Valenzuela certainly did, as we were so vividly reminded after the former Dodgers All-Star left-hander died at age 63 on Tuesday.

Valenzuela’s death came just days before the team which he led to a World Series victory over the New York Yankees in 1981, prepares to play the Bronx Bombers once more in the Fall Classic. His passing unleashed a flood of memories about his singular contributions dating back to the last of the 12 unprecedented meetings between two old New York City Subway Series rivals. It was 1981 when Valenzuela, then a 20-year-old phenomenon unto himself, defeated the Yankees in Game 3, a must-win in a series New York led, 2-0.

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Valenzuela’s Dodgers would not lose another game to the Yankees. And Valenzuela, the son of rural Etchohuaquila, Sonora, Mexico, would forever be more than just another rookie whose 15 minutes of fame would flicker and fade away.

Fernando Valenzuela’s story was about far more than just wins and losses, on-field phenomena or even Fall Classics. He helped change for the better relations between a migrant team and the Hispanic neighborhood where ancestral roots were planted long before 19th century Spanish colonialization or Mexico ruled California.

A vibrant Mexican American community once resided where Dodger Stadium now stands. That community — Chavez Ravine — was eliminated when L.A. removed more than 1,000 families by way of an eminent domain seizure in 1950. The evictions, many forced, some heart-wrenching and violent, saw women and children pulled from hillside homes, as a nation watched on national TV. The would abandoned its original plans to erect a housing development and instead invite the Dodgers to build there. The stadium opened in 1962.

Such moves by such municipalities dot American history. In “everything old is new again” fashion, Philadelphia and the 76ers now are grappling with a historic Chinatown community pushing back against a planned downtown NBA arena.

Three thousand miles away, L.A. and the Dodgers felt the ramifications of what occurred in Chavez Ravine for years. No thaw seemed possible. Until Fernando.

Now, he was not Moses. He did not show an entire nation how to integrate in a dignified fashion as Robinson did. He did not dissolve the City of Angels’ redlined districts that embittered so many minorities. He was not a quotable, photogenic practitioner of the art of pitching to mass media, like Seaver, Palmer, and Sutton. Access to Valenzuela’s inner thoughts was limited by a language barrier that cut him off from the historically white, male, Anglo media majority.

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His actions were left to speak for themselves. And brother, did they roar. The young lefty used an uncanny screwball and pitching prowess beyond his age to wow baseball and lure the region’s large Mexican American population into the Dodgers fan base. The transformation was electric, as quick as it was unexpected. It was “Fernandomania,” a happening on steroids.

It all began when Valenzuela made the 1981 team and was handed the ball for the Dodgers’ opener because of injuries in the rotation. He used his first-ever starting assignment to shut out defending NL West division champion Houston. That alone was sweet for the Dodgers, who had been eliminated from playoff contention by the Astros in a one-game playoff the season before.

Valenzuela wasn’t finished. Vanquishing opponent after opponent, he won his next seven decisions, all masterful complete-game efforts. Five of the first eight wins were shutouts. That otherworldly run immediately resonated throughout the sporting world, and more. His flirtation with perfection quickly became an irresistible symbol of pride, not just for Mexico, but Spanish-speaking countries throughout Central and South America. Most importantly, the pitcher was every bit the ace the Dodgers needed to beat down rivals and barriers that had stood in the way of friendly relations with Mexican American communities around Dodger Stadium and beyond.

“I was just 8 years old when ‘Fernandomania’ came into our lives,” said former Dodgers All-Star Nomar Garciaparra, a Whittier, Calif., product of Mexican heritage. “What I remember is when Fernando pitched, the whole world stopped. I’d go to my grandparents, or my aunts and uncles, and they were watching Fernando. I had no idea they were even sports fans, but when he came along, and even long after, they were Dodgers fans.”

Nowadays, 43 years after the height of “Fernandomania,” Garciaparra said the impact is still real. A Dodgers studio pre- and postgame broadcaster, he points to the demographics, the ever-present mariachi bands beyond the center-field bleachers, the many special celebrations of Hispanic and Latino culture the Dodgers host. “That’s all Fernando,” Garciaparra said. “No one, other than Jackie, made a bigger difference for the game than Fernando.”

Jaime Jarrín, the Dodgers’ Hall of Fame announcer who spent more than six decades broadcasting the team’s games in Spanish, said the true measure of Valenzuela’s impact is simple. “He created more baseball fans, and Dodger fans, than any other player,” Jarrín told the Our Esquina online magazine in 2023 after the Dodgers announced they were going to retire Valenzuela’s No. 34.

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Jarrín, speaking to Smithsonian Magazine, recalled that less than 10% of the Dodger Stadium audience was Latino before “Fernandomania.” By 2015, 2.1 million of the 3.9 million fans at Dodger games were Latino, according to the Smithsonian archives.

Now, as the NL champion Dodgers prepare to play the AL pennant-winning Yankees, the focus will fall on another cultural explosion.

“This year is interesting because of how [Shohei] Ohtani is drawing Japanese fans,” Garciaparra said of the Dodgers’ presumptive NL MVP and record-setting owner of 54 home runs and 59 stolen bases this season.

“I’m curious, though,” Garciaparra said of the obvious comparison. “You have to give it 20-30 years to wait to see if it becomes 80% Japanese, like what it seems now for a very Hispanic fan base. That’s Fernando did, and still does, 40 years later.”

The man who pitched for 17 years, in many uniforms, including the Phillies’, is gone. His voice, as a Dodgers Spanish broadcaster, is silenced. But his memory lives on, said Garciaparra, “because I know what he gave me, a Mexican American kid from Whittier. He taught me that if you have belief in something, you can accomplish anything. That was his gift to all of us.”

Claire Smith is on the faculty at Temple and is the co-director of the Claire Smith Center for Sports Media. She is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame and a former Inquirer sports columnist.