It’s sad enough when an iconic and transcendent representative of truly impactful times passes too young. Such was the news that broke late last night that UPI’s Alex Butler was among the many that mournfully reported:
Legendary Mexican pitcher Fernando Valenzuela, who won Rookie of the Year and Cy Young Award honors and a World Series in 1981 while with the Los Angeles Dodgers, has died, the team announced. He was 63.
The Dodgers said the man who inspired the fan fueled “Fernandomania” movement died Tuesday in Los Angeles. They did not provide a cause of death. (though one look at the most recent photograph of him would strongly suggest serious illness).
“On behalf of the Dodger organization, we profoundly mourn the passing of Fernando,” Dodgers president and CEO Stan Kasten said. “He is one of the most influential Dodgers ever and belongs on the Mount Rushmore of franchise heroes.
“He galvanized the fan base with the ‘Fernandomania’ season of 1981 and has remained close to our hearts ever since, not only as a player but also as a broadcaster. He has left us all too soon. Our deepest condolences go out to his wife Linda and his family.”
The cruel irony that this news came down on the 43rd anniversary of his World Series-turning victory against the Yankees, which YARDBARKER’s Eric Smithling waxed nostalgic about in his piece dropped earlier this morning:
His win was Los Angeles’ first in the series after New York took a 2-0 lead. Valenzuela pitched his 13th complete game of the season in the 5-4 home win, allowing four earned runs and striking out six batters on 147 pitches.
It was by no means his best performance, as Valenzuela allowed nine hits, including two home runs, and seven walks, but he held the Yankees to 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position and got Yankees outfielder Lou Piniella to strike out swinging for the game’s final out.
As we approach a series where it’s possible this generation of Dodger starters collectively won’t throw 147 pitches in several games against this generation of Yankees, the resillience and overachieving that “El Toro” demonstrated understandably cemented a generation of Angelenos to reaffirm their loyalty to “Los Doyers” and makes their level of mourning this week all the more understandable.
But for me, it’s way more personal.
In the eyes of several of my relatives, and eventually moi, the cherubic and round-faced rookie athlete from Etchohuaquila, Mexico bore more than a passing resemblance to my obese, chain-smoking, mah jongg-obsessed mother. And much as I tried to purge that thought from my mind, I never could. 
I may have already shared this anecdote last year when the Dodgers, in an act of prescience in hindsight,broke with tradition and retired Valenzuela’s #34 while he was still around to appreicate it and a musing was devoted to him. The doppelgangers’ paths actually crossed on a balmy September Friday night in 1985 before a near-sellout crowd at Dodger Stadium, where the Mets, actively in their first true pennant race in more than a decade, set their own young phenom, Dwight Gooden, head-to-head with a still fearful Valenzuela, who was looking to help his team win their third division title in five years. My family visited me en masse and Mom’s cigarettes brought an entirely new level of discomfort to my overcrowded apartment. When an offer came from a thoughtful executive friend to take them all out to the ballgame, I enthusiastically replied “yes”, not realizing that the family was scheduled to fly back to New York the next morning. I figured how often does opportunity like this knock?
The game more than lived up to its billing. Fernando looked like the rookie phenom he was pre-strike in ’81 and Gooden was, well, Doc. They exchanged shutouts for nine innings. Valenzeula actually pitched 11 shutout innings. As the clock wore past eleven o’clock the game got more tense and virtually no one even thought of leaving. Except, of course, Mom. As out after out piled on, her whining grew louder and her panic more intense. “I still have to pack!!” “I need my beauty sleep!” “What will we do if we miss our flight?!?!” We ignored her, of course.
Finally, Darryl Strawberry’s two-run homer in the top of the 13th inning off my father’s least favorite closer, Tom Niedenfuer, gave the Mets their margin of victory and a much-needed win. The game ended a few minutes before midnight, and we didn’t get back to my apartment until nearly 2 a.m. All the way home my mom was sobbing, and it wasn’t tears of happiness.
Naturally, we all overslept and they did indeed miss their flight. The rebooking fees for my family were a collective $300. I gladly paid it, and when my colleagues found out about it a few actually chipped in a little. We knew how special what we got to experience was, even if she didn’t.
Flash forward to eleven months later, I’m back in town for business meetings on the same weekend the Mets are playing for their World Series lives against the Red Sox. I’m in a taxi careening out of control heading for my parents’ apartment as the bottom of the 10th inning is unfolding, hoping to somehow get in front of a screen to actually see what my disbelieving ears are healing. We narrowly avoid two head-on expressway collisions. We pull up to their door just as Ray Knight is scoring the winning run to keep the Mets’ season alive. I open the door, there’s Mom, cigarette dangling, dancing in happiness.
“Oh, NOW you’re a fan”, I tease her.
“You know, that WAS a great game”, she finally admitted.
We never watched even another snippet of a baseball game on TV, let alone in person, together until her own untimely demise a mere four and one-half years later. But we did have those moments, and I had something close to closure.
As COMING SOON.net’s Apoorv Rastogi shared early this morning with his readers, Valenzeula had one more moment of glory wearing Dodger blue:
“Fernando Valenzuela has pitched a no-hitter at 10:17 in the evening on June the 29th, 1990,” legendary Dodgers announcer Vin Scully said after the 6-0 victory over the St.Louis Cardinals was complete “If you have a sombrero, throw it to the sky!”
I don’t have one myself, but I suspect we’ll see a few hoisted in that direction at some point in the next couple of days among the four-digit seat holders for this weekend’s World Series games. I know I’ll look up to the sky. And I do hope the doppelgangers get some quality time together in the process.
Courage…