Fernando Valenzuela, the famed left-handed pitcher whose fairy-tale rookie season revitalized the connection between the Los Angeles Dodgers and their city’s Mexican American fanbase, died Tuesday at age 63, the team reported.
Born in 1960 in a rural village in northwestern Mexico, Valenzuela was scouted by accident — the Dodgers were eyeing another player’s batting skills, and Valenzuela was chosen to pitch.
His first start was also an accident.
After pitcher Jerry Reuss suffered a last-minute calf injury before Opening Day in 1981, Valenzuela was called upon to start and delivered a shutout, his first of eight consecutive wins to begin the season.
His instant stardom sparked a craze known as “Fernandomania” and played a key role in healing the Dodgers’ rift with L.A.’s Mexican American community, which at the time was still bristling over the evictions of entire Hispanic neighborhoods to build Dodger Stadium two decades earlier.
That 1981 season, Valenzuela went on to lead the Dodgers to a World Series victory over the New York Yankees — the most recent time the two storied franchises met in the fall classic. He also became the only player in history to win a league’s Rookie of the Year Award and Cy Young Award, bestowed upon its best pitcher, in the same season.
The two teams will reprise their rivalry Friday in the first game of the 2024 World Series in Dodger Stadium.
Valenzuela withdrew as the Dodgers’ Spanish-language broadcaster, a job he held since 2003, ahead of this year’s playoffs, citing health concerns.
Though he lived in the United States since 1979, Valenzuela only became a U.S. citizen in 2015.
Like many Mexican U.S. residents, Valenzuela put off naturalization despite being eligible for citizenship for decades.
According to the American Immigration Council, about 2.2 million Mexican citizens currently eligible for naturalization have not yet taken the step.
Valenzuela, like many fellow Mexican immigrants, found in the U.S. a place where he was able to put his skills to work, though his time at the pinnacle of baseball success was relatively short-lived.
Valenzuela retired in 1997 following stints with several other teams after leaving the Dodgers in 1991. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014, and his uniform number, 34, is retired by the Dodgers.