Fernando Valenzuela, Mexican legend and Dodgers icon, dies at 63

Fernando Valenzuela arrived in Los Angeles in a whirlwind, was the face of the Dodgers at his peak, and a voice of the team years later. The iconic left-hander died on Tuesday at age 63, leaving an impossible void but also incredible memories for generations of fans.

“He is one of the most influential Dodgers ever and belongs on the Mount Rushmore of franchise heroes,” Dodgers president and CEO Stan Kasten said. “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.”

Valenzuela missed the end of the regular season this year as he dealt with health issues, and the Dodgers announced on October 2 that he stepped away from broadcasts this year to focus on his health.

Photo by Bruce Bennett Studios via Getty Images Studios/Getty Images

It’s hard to understate how dynamic Valenzuela was from the jump, from the nearly spotless relief in his first call-up in September 1980, fresh into piling up shutouts and complete games as a rookie in 1981. Fernandomania was real, and it was spectacular. He went viral decades before the advent of social media.

Valenzuela was the Dodgers’ first Mexican star, connecting with fans on a deeper level than most in the history of the franchise, especially on the very land where many Mexican families were displaced only a few decades earlier.

“Over his entire 17-year career, in stops with the Dodgers, Angels, Orioles, Phillies, Padres and Cardinals, Fernando generated an unprecedented sense of pride and enthusiasm among fans in his native country of Mexico,” MLBPA executive director Tony Clark said in a statement. “Following his retirement as a player in 1997, he remained a beloved ambassador for baseball and his homeland as a Spanish-language broadcaster with the Dodgers and a coach for Team Mexico in four World Baseball Classics.”

Valenzuela won National League Rookie of the Year and the Cy Young Award in 1981, still the only pitcher to win both in the same season. The 20-year-old won the clinching Game 5 of the NLCS in Montreal, then four days later threw a complete game to beat the Yankees in Game 3 of the World Series at Dodger Stadium, gutting through nine hits and seven walks allowed to finish the one-run win, throwing 147 pitches.

It’s perhaps fitting that Valenzuela will be honored at Dodger Stadium this weekend, in the first Dodgers-Yankees World Series since that 1981 tilt.

Valenzuela was an All-Star in each of his first six seasons, and in his first seven years led the National League in innings pitched (averaging over 255 per year) and led the majors in pitches thrown.

There were the five straight strikeouts in the 1986 All-Star Game to match Carl Hubbell, there was the no-hitter in 1990, with Vin Scully’s “If you have a sombrero, throw it to the sky” call still burned in our memories.

“He’s one of the first things you learn about when you come to this organization,” Max Muncy said in 2023. “Obviously everyone knows Jackie [Robinson], the barrier that he broke, and the impact he had on this game, but one of the first people you learn about is Fernando.”

For someone who was as big of a star as Valenzuela was — meeting Presidents big — he was fairly quiet and unassuming, at least as he walked around the press box during the last two decades as an announcer for the team. Any time I would ask him about his various baseball exploits, Valenzuela would always downplay his accomplishments.

He never even expressed anger, at least publicly, that the Dodgers took seemingly forever to officially retire his number 34, even though the team at the same time never reissued the number since he left as a player in 1991. The Dodgers finally rectified that mistake in 2023, announcing Valenzuela’s number retirement at FanFest in February, with the ceremony that August.

“Fans for years have asked me when they are going to retire the number, but it was out of my hands,” Valenzuela said at the time. “But this is big. It’s big.”

Valenzuela’s impact was enormous, which has been obvious for some time for anyone who heard the crowd roar at Dodger Stadium when he was honored or shown on screen. His look to the heavens before every pitch, his legendary exploits on the mound, and is connecting generations in his over four decades in baseball make Fernando Valenzuela an icon whose memory will live on forever.