Fernando: Inside the legend of a pitcher is the story of a dynamic human being
Editor’s note: This story appears in the Aug. 10–20 edition of Dodger Insider magazine.
by Cary Osborne
Hero? No. Fernando Valenzuela considers himself anything but.
“Heroes are in cartoons or something like that,” Valenzuela says.
When someone calls him that word, the legendary baseball figure politely and humbly says thank you.
“I think the ones who are heroes are people who rescue people. That’s a hero,” he adds. “If the little things I did in baseball helped people, if it helped them by never giving up, keep continuing, helped them think you can do anything, that makes me proud.”
The little things — hardly little.
Valenzuela’s №34, officially retired by the Dodger franchise on Aug. 11, 2023, is a recognition of all the extraordinary things the left-handed pitcher accomplished in an unparalleled baseball life.
Now 62 years old, a Dodger Spanish-language broadcaster and ever-present at Dodger Stadium, the easy-going father and grandfather with dry humor is typically the last person to glorify his playing days.
He certainly remembers them, though — start to finish — because it satisfied an urge that he still has to this day.
“In any sport, I like competition,” Valenzuela says. “I never liked to play just to have fun.”
That competitive side helped Valenzuela become one of the most dominant baseball players of his era and one of the most popular sports figures in the world in the 1980s.
Valenzuela was a guest at the White House. In the pre-social media days, he was a story that went viral — he was highlighted on national news telecasts, on the cover of Sports Illustrated and was the lead item on sports pages from coast to coast.
His six-season span from 1981–1986 will forever be regarded as one of the elite runs by a Dodger pitcher — six All-Star selections, three top-three finishes in the Cy Young Award balloting, two Silver Slugger Awards and a Gold Glove Award, 97 wins, 84 complete games, 1,258 strikeouts and a 2.97 ERA. In eight postseason starts, he was 5–1 with a 2.00 ERA
His no-hitter on June 29, 1990, is regarded as one of the greatest performances ever at Dodger Stadium and an emotional highlight in Valenzuela’s career.
During all of it, Valenzuela was building a family.
He married a school teacher from Merida, Yucatan, named Linda in December 1981. U.S. President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan sent a congratulatory telegram to the pitcher after the ceremony.
Fernando Jr. was born in 1982. Ricky (1984), Linda (1986) and Maria (1991) followed.
And baseball has long followed family in terms of importance in his life.
“It was normal. Everyone has a dad. He’s your dad, and there’s nothing different to you,” Maria says. “With us, he wouldn’t treat us different. He would always treat us the same as any kid.”
“He’s a dad and a grandpa — and I think he feels that’s his biggest accomplishments,” says his daughter Linda. ”He’s proud of his kids and grandkids. He shows up to my niece’s softball games at 7 in the morning. She has a game, and he’s there.”
Valenzuela says if anyone resembled a hero during his playing days, it’s his wife.
“My wife is a very big influence on (our children),” Valenzuela says. “I was on the road trips, and she had to take them to school, take them to the doctor. That’s really hard. It was more work for her.”
Ricky is the general manager of Tigres de Quintana Roo — a Mexican League team partly owned by Valenzuela. Ricky lives in the Los Angeles area but makes business trips to Mexico. It helped him to understand how vital his mother was to his father’s success.
“I’m kind of going through that right now. I hear how hard it is, and I see it too,” Ricky says. “I’m sure it’s hard for anybody to focus on their job if they’re on the road and don’t have that support back home. It was really important for him to have somebody like my mom to make sure that everything’s OK at home, so that way he was able to focus whenever he was on the road.”
Fernando Jr. and Ricky remember being in the clubhouse or following their father to the old player parking lot at Dodger Stadium when he pitched for the team. The lot had a chain-link fence that served as a barrier between Valenzuela and the fans. But when he would sign autographs, Ricky remembers fans often asking him — then just a little boy — if he would help get their item signed.
Fernando Jr. — the president of Tigres de Quintana Roo — has the most vivid memories, but they’re more about eating Dodger Dogs and ice cream while waiting for dad’s work day to end.
Growing up with the name Valenzuela always made for moments when the kids would get asked if they were related.
“It would be at school — your friends, your teachers, your friends’ parents bring it up to you,” Linda says.
Fernando Jr. remembers a teacher asking him for tickets when he was a little kid.
“It just never really came to mind and thinking how big he was,” Fernando Jr. says. “Nowadays, seeing the videos and stuff like that, now I’m like, ‘Oh wow, it was a big deal — Fernandomania.’ You don’t realize it at the time. It was just, ‘Oh, my dad’s pitching today.’”
But he became a sensation for reasons beyond performance. One such reason was Valenzuela’s improbable story, making him an inspirational figure.
“In the early years, I probably visited more than 100,000 kids in schools,” Valenzuela says. “And I see some now, and they say, ‘You went to my school when I was in the first grade. I say, ‘Really, what are you doing now?’
“‘I’m a doctor, or a lawyer,’ (they say). Or I hear something like that. They continued their career. That makes me feel good. That meant the little things I did worked.”
The Improbable Becomes the Incredible
Valenzuela was born in tiny Etchohuaquila — a dusty, desolate town in the state of Sonora in Mexico with a population in the hundreds at the time. He was the youngest child in a large family. They lived in a small home with dirt and concrete floors.
Valenzuela tagged along when his older brothers played baseball. Playing against older competition advanced his skills. The precocious left-hander was 16 when he signed his first professional contract, and the teenage pitcher began overpowering adult batters in the Mexican Central League.
He had never stepped foot in the United States in his early years, but knew he wanted to get there for one reason.
“My goal was to get signed by a big league team,” he recalls.
In 1978, Dodger scout Mike Brito went to Silao, Guanajuato, Mexico, to watch a shortstop named Ali Uscanga. Valenzuela came into the game in relief, and Brito soon had a new player he coveted.
Valenzuela was the Rookie of the Year in the Mexican League playing for Leones de Yucatan in 1979.
Brito famously signed the 18-year-old in 1979, and Valenzuela’s introduction to the U.S. was Lodi in the California League that same year.
One year later, he was in the Major Leagues — a September callup who arrived in Houston and found a jersey with the №34 hanging from a locker at the Astrodome. A few days later, on Sept. 15, 1980, he made his Major League debut in relief.
The incredible performances and resulting immense adulation made Fernando Valenzuela an international superstar.
“In that moment you’re not going to think, ‘Why are the fans reacting like this? Why is this happening?’ I was focused on the game and the season — that’s it,” Valenzuela recalls. “When people gave the nickname ‘Fernandomania,’ I didn’t pay attention. I wanted to do well in the games and in the season because that’s the way I am.
“The big crowds were nice. Any player would want to play in front of a big crowd. And I liked it. I liked when people would come and support their team. The only thing that surprised me is when we went on the road, the extra people coming to the stadium. When I was pitching, there were more people in the stands. I’d say, ‘Oh, really. That’s great. That was a surprise.’”
Historically, there is no match to Valenzuela’s 1981 season. Only one pitcher in Major League history has won the Cy Young Award and Rookie of the Year in the same season — Valenzuela. Add to that, he was the National League starting pitcher in the All-Star Game that season, and he won a World Series championship.
When he was on the mound, he owned it.
“You get nervous when you don’t know what you have,” he says. “It’s like if I’m going to fly a plane. I would be nervous because I don’t know how the plane will respond or not (because I’m not a pilot). But in the games, I knew what I had, what I can do — it’s that simple.”
He is the all-time Major League leader in wins (173) and strikeouts (2,074) by a Mexican-born player.
On July 6, 2019, the Mexican League retired the №34 for all teams. In Major North American sports, Valenzuela’s 34 in the Mexican League, Jackie Robinson’s 42 in Major League Baseball, Wayne Gretzky’s 99 in the NHL and Bill Russell’s 6 in the NBA are the only league-wide numbers retired.
Valenzuela remembers being at a parade in East LA a few years back. He heard a
plane in the sky and looked up. It was dragging a banner that suggested the Dodgers retire 34.
“That’s crazy,” Valenzuela says he remembers thinking.
34 Forever
The number 34 had been kept out of circulation by the Dodgers since Valenzuela last played for the Dodgers in Spring Training 1991. On Feb. 4, 2023, Dodgers President and CEO Stan Kasten announced that this year, the Dodgers would officially retire 34.
“I didn’t think it would honestly ever happen,” Linda says. “It just feels like the perfect combination of his trajectory, his work, his life after playing with the Dodgers. I was just happy that it’s happening while he’s able to enjoy it and be there. I feel it’s the right thing to do.”
“I know the other Dodger numbers that are retired, they’re in the Hall of Fame,” Maria says. “It’s almost even more special that they (are retiring the number) because of that reason.”
Ricky says his dad kept the news leading up to the official announcement a secret.
“I found out through social media,” he says. “He’s very humble. He’s not one to say, ‘This just happened to me!’ He takes a little more laid-back approach of things happening to him when they’re great.”
Valenzuela says he is happy that the №34 will forever be seen at Dodger Stadium on the Ring of Honor alongside the greatest figures in club history — not so much for himself, but for the fans.
“The Dodgers are for the people, for the fans,” he says. “They believed in what I did when I was playing. They helped me in different ways. They gave me confidence and believed in me.”
Valenzuela doesn’t like the question of how he would like to be remembered.
That’s a question, he says, someone is asked before they pass away. Valenzuela — the former pitcher, the Dodger broadcaster, the humble father and grandfather — is full of life.
But he decided he would answer the question anyway: How would Fernando Valenzuela like to be remembered?
“I don’t know,” he says at first, then, “Maybe as a person who liked to give 100 percent in anything I do.”
