The Dodgers’ Fernando Valenzuela was an LA icon. To the son of an immigrant, his death was personal
Fernando Valenzuela died and all I wanted to do was cry.
I don’t understand. I didn’t know him, not really, not personally. The man is a legend to anyone who knows baseball. As a 20-year-old immigrant from Mexico pitching for the Los Angeles Dodgers, he became the only Major League Baseball player to ever win the Rookie of the Year Award and the Cy Young Award in the same year. But that was in 1981; I wasn’t even born yet. While staring at a friend’s Dia de los Muertos ofrendawith a photo of Fernando among deceased loved ones, I wondered: why am I so sad?
Fernando Valenzuela died and all I wanted to do was call my father. But it was late Wednesday evening in Los Angeles when I saw the news report that the legendary Dodgers pitcher, who had played the team’s Spanish-language broadcaster for the past two decades, had died at the age of 63. Fernando wasn’t just a baseball player; he was a phenomenon, a Mexican kid who broke into the big leagues and made millions of people feel like they finally belonged. With his great pitch and unforgettable gaze skyward, he dominated the mound and captured hearts in Los Angeles and in communities across the United States. After the Dodgers win in the World Series this week, they will hold a parade on Friday – his birthday.
The morning after his death, I was stuck in LA traffic with my nephew Angel, trying not to cry as a live mariachi band played a tribute to Fernando on my favorite radio show. My father then called me, even at the age of 74, in a traffic jam on his way to work. We exchanged a two-word sentence in Spanish: “no mod,” which loosely translates to “well,” but is best translated spiritually by Frank Sinatra’s rendition of That’s Life: “Every time I find myself flat on my face, I pick myself up and get back in the race!”
Ni modo is the kind of sentence whose utterance simultaneously makes you cry and gives you the will to brave that feeling and keep going. So with those two words my father and I continued our days. He works as a foreman at a warehouse that distributes many of the products found in Southern California grocery stores. I usually work from home as a writer. As my father worked a 10-hour shift delivering fresh fruit to the country’s most populous region, I joked around in a scenario about two soccer moms who used to be best friends but now try to destroy each other over a senseless action. trophy. Suffice it to say, neither of us had much time to cry, as we were both doing equally impactful, essential tasks.
My father, Manuel Galindo, grew up in a little-known Mexican town obsessed with baseball. Culiacán, Sinaloa, now known for its narcoculture, is still in love with the sport, especially their team, Los Tomateros. Like everyone in Culiacán, my father was a fan of Tomateros as a child. He also admired the United States, listened to Jimi Hendrix, watched The Godfather and supported the Yankees.
When he was a student, my father was shot in the throat by narcos who didn’t appreciate his clever antics. The bullet missed all vital organs and he made a miraculous recovery. After graduating, he migrated to Los Angeles in 1979, where he worked odd jobs for little money. He was still a Yankees fan until Fernando Valenzuela’s 1981 season. My father caught Fernandomania. He and his older brother even went to a playoff game that season. After that, his loyalties were torn between the Yankees and the Dodgers.
When we were kids, our dad used to take us to see the Dodgers. We saw Fernando play and my father did his best to explain to us why he was so important. He said things like “Fernando Valenzuela is the best at his job, I am the best at my job, you could be the best too” or “Whatever you do in life, show that you are the best.” Until a few days ago, I didn’t know what being “the best” meant.
For my father’s 75th birthday this week, my brother, my cousin and I took him to his very first World Series game. The Dodgers hosted the Yankees, a matchup for the ages with Japanese phenom Shohei Ohtani facing Yankee slugger Aaron Judge. My father’s two teams faced off for the first time since 1981, when Valenzuela threw a complete game to beat the Yankees and reach the World Series. As we trudged through the crowded entrance to Dodger Stadium, my brother and cousin wondered who he was rooting for.
The evening started with a tribute to Valenzuela, featuring his family, former teammates and a live mariachi band. The game started off as a close pitching duel that Fernando would have been proud of. Late in the game, the bats finally came alive: the Dodgers scored, and the Yankees took the lead. The Dodgers tied the score in the eighth, forcing extra innings. The Yankees took the lead in the 10th and I tried not to look at my dad, it was so tense. Then it happened. With two outs and three men on base, Freddie Freeman, the son of a Canadian immigrant, hit a grand slam and won it for the Dodgers. The entire room erupted in cheers. My father started high-fiving and hugging strangers. I knew my father could never fight Fernando, not even the Yankees, and I started to cry.
It took me a minute, but I finally figured out why Fernando Valenzuela meant so much to me and my family. My father went from an undocumented immigrant who worked under the table to an American citizen with a six-figure income and his own home. Fernando Valenzuela exemplified an idea that my father understood when he arrived in America: “Just give me a chance, and I promise I can be great too.” Fernando was the embodiment of that idea. His death felt like the end of that, but now I see that it also gives me the strength to continue it.