Why Fernando Valenzuela's magic should earn him a spot in the Hall of Fame

El Toro.

That was the nickname fans gave Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela early in his career. Bulls are a symbol of masculinity and masculinity in Hispanic culture, and the bull – powerfully built, aggressive yet graceful in attack – manifested this fearsome animal throughout most of his career with the Blue Crew.

Many authors, myself included, have described the importance of southpaws to Latinos in Southern California and beyond. How a Mexican immigrant electrified a city that had long treated its Mexican residents as little better than aid for a great season in 1981, winning Cy Young and Rookie of the Year honors while giving the team his first World Series victory in 16 years.

How he showed Major League Baseball that Latinos could be superstars and not just hot-tempered underachievers. How he inspired Latinos to campaign for a franchise whose original sin was building a baseball stadium on the site of Barrios that the city had demolished in the name of progress.

That's where the obituaries will rightly end. But none of that was on my mind Tuesday night when news of his death at age 63 flashed on my phone.

Instead I thought of El Toro.

Our love for bulls comes with strings attached. They are revered because they fight until inevitable defeat. Bulls are turned around, lassoed or speared – sacrificed for public spectacle and then discarded when they can no longer keep up. If they're lucky, their heads will be stuffed and mounted.

Unfortunately, this was the arc of Valenzuela's career.

Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda played him until his once-strong left arm hung like a broken rubber band – another overworked, underrated Mexican in Los Angeles. The team thanked El Toro for his sacrifice by releasing him before the start of the 1991 season. In the final seven years of his big league career, the hero was reduced to a journeyman who danced around on five teams, a side effect that served primarily to fill the stands with still-adoring fans cheerfully chanting his nickname -¡Toro!

Valenzuela visits children during a Dodgers clinic in East Los Angeles in 1981.

(Rick Meyer/Los Angeles Times)

The Dodgers brought Valenzuela back as a color commentator for their Spanish-language broadcasts in 2003, but never relied on his baseball knowledge to coach the next generation of players. They waved it like a trophy to prove how much they loved their Latino fan base, a reminder of what once was even as many wondered what could have been.

His career numbers – 173 wins, 153 losses, a 3.54 earned run average and a Wins Above Replacement (WAR) of 37.4 – are good, but not exactly Hall of Fame worthy. The Dodgers didn't bother retiring his jersey number, 34, until last year.

Still, many Dodgers fans have argued that Valenzuela deserves a spot in the Hall because of his cultural influence.

I wasn't one of them.

I thought this type of argument was too transactional and focused too much on how much money Major League Baseball makes from Latino players and fans. Additionally, the Hall of Fame is supposed to represent the best of the best, not players who have excelled for a few seasons.

But as I witness the love and sadness that has been poured out from us toward the Great Ballpark in the Sky since Valenzuela, I have changed my mind.

In a sport now reduced to algorithms and pitching clocks, Valenzuela represents more than just a team or a career. He was baseball magic at its finest.

Baseball, more than any other sport, produces players in each generation who fundamentally change not only the game but the imagination. They embody intangibles that sabermetrics can never quantify and that fans desperately want to encounter: hope. Devotion. Joy. Brilliance.

Babe Ruth was one of those players. Jackie Robinson, of course. Ichiro Suzuki. Shohei Ohtani.

So does Fernando Valenzuela.

What comes to people's minds – even those who were no longer alive when Valenzuela finally retired in 1997 – is not the San Diego Padre or the St. Louis Cardinal. They don't even really think about the Dodger. You think of Fernandomania. Few can tell you a specific play he was a part of, or a game other than his 1990 no-hitter. You think of the mythical Valenzuela of 1981, the shy, portly pitcher with the unorthodox style of play who conquered it all, by giving everything.

What could have been shrinks in the shadow of what was: an encounter with the divine. No matter how fleeting the moment, it changes everyone who is lucky enough to see it, be it in real life, on television or in online clips years later, or even just a picture of him on the mound. His magical year has made our lives better and challenges us to be better.

He may be gone, but his spirit never will be.

I never met him, and I never had to. They always say you should never meet your heroes after all. Plus, El Toro will live on in my memory forever, his eyes looking skyward as he mowed down his opponents like a bull in the streets of Pamplona.

May Fernando Valenzuela join the other immortals of baseball in Cooperstown.