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    • Fernando Valenzuela, who died at age 63, built a legacy in Chavez Gorge
    Michigan

    Fernando Valenzuela, who died at age 63, built a legacy in Chavez Gorge

    Caradoc Wyn Posted on

    Game 1 of the World Series will be played on stolen land Friday night.

    It has always been the most uncomfortable and troubling truth about a Dodgers franchise that left Brooklyn and thrived in that beautiful corner of Los Angeles called Chavez Ravine: That Dodger Stadium was to be built, arguably the biggest diamond of all, nearly 2,000 families , most of whom were of Mexican-American descent, were violently forced and driven from their homes.

    It was the ugliest trick: The communities of Palo Verde, La Loma and Bishop were supposed to be turned into public housing that would supposedly house even more families, but instead they were reserved for a sports team that would hasten an era of public subsidies and land grabs that would enrich the owners and increase their franchise values.

    Less tangible: Mountains of generational wealth were wiped out with these homes, and this year California lawmakers were set to pass the Chavez Ravine Accountability Act, a bill aimed at providing reparations to displaced families. Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed it earlier this month.

    But the baseball gods, being what they are, work in the strangest of ways, both cool and cruel.

    Less than two decades after Dodger Stadium opened in 1962, 22 years after the club landed from Brooklyn, Fernando Valenzuela blessed the country with his arrival from Mexico. He was only 20 years old and was born in the 1960s when the Dodgers played their games at the Coliseum. He was a baseball comet that landed in late 1980 and produced the greatest, or at least most infamous, rookie season by any pitcher in baseball history.

    Fernandomania cannot be repeated, even in the stunning first five weeks of the 1981 season, when he started eight games, played seven of them, posted a 0.50 ERA, threw five shutouts and ushered in a new era of rapid prosperity for the Dodgers.

    We also probably won’t see a rookie season end the way Fernando did: a complete game, 147-pitch effort to suffocate the New York Yankees in Game 4 of the World Series and a commanding 3-1 To take the lead – just a week before his 21st birthdayst Birthday.

    The Dodgers defeated the Yankees in six games, alleviating the bad taste of consecutive losses to them in 1977-78.

    OPINION: Dodgers icon Fernando Valenzuela is gone. But “Fernandomania” will live forever.

    And with Fernando on the mound and an increasingly diverse audience watching from Dodger Stadium seats or listening to the sweet tones of Vin Scully or Jaime Jarrin on the transistor radio, the Dodgers became the behemoth franchise they are today.

    The funny thing about displacement, borders and vile xenophobia: They can’t stop progress or prosperity.

    And my goodness, were the post-Fernando Dodgers successful?

    Their rise to the NL pennant in 1978 drew a franchise record 3.3 million fans to Dodger Stadium, but two years later attendance fell below 3 million. The Fernandomania year was marred by a work stoppage that limited the season to 110 games.

    Years of strikes tend to have a dampening effect on disgruntled fans, sometimes lasting decades. But one-year success, with a World Series title and a young left-hander looking to the sky, drew a record 3.6 million fans through the gates of Dodger Stadium in 1982.

    LA changed and so did the Dodger fan base: While the smiling face of supposedly All-American first baseman Steve Garvey was the face of the 1970s Dodgers, it was eventually supplemented by Latino stars like Valenzuela, Pedro Guerrero, etc. and eventually Ramon Pedro Martínez.

    And in Fernando, a Mexican-American community that often remained in the shadows of LA had a hero to celebrate. Los Angeles, a company town whose machinations would not have been possible without the contributions of immigrants from Mexico seeking a better life or fleeing the strife of Central America, was suddenly truly reflected in its fan base.

    This growth at the turnstiles? It hasn’t stopped. Certainly it was caused by News Corp.’s incompetent ownership. and Boston’s Frank McCourt’s utter pillaging of the franchise, but the Dodgers have attracted no fewer than 3.7 million fans since 2013.

    The Dodgers’ new ownership group certainly understands investment and growth, and the $700 million investment in Shohei Ohtani has maxed out the old ballpark’s capacity: nearly 4 million fans, tops in the majors and even at the proverbial midweek in April around 50,000 fans against the Diamondbacks.

    And oh, what a team: Shohei and Yoshi and Teo and Mookie and Kiké and Freddie, 98-game winners, NL champions, playing in front of a sold-out crowd every night.

    It may be too loud for some, but for a fan base that couldn’t celebrate a championship in the pandemic year of 2020, it’s undoubtedly one heck of a party. They roar to the tactics of organist Dieter Ruehle and groove to the relentless tones of their favorite son, Kendrick Lamar, just like their melting pot of a clubhouse.

    On Friday night, it will all come together with baseball’s ultimate matchup: Yankees-Dodgers, Game 1 of the World Series, all with an undeniable Southern California touch. Jack Flaherty will face Gerrit Cole, a biracial boy from the Valley versus a white man from Orange County, 818 versus 714 in the 323, a lineup not unlike the 50,000-plus spectators who pay big money to attend.

    And this is where the baseball gods, being what they are, occasionally show their abject cruelty.

    Valenzuela, whose number was permanently retired two seasons ago and whose voice and image brought regality to the Dodgers’ Spanish-language television and radio broadcasts, will not be there. His death at age 63 on Tuesday night comes at the cruellest moment, the West Coast’s solemn version of the tragic death of Willie Mays, just days before Major League Baseball honored him at Birmingham’s historic Rickwood Field.

    Now, Game 1 will be a makeshift memorial, much like Rickwood, a time to mourn a loss but also acknowledge that extended family will be together for it.

    There will likely be no odes to the families that once inhabited this land, and those who want to make them whole are now back to the drawing board. The Dodgers won five World Series titles there, but they are simply ballplayers and incapable of righting such grave injustices.

    And Fernando was just a pitcher. But what he built in Chavez Gorge will last forever.

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    Caradoc Wyn
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