Valenzuela Cut by Angels: Is It Career Strike 3?

Less than two months after giving Fernando Valenzuela a second chance in the major leagues, the California Angels put him on waivers Friday and said they are prepared to release him from the team unconditionally.

The announcement cut short a comeback attempt by Valenzuela that was plagued by bad pitching and a surprise medical condition.

The Angels said Valenzuela, 30, had refused an offer to send him one step below the major leagues, to their triple-A affiliate in Edmonton, Canada, in the Pacific Coast League.

As a result, the team said, Valenzuela was placed on waivers in a move preliminary to an unconditional release. If no other team claims him by Wednesday, he will become a free agent.

Tony DeMarco, one of Valenzuela’s agents, declined to answer when asked whether Valenzuela would accept an assignment to Edmonton.

“We are disappointed, because Fernando is confident he can pitch effectively in the major leagues,” he said. “In the coming days, he will be weighing his options.”

“I’d be sorry to see him go,” said Ruben Valentin, who has broadcast Angel games in Spanish over station XPRS for six years. “He’s good for the team, he’s good for baseball, he’s good for all the Latin Americans who live in the area.”

“But the way it looks, this is the end of his career,” Valentin said.

The Angels had signed Valenzuela in May, nearly two months after he was released by the Dodgers, the team for which he pitched for 11 years in stadiums packed with fans chanting his name in the phenomenon known as “Fernandomania.” In his early years, his picture was on billboards in Los Angeles, and songs were written about him.

After three starts in the minor leagues in May and June and two poor outings at Anaheim Stadium--his American League earned run average was an atrocious 12.15--Valenzuela was placed on the disabled list June 13, when tests showed an unexpected “abnormal cardiogram.”

The condition turned out to be relatively minor and treatable with medication, and this week he received medical approval to keep pitching. But he was unable to come to terms with the Angels.

Another team could try to sign Valenzuela, but none except the Angels showed interest after the Dodgers released him. Given his two poor performances at Anaheim, it is unlikely that another team would seek his services now, as even Valenzuela agent Richard Moss admitted.

Valentin said that if Valenzuela does not want to go through medical “rehabilitation” in the minor leagues, “that’s the end of it.”

“I think something is wrong with his advisers,” Valentin said. “I think they are not advising him very wisely, because everyone goes to the minor leagues for rehabilitation.”

Santa Ana barber Jess Flores, who rooted for Valenzuela when he played with the Dodgers and hoped that he would catch on with the Angels, said he was upset that the left-hander had been cut.

The Angels “should have given him another try, at least another chance to see how he did,” Flores said.

Also downcast was Rose Bouza, a bilingual aide at James W. Franklin Elementary School in Huntington Beach, who organized a surprise May visit by Valenzuela to the school so he could talk to students.

“I am very disappointed,” said Bouza, who faithfully scoured the sports pages to track Valenzuela’s progress. “To me, I think the Angels should have given him more of a chance.”

“I think there’s going to be a lot of disappointment with a lot of Hispanics,” added Bouza, who comes from the same area of Mexico as Valenzuela.

“I feel badly for what’s happening to him,” she said. “I personally think the Dodgers used and abused him. They worked him really hard, and Fernando is the type of person that could not say no.”

Al Amezcua, president of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Orange County, said that when members learned that Valenzuela would pitch for the Angels, “we thought, ‘gee, this is the greatest thing in the world, because for the first time, the Angels will make a dent in the Hispanic community.’ ”

He said that the Angels, who recently became a corporate sponsor of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, have not had major Latino players before Valenzuela, and “they really have not captured yet the imagination of the Hispanic community.”

“That’s a sad moment for Orange County, it’s a sad moment for our Hispanic community, because I think all of us were hoping Fernando would get a second chance,” Amezcua said.

He said he thinks that Valenzuela needs more time to adjust to the players and the new league and that the Angels did not afford him that opportunity.

Amin David, owner of a plumbing and tile business in Anaheim and president of Los Amigos of Orange County, said he and other members of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce had talked about organizing a trip to Anaheim Stadium so that Angels team owner Gene Autry “could see what he (Valenzuela) does for us.” But they did not have enough time to do that.

“As a businessman, I could understand the decision” to put Valenzuela on waivers, David said, but he added: “As an emotional human being, I would give him another chance. I always felt he just had to overcome a little hurdle, and then once he overcame that, it would be smooth sailing for many years, a la Nolan Ryan.

“But, doggone it, it just did not come, and I am very perplexed about that.”

When the Angels signed Valenzuela, there was widespread expectation that he would increase attendance at Anaheim Stadium when he pitched, especially among Latinos. And both times he did pitch, there were many more Spanish speakers in the stands than usual.

Valentin said then that Valenzuela’s presence would “increase our listening audience at least double what we have now, maybe triple.”

As soon as the Angels announced the signing, a radio network in Mexico asked to be allowed to broadcast his games across Valenzuela’s native country.

Although there are many Latino players in the major leagues, most of them are from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico or nations other than Mexico.

Valentin said Valenzuela would “draw a lot of the Spanish-speaking people, especially the Mexicans.”

But Valenzuela drew huge crowds of all types. When he pitched in Jackson, Miss., and Little Rock, Ark., en route to Anaheim and his return to the major leagues, fans overflowed the seats and stood in the outfield. It was a phenomenon reminiscent of his early days with the Dodgers, when in his first full season, 1981, the southpaw threw eight shutouts and drew huge crowds as part of “Fernandomania.”

Cuban-born Preston Gomez said that in his 46 years of professional baseball he had not seen any Latino player with the impact on the public of Valenzuela in his first four or five years. Valenzuela was born in the Mexican state of Sonora, the youngest of 12 children. As a youth he shared a bed with one of his brothers and sometimes skipped school to play baseball. He was spotted as a potential star in his early teens; by the time he was 15, he was playing professional baseball in Mexico and two years later was signed by the Dodgers.

If not claimed from waivers by another team, Valenzuela will receive $300,000 from the Angels. The guarantee on his contract would have increased to $500,000 if he had still been on the roster on July 15 and $750,000 if he had been on the team on Sept. 1.

In addition, he received $630,495 termination pay from the Dodgers after he was released in March from a $2.55-million, one-year contract.