His baseball career was good, not great. His W-L record was 175-153, but his career had several interesting facets that made him unique:
1. He may have been the best attendance draw in modern times. Fernando was only a rookie in 1981 but was an absolute phenomenon. He threw a shutout on opening day, in his first major league start. He allowed only two earned runs through his first seven starts. At one point he was 8-0 with a 0.50 ERA. For the year, he led the National League in shutouts, and posted an excellent 2.48 ERA. He won the Rookie of the Year award as well as the Cy Young. Because he was so great that year, and because he was a Mexican-American in the heart of Latino country, he started to inflate attendance numbers wherever he went. It was the year of Fernandomania. Valenzuela had other great years. He led the league in wins in 1986, and tossed a no-no in his last year with the Dodgers, but that was all post-script. In that bitter strike-shortened year of 1981, he was baseball’s positive counter-narrative. El Toro was THE story. He was baseball. He was magic.
2. He was 5-1 in the post season throughout his career, and his success was especially critical in the 1981 World Championship year. Yesterday I discussed the last Dodger team to beat the Yankees in the World series – that was the very 1981 club in which Fernando had made the debut detailed above. Fernando followed up a great regular season with a win in each post-season series. He pitched the deciding game in the NLCS, allowing only three hits, then tossed a complete game World Series victory. That was the Dodgers’ first home game after they had fallen behind two games to zero on the road. Do you think the fans showed their hero some love that day? Fernando could have been elected mayor of L.A. if the election had been held that day. Perhaps unanimously. The Dodgers never lost another game in that series.
3. Although Fernando was a lefty, he had “reverse platoon” statistics, meaning that he was tougher on right-handed batters than on lefties. (For you non-fans, this is unusual.) His go-to pitch was a screwball, which breaks like the pitch of a right-hander. This pitch, difficult and unnatural to throw, some say arm-injuring, was once the signature offering of baseball legends like Christy Mathewson and Carl Hubbell, but is basically non-existent today.
for no particular reason other than the screwball aspect it remind me of Mike Cuellar, possibly the most successful screwballer of the modern era… part of that monster Orioles rotation of McNalley and Jim (Jockey underwear) Palmer. In 1970 and 1971 all three 20 or more wins !
It was actually FOUR in 1971.
The 1971 Orioles are the only MLB team in the integration era to have four 20-game winners in a season: Jim Palmer, Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar, and Pat Dobson.
McNally was the most impressive. He won 21 games and missed several starts!
There is an interesting story behind the only other team in history to pull this off. It was the 1920 White Sox – and two of the guys were Black Sox, two of the Eight Men Out.
It was the year after they threw the Series, and they were still playing. The details gradually became public during the season until, with just three games left in the season, Comiskey had no choice but to suspend the Seven Men Left. (One, the mastermind of the scandal, had retired, presumably with a mountain of cash.)
Comiskey did that even though the pennant was on the line and the Sox were just a half game out.
But the team got their four 20-game winners in before the walls closed in on the Black Sox.
I think he had a career that will never be replicated. That rookie year alone will never be matched. How many can sell out Dodgers stadium like that and bring in a demographic who wouldn’t bother step into Dodger Stadium due to its horrible history? He should’ve been in the Hall of Fame a long time ago. I maybe a Braves fan and we have our issues with the Dodgers but I’ve always respected them. Fernando was GOD for a time. He should be celebrated as a GOD.
A mania doesn’t get you into the hall. I remember it well. Perhaps Mark Fidrych should be in the hall too? That was as big a mania as you’ll ever see.
True as it will never be seen the likes of ever again. Yet, he did break a major barrier similar to what Jackie Robinson did.
yes “The Bird” …exactly who I thought of as a rookie comparable
I seem to recall speculation that he was older than his stated age at the height of the mania, but the obit states his age as fact. I also remember the search to find where he came from but nobody found Fernando’s hideaway, supposedly a dark secluded place.
Thanks. I didn’t know Mathewson was a screw baller. Shows you how little I do know. 🙂