Throw It to the Sky

Rob mentioned it in a comment, but it's worth adding a little more flavor. 

"fernandomania, finally at an end."

For those gheorghies too young to really remember the fireworks surrounding Fernando Valenzuela's rocket launch into cultural phenomenon-land in 1981, it was really something. 

In an era where far more star pitchers looked like John Tudor than George Lopez, Fernando burst on the scene late in the 1980 season as a somewhat portly, unpolished 20-year-old reliever from Navojoa, Mexico. 17.1 innings of shutout ball later, he was someone to watch in '81. A Future Star, so Topps told us. 

And he was! Opening Day shutout!

5 days later, another complete game, 1 ER, 10 K's!
4 days later, another shutout! 10 K's! And he had 2 hits!
4 days later, another shutout! 11 K's! 2 more hits! 0.25 ERA!
5 days later, another shutout! Only 7 K's, but 3 more hits! Hitting .438! ERA 0.20!
5 days later, 9 IP, 1 ER, win again. Hmmm...
5 days later, shutout! 11 K's! Phew! Back on track!
5 days later, Complete game win, 2 ER, 7 K's. WTF, Fernando?
4 days later, 7 IP, 4 ER, 6 K's, loss! Oh, no!!

I mean... gracious.  Holy frijoles!

You can imagine the hullabaloo across baseball and sports media and the Angeleno crowd and Mexicans and Mexican-Americans everywhere. Holy wow. 

Plus, he was just fun. He looked happy all the time. He didn't look like a baseball player. He didn't look like he knew how to pitch right. Nuke LaLoosh's heavenly gaze owes everything to Fernando:

"Now, I want you to breathe through your eyelids....Like the lava lizards of the Galpagos Islands. You see, there are some lizards have a parietal eye behind their heads so they can see backwards. Haven't you ever noticed how Fernando Valenzuela, he just doesn't even look when he pitches? He's a Mayan Indian. Or an Aztec. I forget which one. I get 'em confused." --Annie Savoy

Even I, who rooted fervently against the Dodgers, was in awe of this guy and couldn't help liking him. 

And that was the story of baseball in 1981. Oh, wait. Wait.

Another thing you might either have missed or don't recall well. The 1981 baseball strike. Free agency had taken MLB by storm, and well, the owners hadn't packed their foul weather gear. They tried a number of measures to recoup some of the control and cash that the overdue dambusting had cost them, but there was no putting Humpty Corrumpty back together. Neither side would budge, so on June 12 they shut it down. 

A sidenote to a sidenote, we've established here before that several of us gheorghies love Strat-o-matic baseball. According to Wikipedia:

Reporters used Strat-O-Matic to simulate the delayed 1981 All-Star game inside Cleveland Stadium, with the scoreboard displaying the game's progress; the Strat-O-Matic set went to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Some newspapers used Strat-O-Matic to simulate other canceled games during the strike.

Anyway, 51 days later, play resumed, but the way in which it did so was a mess. They had "1st Half Standings" and "2nd Half Standings." The division winners played each other in the first-ever NLDS. One problem? Well, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Cincinnati Reds had the best overall records in their respective divisions, but neither had won the 1st or 2nd half. So they were excluded. Whoops. 

The strike was a terrible time for baseball, obviously, and the fans were rightfully livid. I certainly was! I was just shy of 11 years old and couldn't fathom life without big league baseball. 

So, who saved baseball in 1981? Fernando.

I mean, sure, MLB bats caught up to him -- a little. 8-0 became 13-7; his W-L record was, as they often are, a bit misleading. His preposterous ERA through mid-May escalated all the way to 2.48. He led the league with 180 strikeouts in 192.1 innings. He won the Rookie of the Year. He won the Cy Young. He finished 5th in MVP voting. 

It was his year.

And he was 3-1 with a 2.21 in the postseason as his Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees 4 games to 2 in the World Series. Most impressive was Game 3 of that series, when -- with L.A. having lost the first 2 games of the series -- Fernando allowed 4 runs early to the Yanks but stayed in to throw a complete game as the Dodgers came back for a 5-4 win. His mates all say it was his gutty performance that turned the tide in that World Series. 

Fernandomania was real. And a great time to be a fan. I mentioned George Lopez. There's a cool piece he wrote on Valenzuela 8 years ago that is worth reading, but here's a little bit of it:

But wait, Valenzuela: That's us. This guy looks like us. He could pitch, he could hit and when he ran, he looked like he was barely going to make it to first base -- just like us. Wait, there was somebody selling Fernando Valenzuela stuff at a factory in Van Nuys, California? That's how crazy Fernandomania was. I can't remember a time before or since that I wouldn't miss a game either on television, radio or in person.

Fernando Valenzuela was a 6-time All-Star, but he never again won the Cy Young. He did notch 173 wins and over 2000 strikeouts with a career ERA of 3.54. He was often very good to great, but he was never quite the sensation that swept the nation like in 1981. 

He played 11 years in L.A. before hopping around for 6 or 7 years, trying to throw a few more pitches by people. In his last year in Los Angeles, Fernando left just one more indelible mark on Chavez Ravine and Dodger fans everywhere. The 30-year-old, bespectacled, lefty pulled off a final act of wizardry for the faithful. 

Let's give Vin Scully the mic for the call:

“If you have a sombrero, throw it to the sky." That about says it all. RIP, Fernando -- but may Fernandomania live on forever.