Fernando Valenzuela made only one World Series appearance in his career: a complete game in Game 3 of the 1981 World Series to, for all intents and purposes, save the Dodgers season. It’s fitting that the left-hander’s rescue effort came in front of the Dodger Stadium crowd in 1981, for it’s possible that no player, home and season are more intertwined and resonant than when Fernandomania erupted out of Los Angeles that year.
The excitement, the pride, the adulation, the sheer effervescence of it all – it feels like it shall never be that way again, for so many patches stitched together in just the right way to present the lasting imagery. The five shutouts in his first seven starts … the 8-0 record through mid-May … the one-of-a-kind delivery (“Just like Fernando,” Annie Savoy would later say) … the smile bursting from that body. Joy – that’s what it was. Joy. Joy in watching the southpaw – all of 20 years old – pitch like that. Joy in following his eyes look skyward. Joy in being swept up in the jubilation inside (and outside) the ballpark. Joy in seeing it unfold and grow and grow and grow. If there’s a baseball dictionary that uses ballplayers (instead of words) as definitions, Fernando Valenzuela would be the companion to “joy.”
He’d take home Cy Young and Rookie of the Year awards for his 13 wins and 2.48 ERA and league-leading 180 K’s for the ’81 regular season. He’d then command the postseason spotlight with three wins in five October starts, including a gem in the winner-take-all NLCS Game 5 and that crucial ‘W’ in the World Series-shifting Game 3. Three days later, the Dodgers would win their fourth straight to defeat the Yankees. Fernando had his ring and the perfect cap to a dream season.
Valenzuela would make four more postseason appearances – three of them while sporting Dodger blue. His postseason line with Los Angeles features five wins against one loss and a 2.00 ERA in 63.0 innings. For the franchise, no other hurler has thrown so many playoff innings while owning an ERA so low. That’s part of the joy, too – imagining him standing on the mound under the brightest lights and most tense of situations and, after looking toward the heavens, dealing.
There might be a prohibition against crying in baseball, but joy is always cherished and sought out. In some ways, that’s the heart of fandom: we know that we may cry, but we hope to feel joy. Fernando’s passing this week does bring some tears, but they fall because of the joy that is still so easy to recall.
Roger Schlueter
As Sr. Editorial Director for Major League Baseball Productions from 2004-2015, Roger served as a hub for hundreds of hours of films, series, documentaries and features: as researcher, fact-checker, script doctor, and developer of ideas. The years at MLB Production gave him the ideal platform to pursue what galvanized him the most – the idea that so much of what takes place on the field during the MLB regular and postseason (and is forever beautifully condensed into a box score) has connections to what has come before. Unearthing and celebrating these webs allows baseball to thrive, for the present can come alive and also reignite the past.