LOS ANGELES — In an honor that was a long time overdue, the Dodgers lastly retired Fernando Valenzuela’s quantity 34 on Friday evening at Dodger Stadium. The festivities kicked off Fernandomania Weekend, a three-day celebration of the transcendent famous person’s affect on the franchise, first as a pitcher throughout his preliminary 11-season run (1980–90) after which as an analyst on the crew’s Spanish-language broadcasts (2003–current). Beyond starring on the sphere by successful NL Rookie of the Year and Cy Young honors and serving to the Dodgers seize a world championship in 1981, Valenzuela emerged as a global cultural icon. He introduced generations of Mexican-American and Latino followers to baseball and helped to heal the injuries attributable to the constructing of the very ballpark through which he starred.
Valenzuela’s rise is one thing of a fairy story. The youngest of 12 kids in a household in Etchohuaquila, Mexico (pop. 150), he was found by Dodgers superscout Mike Brito at age 17 and signed the subsequent yr (1979). Taught to throw a screwball by Dodgers reliever Bobby Castillo through the 1979 Arizona Instructional League, he went on a dominant run at Double-A San Antonio the next yr and was referred to as as much as the Dodgers in mid-September. The pudgy and mysterious 19-year-old southpaw spun 17.2 innings of good reduction work with out permitting an earned run through the warmth of a pennant race. He made the crew as a starter the next spring, and his profession took off when he tossed an Opening Day shutout in opposition to the Astros in an emergency begin, filling in for an injured Jerry Reuss. He stored placing up zeroes, going 8–0 with seven full video games, 5 shutouts, and a 0.50 ERA in 72 innings over his first eight begins, drawing outsized crowds in each metropolis the place he pitched. Despite talking barely a phrase of English, he grew to become an immediate celeb on the energy of a bashful smile, preternatural poise, and impeccable command of his signature pitch, delivered with a particular movement that included a skyward gaze on the peak of his windup.
To borrow a metaphor from Erik Sherman, creator of the brand new biography Daybreak at Chavez Ravine, Valenzuela was baseball’s model of the Beatles, a composite of the Fab Four with a common attraction. He landed on the duvet of Sports Illustrated lower than two months into his rookie season, an unprecedented occasion within the journal’s historical past. Fernandomania took maintain of baseball and survived that summer season’s seven-week participant strike. In October, the rookie displayed unimaginable guile, successful two elimination video games and stopping the Yankees from taking a 3–0 collection lead within the World Series. His Herculean 149-pitch effort in Game 3 turned the tide, serving to the Dodgers seize their first championship since 1965. He would play a significant half on two extra NL West-winning Dodgers groups and make six All-Star groups earlier than leaving the fold and making stops with half a dozen different main league groups, although he by no means matched his success in L.A.
On Friday evening, a crowd of 49,315 followers, a lot of them sporting replicas of Valenzuela’s Dodgers and Team Mexico jerseys, confirmed up early to pay tribute to the beloved pitcher. U.S. senator Alex Padilla, the primary Hispanic senator from California; crew president and CEO Stan Kasten; retired Dodgers broadcaster Jaime Jarrín, who served as his interpreter throughout Fernandomania; and former battery-mate Mike Scioscia spoke about Valenzuela’s affect upon the crew, town, and a fan base that expanded radically because it supported him. Sandy Koufax, Julio Urías, and broadcaster Pepe Yñiguez joined them onstage, with broadcaster Charley Steiner serving as grasp of ceremonies. A mariachi band accompanied a beaming Valenzuela’s stroll to the stage. Afterwards, former teammates Orel Hershiser and Manny Mota unveiled the quantity 34 on the Dodgers Ring of Honor.
Kasten recounted his personal arrival because the Dodgers president and CEO in 11 years in the past. “My first night here, as I walked through the stands and met the fans, talked to the fans, observed the fans, and listened to the fans, I realized there was a name that equaled any other player in the hearts and minds of fans, and that was Fernando Valenzuela. It was then that I understood Fernandomania wasn’t just in 1981, Fernandomania never has ended. It’s still going on today, which is what brings us here tonight.”
It was Kasten who knowledgeable Valenzuela in February that the crew would lastly retire his quantity, doing so beneath the guise of recording a promotional video. “Three days before FanFest, that’s when they told me first I have to record some tape for the Dodgers, for the community,” Valenzuela stated in a pregame press convention. “Then [Kasten] said, “We’re going to retire your number.’ I said, ‘Really?’ It caught me by surprise.”
The soft-spoken Valenzuela is understandably much less comfy talking English than Spanish, and much more uneasy being the focus irrespective of the language. Asked by a Spanish-speaking reporter if he was nervous concerning the festivities, he responded, “Honestly? I would rather have the bases loaded with no outs.” His 20-minute presser was largely carried out in his native tongue, with out Jarrín or anybody else serving as an interpreter, but similar to these bases-loaded conditions, he stored his cool and rose to the event.
“It’s very emotional, really,” Valenzuela advised reporters. “I’ve never been in this kind of situation, but to be part of the Dodgers for many years, now they’re going to do something with the number, I think that’s the best.”
Valenzuela’s quantity had been out of circulation because the crew launched the pitcher within the spring of 1991 after years of declining effectiveness as a result of overuse, offset by the occasional spotlight, equivalent to his June 29, 1990 no-hitter. Longtime clubhouse supervisor Mitch Poole declined to subject no. 34 to a different participant even whereas the group adhered to a longstanding coverage — one relationship again to the times when Walter O’Malley owned the crew — of retiring solely the numbers of these elected to the Hall of Fame as Dodgers. Only one of many crew’s 11 retired numbers deviated from that coverage: when former Rookie of the Year, All-Star, and coach Jim Gilliam died of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 49 on October 8, 1978, the Dodgers retired his no. 19 two days later, when the World Series opened in Los Angeles.
With his profession stunted by accidents, Valenzuela’s shot on the Hall of Fame got here and went; he obtained simply 6.2% on the 2003 BBWAA poll and three.8% on the ’04 one, ruling him out from additional consideration by the writers. But whereas the BBWAA’s Hall of Fame poll guidelines could also be rigid, crew guidelines aren’t engraved on stone tablets. The solely factor stopping the Dodgers from retiring the quantity was, properly, the Dodgers, and given his place, Kasten most likely had extra energy to proper the mistaken than anybody. While the crew inducted Valenzuela into its Legends of Dodger Baseball group — honoring those that left their marks however weren’t within the Hall — in 2019, it let the thirtieth and fortieth anniversaries of Fernandomania go with out including 34 to the Dodgers Ring of Honor. Meanwhile, key figures in Valenzuela’s rags-to-riches story handed away, together with Castillo in 2014; Tommy Lasorda, his longtime supervisor, in 2021; and Brito in 2022. In response to the persistent questions from followers, as Kasten stated in February, the Dodgers reviewed their coverage and determined it was time for a change.
Though stunned within the second when he was advised, Valenzuela did have an inkling today would finally come. “It means a lot because that number was there, open. Nobody used it,” he advised reporters. “I don’t know if that decision [was] from the clubhouse manager, or [above]. Surprised me because it’s not too high a number, not 76, not 77, so… I said, ‘Something’s cooking, something’s happening.’”
Indeed, one thing did occur, and when the large evening arrived, this scribe was fortunate sufficient to see all of it go down — from a number of views, each actually and figuratively.
As an 11-year-old Dodgers fan in 1981, I used to be enthralled by Valenzuela. I clipped the field scores of that eight-start run from the Salt Lake Tribune and taped them to a sheet of pocket book paper in a three-ring binder. On one other sheet, I stored a operating stat line that helped me to calculate his minuscule ERA with out ready for the Sunday papers (want I remind there was no Baseball Reference or FanGraphs in these days?). I had been dwelling and dying with the Dodgers since 1978 and understood Valenzuela to be the equalizer who would assist avenge the crew’s back-to-back losses to the Yankees within the World Series in ’77 and ’78. He shortly overtook the opposite favourite gamers in my private pantheon. Unfortunately, by averaging 264 regular-season and postseason innings from 1981 to ’87, he wound up an injured bystander by the point the Dodgers received one other World Series in ’88, one other nice arm sacrificed on the altar of Lasorda. But in that magical rookie yr, he greater than lived as much as the religion that I positioned in him. The flag he planted in my coronary heart flies endlessly.
And so, having spent greater than a decade utilizing my platform to advocate for the Dodgers to retire Valenzuela’s quantity, I lucked right into a scheduling coincidence, with the date of the festivities previous a deliberate household trip in San Diego by simply in the future. The math labored out, and the celebs aligned. I used to be not solely credentialed to cowl the festivities and get a glimpse behind the scenes however was additionally invited as a ticketed visitor, becoming a member of longtime Dodger Thoughts blogger and creator Jon Weisman and his siblings to view the ceremony and the following Dodgers-Rockies recreation from the higher deck behind dwelling plate.
Before becoming a member of the Weisman crew, I obtained to listen to supervisor Dave Roberts provide his view of Valenzuela’s significance to the franchise, to attend the aforementioned press convention, and to see components of Dodger Stadium that I’d by no means seen, a few of them with an help from the Orange County-Register’s J.P. Hoornstra, who volunteered to function my tour information (thanks, J.P.!). Since I’d by no means labored a recreation at Dodger Stadium earlier than, it was virtually overwhelming to set foot within the Vin Scully Press Box for the primary time; I’ll admit I wanted a second there to gather myself earlier than going about my enterprise.
After the perfunctory journeys to the crew clubhouse and the dugout (to listen to Roberts), we wandered by the media cafeteria — the place the person of the evening sat, receiving well-wishes from acquainted faces — after which onto the shows of MVP, Cy Young, and Gold Glove awards, in addition to previous posters, art work, signage and memorabilia relationship again to the crew’s days in Brooklyn. The one which stopped me in my tracks was the show of the retired numbers, full with the brand new addition:
The Dodgers’ retired numbers wall pic.twitter.com/k0uUqer4uJ
— Jay Jaffe (@jay_jaffe) August 11, 2023
There’s no cheering within the press field, nonetheless, and no reproduction no. 34 jerseys allowed both, so it was with nice anticipation that I ascended to the highest deck of the ballpark, modified costume, purchased a few Dodger Dogs and a beer, and let myself be a fan for just a few hours. It was pure pleasure (thanks, Jon!).
…
It’s a moot level so far as the jersey retirement goes, however as for Valenzuela in Cooperstown, I get requested about it virtually as usually as Kasten may need been requested about quantity 34. I’ve stated earlier than that if there have been a case to be mounted, I’d be throughout it. The foremost downside is that Hall of Fame voters — each writers and the assorted small committees through the years — haven’t completed properly when grappling with the kind of hybrid case that Valenzuela presents, one which goes to this point past the numbers. They could do it moderately properly for executives, managers, and umpires, however the template for gamers who’ve added one thing further with their contributions isn’t a transparent one.
For Valenzuela, the numbers themselves usually are not adequate. Despite his six All-Star appearances, Rookie of the Year and Cy Young Awards, and trio of top-three finishes within the voting for the latter, he completed his profession with only a 173–153 report, a 3.54 ERA (104 ERA+), and a couple of,074 strikeouts, none of which learn as Hall-caliber. Even with 5 league top-10 finishes in bWAR, neither his 41.4 bWAR or 36.5 S-JAWS register as Hallworthy both; by the latter, he ranks 171st all-time, eight spots beneath Jack Morris and forward of solely Lefty Gomez, Catfish Hunter, Rube Marquard, and Jesse Haines amongst non-Negro Leagues Hall of Fame pitchers. His postseason line (5–1, 1.98 ERA in 63.2 innings) elevates his case, but it surely’s not sufficient to bridge the divide so far as Hall requirements are involved. It’s hardly a marvel that he barely made a dent within the writers’ poll; even in my very own evaluation, utilizing JAWS earlier than it was referred to as JAWS practically 20 years in the past, I gave him only one paragraph in that context.
The case for Valenzuela rests upon his standing as a trailblazer and ambassador on prime of his 1980–86 burst. “A strong argument can be made that he introduced baseball to more people around the world than any ballplayer who has ever lived,” wrote Sherman in Daybreak. “In the years since [his arrival], nobody has transformed baseball’s landscape more than Valenzuela, whose presence was as sport-altering as Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson were in their day.”
While I’m not fairly satisfied Valenzuela belongs on the stage of Ruth and Robinson, his affect upon Los Angeles and all through Latin America was enormous. His arrival and subsequent success helped to unite L.A., a racially divided metropolis not solely scarred by the Battle of Chavez Ravine — the decade-long effort to repossess the land and evict practically 2,000 Mexican-American households for the constructing of Dodger Stadium — but additionally by the following a long time of mistreatment and prejudice in opposition to Mexican-Americans. Circa 1959, when the Dodgers had been nonetheless enjoying on the Los Angeles Coliseum as Dodger Stadium was being constructed, solely eight p.c of the crowds had been Latino, in accordance with Jarrín, who served because the Dodgers’ Spanish-language voice from that season to 2022 and who received the Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasters in 1998. By 2019, that determine was up round 46 p.c, the legacy of the inroads made by Valenzuela’s run with the crew.
“Roberto Clemente is ‘The Great One,’ but culturally, Fernando Valenzuela has been more significant in terms of bringing a fan base that didn’t exist in baseball,” José de Jesus Ortiz, the primary Latino president of the BBWAA, advised Sherman for Daybreak. When the announcement of Valenzuela’s jersey retirement was made in February, Ortiz, who grew up in Los Angeles, wrote:
He lured our soccer-loving Mexican immigrant mother and father to Dodger Stadium or different National League stadiums. In some ways, the rookie from Etchohuaquila, Sonora, Mexico, lifted Mexicans out of the shadows. Before Valenzuela, most Americans assumed Mexicans had been primarily within the Southwest and California. Throughout that 1981 season, nonetheless, Valenzuela lured hundreds of Mexican followers to every of his begins on the highway.
If you didn’t know there have been massive pockets of Mexicans in New York, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Philadelphia or some other NL metropolis in 1981, you came upon shortly when Valenzuela pitched in these cities.
“He inspired so many kids throughout Latin America that might have had doubts about themselves,” José Mota (Manny’s son, and a Spanish-language broadcaster for the Dodgers) advised Sherman. “What people noticed was this humble kid that didn’t look like a baseball specimen, so they believed if he could succeed, they could to. In Mexico, if they have enough talent, they’ll be given a chance now because of Fernando. The same holds true not just in my country, the Dominican Republic… but also in other places, like Colombia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Puerto Rico. Fernando was not Mexican for us — he was just a Latino guy. He had a plethora of countries that identified with him and considered him as one of [their own].”
Valenzuela’s case for election to the Hall now falls beneath the purview of the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee, for gamers who made their biggest affect from 1980 onward. To be included on the subsequent eight-man poll (2026), he shall be competing for area with the candidates who fell quick when Fred McGriff was elected on the 2023 poll, equivalent to Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Don Mattingly, and Dale Murphy, to not point out Dwight Evans and Lou Whitaker, whom the Historical Overview Committee that constructed the poll failed to incorporate. Next time round, the logjam might additionally embrace Jeff Kent, whose 10-year run on the writers’ poll simply ended, and Gary Sheffield, who’s headed into his last yr of eligibility.
Note that the Historical Overview Committee consists of senior BBWAA members, which is to say a subset of the voting physique that rejected Valenzuela 20 years in the past. In constructing the poll, they have an inclination to favor candidates who obtained substantial BBWAA assist as an alternative of those that slipped by the cracks. That stacks the deck in opposition to Valenzuela even earlier than contemplating the distinctive form of his candidacy.
A sobering instance of how an Era Committee would possibly deal with Valenzuela as a candidate with a not-quite-Hall-caliber peak as a participant adopted by a protracted tail as an envoy might be present in the case of Lefty O’Doul. His heyday as a participant was temporary; after transitioning from pitching, he was a daily for simply six of his 11 seasons within the majors through the 1919–34 span, successful two batting titles and ending with a .349 batting common, the best of any participant exterior the Hall, albeit from a really hitter-friendly period. O’Doul made a a lot better affect as a pioneer by educating baseball fundamentals to Japanese gamers and serving as a goodwill ambassador to the nation each earlier than and after World War II. Per the analysis of Graham Womack, he was thought of no less than 11 occasions by the Veterans Committee between 1963 and ’85 with out being elected. He then obtained simply 18.2% by way of the expanded VC in 2007 and 31.3% by way of the 2022 Early Baseball Era Committee balloting.
Buck O’Neil affords a extra profitable instance of a hybrid candidacy… kind of. He was posthumously elected on that 2022 poll for his personal amalgam of credentials as a participant and supervisor within the Negro Leagues, as a pioneering scout and coach for the built-in AL and NL, and as an envoy for the bygone Negro Leagues. O’Neil performed an outsized function in elevating consciousness of Black baseball and in recognizing its greats as a Veterans Committee member and thru different avenues, together with his narration in Ken Burns’ nine-part documentary collection Baseball and his co-founding of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City. His relationship to the Hall is tinged by heartbreak: he was bypassed by the 2006 Special Committee on the Negro Leagues, which elected 17 others, and died lower than a yr later. Not till that 2022 poll had been Negro Leagues and pre-Negro Leagues Black baseball candidates even thought of once more, at which level he lastly gained entry.
The topic of O’Neil does illuminate one avenue to Cooperstown within the type of the Lifetime Achievement Award created in his title in 2008. According to the Hall’s web site, the award “is presented by the Hall of Fame’s Board of Directors not more than once every three years to honor an individual whose extraordinary efforts enhanced baseball’s positive impact on society, broadened the game’s appeal, and whose character, integrity and dignity are comparable to the qualities exhibited by O’Neil.” This yr’s award went to a different Dodgers legend, Carl Erskine, who threw two no-hitters whereas pitching for 5 Brooklyn pennant winners and one champion throughout his 12-year profession (1948–59). Spurred by the delivery of a son with Down syndrome in 1960, Erskine grew to become an advocate for individuals with mental disabilities, most notably spending 4 a long time volunteering for the Special Olympics.
The Buck O’Neil Award virtually sounds as if it had been created for Valenzuela, an honor that’s properly inside his attain. It is probably not a bronze plaque, however it’s high-level recognition for lengthy and meritorious service to the sport in ways in which aren’t essentially straightforward to quantify or pigeonhole. Perhaps the Hall will acknowledge Valenzuela by this implies in some unspecified time in the future down the highway. For now, we will take consolation within the Dodgers getting it proper. While they might have retired the pitcher-turned-broadcaster’s quantity belatedly, fortunately he’s nonetheless round to benefit from the celebration. Fernandomania by no means has ended.
Content Source: blogs.fangraphs.com