RIP Fernando Valenzuela

We have lost one of the truly great ambassadors of the game. He was one of a kind and a great pitcher who captured a nation with the RoY and Cy Young awards in his 1st full season with the Dodgers. '81 was a strike shortened season and the Yankees and the Dodgers met in the world series, led by this pudgy rookie pitcher from Mexico! One of my all time favorite Dodger pitchers, very sad, only 63 and way too young!

RIP Fernando. One of my all time favorite players. He was taken too young.

no matter how much hype you read or believe, to really understand Fernandomania, you needed to be in Souther California/Los Angeles during the magical summer of 1981.....(I was)

it wasn't simply on the baseball field....Vin Scully set the tone and story from Valenzuela's first few starts...the then the fever started to spread and build...

but it went WAY past the walls of Dodger Stadium Valenzuela and Fernandomania was ALL over LA....in bars, at markets, on the street, bus stops, wherever...it was palpable, exciting, raw, and constantly growing by the continued unparalleled success that early from someone no one had ever heard of (he had only come up late the previous season for a cup of coffee).....

That it ended in epic storytelling success, beating the vaunted Yankees with a lot of the same players on both teams that lost to NY in '77 and '78, and to exorcise some past demons as well, 1955 alone hadn't done that completely, so the WS losses in late 40s and 50s, and few years before to Reggie Billy and company, was a cherry on the proverbial sundae

a lot of sports moments are like a blink of an eye (do you believe in Miracles ?, Bill Johnson's downhill gold 1st ever for USA in that event, etc.) but a few select others are longer lasting....from April thru October that 1981, Dodger and baseball fans were treated to 6 months of the extraordinary

RIP Fernando, well-deserved accolades and blessings to you

it wasn't simply on the baseball field....Vin Scully set the tone and story from Valenzuela's first few starts...the then the fever started to spread and build...

but it went WAY past the walls of Dodger Stadium Valenzuela and Fernandomania was ALL over LA....in bars, at markets, on the street, bus stops, wherever...it was palpable, exciting, raw, and constantly growing by the continued unparalleled success that early from someone no one had ever heard of (he had only come up late the previous season for a cup of coffee).....

Couldn't agree more! Ya hadda be there, it was an amazing time to be an Angeleno and Dodger Fan!

Was he really 63? There was much speculation that he was older than stated because there was fear no one would give him a chance as a 25-30 year old rookie.

“It’s an unnatural pitch, just the opposite of the curve,” Carl Hubbell, one of the screwball’s greatest practitioners, who pitched for the New York Giants from 1928 to 1943, told The Los Angeles Times in 1981. Valenzuela’s screwball, he added, was “the best since mine.”

(New York Times obituary)