Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela served as a cultural ambassador for Mexican Americans and Mexican-Americans

For baseball fans, “Fernandomania” was a flash of pitching brilliance and the emergence of a unique talent in the history of one of the sport's most storied franchises.

For Mexicans and Mexican Americans: Fernando Valenzuela was something even greater: a beacon of hope, inspiration and pride.

Valenzuela, a Mexican-born star for the Los Angeles Dodgers, died Tuesday night at a Los Angeles hospital, the team said. He was 63.

For some, his death brought back memories of watching the left-handed pitch at home with their parents, not out of love for the game but out of a surge of Mexican or Latino pride. They reflect the doors he opened for future generations and the cultural influence he created as a Mexican.

Valenzuela's rise from humble beginnings as the youngest of twelve children in Mexico and his accomplishments on the mound made him extremely popular and influential in the Latino community while helping to attract new fans to Major League Baseball. Her affection for him continued even after his retirement.

Baseball fanatic or not, there isn't a person in Mexico who doesn't know who Valenzuela is, said Mexican journalist Arturo Angel. He was born in 1983 and said part of his knowledge of Valenzuela comes from his father, who was not a sports fan. The way people talked about him made Angel realize how much of an idol he was to many.

Nathaly Morga, who knows Valenzuela through her parents, said no matter how many other Latinos there are in baseball, “Fernando was always the great one, like the God.”

Angel said the explosion of television in the 1980s and the broadcast of Dodgers games in Mexico catapulted Valenzuela into the phenomenon he became. The Dodgers, who had broadcast games in Spanish since 1959, saw a rise in ratings and an interest in expanding their radio network to Mexico when Valenzuela began playing. Years after his playing career ended, Valenzuela joined these radio shows as a color commentator.

“The LA Dodgers in Mexico have a great fan base,” Angel said. “The taste for baseball has increased in Mexico, thanks to Fernando Valenzuela.”

Morga grew up in Tijuana in a soccer family. Yet they all knew Valenzuela. Morga remembers her mother, who doesn't understand how baseball is played, telling her that at the height of “Fernandomania,” she watched Dodgers games at a local burger joint because Valenzuela was pitching.

The Dodgers, longing for a star who could connect with L.A.'s Latino population, finally found one in Valenzuela whose impact would transform what had previously been a predominantly white fan base. During his starts, the city's Mexican community flocked to Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers, the first franchise to draw three million fans in 1978, averaged 48,430 fans during Valenzuela's home openers and a total of 42,523 fans during the strike-interrupted 1981 season – the highest average attendance in Dodger Stadium history to that point. That year, Valenzuela became the first in baseball history to win Rookie of the Year and a Cy Young Award as baseball's best pitcher in the same season.

“Obviously everyone knows him in Mexico,” Morga said. “Everyone loves the Dodgers because of him.”

Rob Martinez said for those who grew up in Mexico, Valenzuela was the base. Because Dodgers games were always broadcast in Mexico, Valenzuela became everything everyone could talk about and look up to, he said.

Watching Valenzuela was a family affair. Martinez said he remembers going to barbecues to watch the games with his father and friends. When Valenzuela was taken out of a game, everyone stopped watching.

But when he saw Valenzuela on TV, Martinez believed his dreams were attainable, too. Martinez has been playing baseball since he was three years old and is now the assistant head coach and recruiting coordinator for the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley baseball team.

“It was a big incentive for everyone to watch him compete and be the guy in the big leagues,” Martinez said. “It gave us all hope.”

Valenzuela is widely considered one of the best Mexican athletes of all time, alongside footballer Hugo Sánchez and boxer Julio César Chávez.

Valenzuela's rise from his tiny hometown of Etchohuaquila in the Mexican state of Sonora to stardom in the United States was unlikely. He was the youngest child in a large family who tagged along when his older brothers played baseball.

His rise inspired many athletes. Martinez said he was able to have the career he had because he saw Valenzuela, a man who came from the same background as him, succeed.

“I don’t have to be 6 feet tall to do what I love to do,” Martinez said. “As long as you work hard at it. So that was a big deal for me. Just give us a chance to believe that we can do it coming from someone else.”

In 2013, Morga was living in California and met Valenzuela at Petco Park in San Diego.

“He invited me to sit at the table with him,” Morga said. “Which was crazy to me because this was a person that my parents talked about, such an idol, and he was just a typical Mexican dad.”

Angel said that by reading profiles of Valenzuela published since his death, he has a better understanding that he was not only a baseball legend but also a cultural ambassador at a time when racial discourse was viewed differently than it is today.

“The fact that we aren’t baseball fans and we know him shows that his character was important,” Angel said. “Younger people may be more represented in other sports today, but for this generation, Valenzuela was the right thing.”

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