Valenzuela served as cultural leader | News, sports, jobs

For baseball fans, “Fernandomania” marked a flash of pitching brilliance, the emergence of a unique talent in the history of one of the sport’s most storied franchises.

For Mexicans and Mexican Americans, Fernando Valenzuela was something even greater: a beacon of hope, inspiration and pride.

Valenzuela, a Mexican-born phenom for the Los Angeles Dodgers, died Tuesday night at a Los Angeles hospital, the team said. He was 63 years old.

For some, his death evoked memories of watching the left-hander pitch at home with their parents, not out of love for sports but out of a surge of Mexican or Latino pride. They reflect on the doors it opened for future generations and the cultural impact it marked the beginning as a Mexican.

Valenzuela’s rise from humble beginnings as the youngest of 12 children in Mexico and his exploits on the mound made him enormously popular and influential in the Latino community while also helping to attract new fans to Major League Baseball. Her affection for him continued after his retirement.

Baseball fan or not, there is no person in Mexico who does not know who Valenzuela is, said Mexican journalist Arturo Ángel. He was born in 1983 and said his knowledge of Valenzuela came from his father, who is not a sports fan, among other people. The way people talked about him made Angel realize what an idol he was to many.

Nathaly Morga, who knows Valenzuela through her parents, said that no matter how many Latinos there are in baseball, “Fernando was always the great one, like God.”

Ángel said the explosion of television in the 1980s and the broadcast of Dodger games in Mexico catapulted Valenzuela to the phenomenon he became. The Dodgers, who had broadcast games in Spanish since 1959, saw an increase in ratings and interest in expanding their radio network to Mexico once Valenzuela began playing. Years after ending his playing career, Valenzuela joined those radio broadcasts as a color commentator.

“The Los Angeles Dodgers in Mexico have a great fan base,” Ángel said. “The taste for baseball expanded in Mexico, that is thanks to Fernando Valenzuela.”

Morga grew up in Tijuana in a family of soccer players. However, everyone knew Valenzuela. Morga remembers that her mother, who doesn’t understand how baseball is played, told her that at the height of “Fernandomania,” she watched Dodger games at a local hamburger restaurant because Valenzuela was pitching.

The Dodgers, longing for a star who would connect with Los Angeles’ Latino population, finally found one in Valenzuela, whose impact would transform what had been a predominantly white fan base. The city’s Mexican community began flocking to Dodger Stadium during its openings. The Dodgers, who had become the first franchise to draw 3 million fans in 1978, averaged 48,430 fans during Valenzuela’s home starts and 42,523 total during the strike-interrupted 1981 season—the highest attendance average high in the history of Dodger Stadium up to that point. That year, Valenzuela became the first in baseball history to win the Rookie of the Year Award and a Cy Young Award as baseball’s best pitcher in the same season.

“In Mexico, obviously everyone knows him,” Morga said. “Everyone loves the Dodgers because of him.”

Rob Martínez said that for those who grew up in Mexico, Valenzuela was the base. Because Dodger games were always broadcast in Mexico, Valenzuela became someone to talk about and someone to admire, he said.

Seeing Valenzuela was a family affair. Martinez said he remembers having cookouts to watch the games with his dad and his friends. When Valenzuela was taken out of a game, everyone stopped watching.

But seeing Valenzuela on television made Martínez believe that his dreams were also achievable. Martinez has played baseball since he was 3 years old and is now the associate head coach and recruiting coordinator for the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley baseball team.

“It was a big boost for everyone to see him compete and be the big league player,” Martinez said. “It gave us all hope.”

Valenzuela is considered one of the best Mexican athletes of all time, along with soccer player Hugo Sánchez and boxer Julio César Chávez.