Fernando Valenzuela Goes South : In the Bedraggled Mexican League, L.A.’s Discarded Ace Scorns Adversity and Pitches for a Ticket Back to the Bigs

Fernando Valenzuela strides majestically into the noisy dressing room of the Guadalajara Charros. A diamond-encrusted pendant rides his powerful chest. His eyes are fixed. The chatter dies. Stony faces and curious stares greet him. Someone mutters, sangron --big shot. Valenzuela takes no notice. His bubble cheeks are taut, jaw set, lips pressed into a thin line. The wedge-shaped Sonoran peasant who became folk hero and inspiration to a generation of Americans and Mexicans has one thought in mind: to pitch his way out of this wretched situation and back to the big leagues, or at the least, to respectability. The Mexican press, predictably, calls him El Toro . The fans have nicknamed him El Cacheton (Fat Cheeks). His club ranks last in the standings of the eight-team northern division of the Mexican League. The Charros’ home games sometimes draw only a thousand or so fans, underwhelming figures for the lone baseball team in a city of 3.5 million. In Los Angeles, Valenzuela regularly packed the 56,000 seats of Dodger Stadium, where he pitched from 1980 through 1990. Now he finds himself with a team that’s losing money. Equipment is falling apart. Broken bats are taped back together. The dressing room doesn’t have metal lockers, just open wooden partitions with hooks on the wall. Players are crammed into a 15-by-22-foot room with a few benches and chairs. Some players must sit on the floor to dress. Valenzuela, 31, plops on a bench and pumps 10-pound dumbbells with each arm. A player on his right lights a cigarette and tosses the pack to a friend. A player to his left inspects a hypodermic syringe containing red liquid, taps it to remove any air bubbles. Then he slaps his thigh to ease the sting and injects it. Another player prepares an injection. Valenzuela’s eyes roll. He’s embarrassed. Some Mexican players take shots daily. They say it’s Vitamin B-12. The practice spooks the American players in the league. “They all do it,” says Eddie Williams, 27, who plays first base for the Union Laguna of Torreon. “I don’t know what they’re shooting up, but I don’t want any part of it.” Valenzuela is pitching tomorrow. For him, it’s a must win. His record is six wins and nine losses, uninspiring for a league considered the Dogpatch of baseball. He must win his remaining four games to end the season with a winning record. Nothing less will do. He must show that he’s regained his control, that his arm is getting stronger, or even the Charros (Cowboys) might not take him back.

Valenzuela’s stamina, his innocence, his shyness captivated American fans in the early 1980s, creating the phenomenon called Fernandomania. There’s no doubt why mania was tacked onto Valenzuela’s name. Dodger announcer Vin Scully has observed: “The 1981 season and Fernandomania bordered on a religious experience.” For two breathless months that year, the 20-year-old rookie left-hander humbled the best hitters in the National League, winning his first eight games.

He became the first player named both Cy Young Award winner, as the best pitcher in baseball, and Rookie of the Year in the same year. He drew sellout crowds wherever he pitched. He inspired balladeers and muralists. His face suddenly appeared on billboards, T-shirts and paperweights. He was mobbed by autograph seekers at the ballpark and by thousands of fans when he visited L.A.’s Latino community. Valenzuela’s appeal was universal, a real-life hero who mocked the Hollywood stereotype. He was moon-faced, uneducated, tongue-tied. His Spanish was unpolished, his English nonexistent--an ugly duckling from Etchohuaquila, close to the eastern shore of the Gulf of California, a village so tiny that no sign or map bore its name, a cluster of baked dirt walls and tamped-dirt floors. But add an infectious smile, a brilliant screwball and the heart of a thoroughbred. The result was magic.

In the long haul, his personality became the enemy within. His stamina allowed the Dodgers to work him so hard, so often that fans and press howled that he was being overused, that his powerful left arm would give out. His innocence lulled him into believing the guarded praises of Dodger management that he was family, protected forever.

His pain was obvious when the Dodgers suddenly released him last year. And now, in the Mexican League, Valenzuela’s shyness is seen as aloofness and arrogance. It’s a bare-knuckled, down-at-the-heels world, sprinkled with former American big leaguers clawing to stay in the game.

The ballparks, uniforms and equipment are way below American minor league standards. The 13,000-seat Charros stadium, for example, was built 41 years ago, erected in just 60 days. The parking lot is dirt, some of the walls crumbling adobe.

“The (American) Triple-A leagues are much better--no comparison--than Mexican baseball,” says Terry Reynolds, director of scouting for the Dodgers. “That’s probably true of the Double-A leagues also. There’s a diversity of players down there. You have players from the big leagues combined with a lot of kids.” Each Mexican League team is allowed to sign four foreign players. The teams generally pick sluggers. The Americans get between $3,000 and $5,000 a month, a hotel room, cap, pants and shirt. They pay for their own food and other equipment. And on long road trips, some get to fly instead of riding the bus.

Valenzuela lost his first five games with the Charros and as a result the support of the fans, the respect of the players. Other major league castoffs are quick to scorn him, venting their own bitterness. In response, Valenzuela has become more withdrawn. He shuns the press and rarely travels or socializes with the team. Instead, he moved his family down from Los Angeles for support. His wife and two daughters attend his games. His two sons are constant companions. He looks no further than the next game.

FERNANDO VALENZUELA ENTERED 1991 KNOWING THAT HIS DODGER CAreer was teetering. He had ended the previous year with a 13-13 record and the second-worst earned run average among National League starters. But he told reporters in February that Dodger President Peter O’Malley had sent him a signal. “He let it be known through other people that he wanted me,” the pitcher said. “He doesn’t think of baseball as just a business; he thinks of it as family. He made me feel wanted.”

The next month, Valenzuela felt further encouraged by Dodger General Manager Fred Claire, who had just watched him pitch five innings in an exhibition game in Mexico. “It’s not just great to see him pitch like this in his own country, it’s great to see him pitch like this, period,” Claire told a Times reporter. “Even in his best years, he would not pitch like this in spring training.”

Less than two weeks later, though, Valenzuela’s agent, Tony De Marco, received a 7 a.m. phone call from Claire.

De Marco gives this account: “I was sleeping when Claire called . . . . He said good morning and told me, ‘We’re informing you that Fernando is being released.’ It was so totally unexpected, Claire’s voice was so matter-of-fact, maybe I heard wrong . . . . ‘You’re releasing Fernando? Are you saying you’re releasing Fernando?’ ”

De Marco hadn’t heard wrong. Shaken, he phoned Valenzuela in Florida. “Like me, Fernando’s thought he was hearing things.” Valenzuela took it “calmly.” “Fernando is stoical about these things,” De Marco explains: “He can’t--won’t--let himself be bothered.”

But stoicism has its limits. After he got the news, Valenzuela started drinking, then went to face the press. The next day he apologized and said: “It is not the right way, to drink when you have these problems. But after I heard the news . . . I was real surprised.”

And hurt. He rebuffed O’Malley’s invitation to a ballgame. He had friends clean out his locker.

“They released Fernando at the worst possible time--at the end of spring training when all the other teams had made their plans, filled their rosters,” De Marco says.

Fans and press accused the Dodgers of ruining Valenzuela’s arm, of letting Valenzuela continue to pitch in late innings even when the game was a blowout victory. Finishing a game, though, is Valenzuela’s style. At age 18, he worked 298 innings in the minors. He led the National League in innings pitched at age 20 with 192 1/3. He threw 285 innings at age 21. Overall, he pitched 2,348 2/3 innings in 10 full seasons.

Dodger pitching coach Ron Perranoski said at the time that Valenzuela tends to throw a lot of pitches in every game. “And he would never tell us if he wasn’t feeling right.”

O’Malley pronounced: “All careers must end.”

Angrily, Valenzuela responded: “My career is not over. I still believe in myself. I can still play.”

He was signed by the Angels in May, 1991. He pitched two games, lost both, but pulled 80,000 fans into Anaheim Stadium. His drawing power wasn’t enough. In July, he was sent to the Angels’ Triple-A Edmonton Trappers in Canada. He lost three of his first four games. Clearly, he was not returning to the Angels. Frustrated and homesick, Valenzuela announced in late August that he was returning to Los Angeles. “I don’t have any hard feelings toward (the Angels) . . . . I want to see my family . . . . I expect (to hear from other teams). If nothing comes up, we’ll wait until the off-season and go to any team next spring.”

During the next eight months, he had but one offer: to become a Dodger pitching instructor in the minors. Valenzuela said no. Then, in April, he signed with the Charros. “They were the only team that wanted me,” he says. His purpose was “to demonstrate that my arm was as strong as ever.”

TWO HOURS BEFORE FERNANDO VALENZUELA IS SCHEDULED TO pitch a pivotal game in his comeback effort with the Charros, a tormenta , a bad storm, hits Guadalajara. Blasts of wind and rain uproot trees, snap power lines, shred awnings. Intersections and streets are flooded. Water is waist high along a major four-lane road bordering the Charros’ stadium.

Valenzuela normally draws 6,000 to 8,000 fans, at tickets costing from $2 to $6 apiece. But on this stormy night, the Charros worry that they will sell only a few thousand tickets and lose money. So they want to call off the game because of poor weather and reschedule it for the next day. Under league rules the Charros can cancel if it is still raining at 7:30 p.m., the official starting time. The rain stops at 7:20 p.m.

The Charros stall, hoping for rain or more fans. The groundskeepers are taking their time preparing the field. By 10 p.m., the Charros can delay no longer. The weather is perfect. The game has to be played.

The Charros take the field. The visitors send a batter to the plate. The pitching mound is empty. Where is Valenzuela? He is in a darkened corner of right field throwing warm-up pitches. He ignores the waiting players and continues to throw. The umpire and catcher remove their masks. The batter jokes with a batboy. The second baseman sits on the bag. Another minute passes.

Finally, Valenzuela walks slowly, grandly, down the sideline. A woman twirls a clapper. Fans stand on their seats. Valenzuela cuts across the infield to the mound. A hundred or so fans start to clap, whistle, cheer.

The opponent is Union Laguna, fourth in the division. Valenzuela strikes out the first batter. The tiny crowd cheers with gusto. This is the high point. From then on, Union Laguna players have no trouble hitting the ball. “Valenzuela’s got no speed,” says Morgan Bedford, a Dodger fan from Los Angeles and sports editor of Ojo del Lago, a local monthly magazine. “He’s dodging the bullet.”

But excellent fielding and three diving catches by Charro outfielders protect Valenzuela. The Charros lead 3-2 as the eighth inning begins. Union Laguna players try to rattle Valenzuela with their team clown, a stubby man in his 40s with a leathery, impish face. He wears a baggy uniform and poses as a batboy. As Valenzuela winds up, the clown trips over his own feet. The crowd roars. On the next pitch, he staggers, seemingly drunk, into the fence. Then he minces behind the umpire, wiggling his pinky.

The clown scans the laughing crowd. He spots an unsmiling woman behind home plate. She glares. He shrugs apologetically. She is Linda Valenzuela, the schoolteacher from the Yucatan who married Valenzuela in December, 1981. She and their four children joined him in Guadalajara recently and rented a house.

She is tall, with fluffy, light-auburn hair and a round, pleasant face. She smokes steadily but discreetly. The younger daughter, Maria Fernanda, 18 months old, is in a stroller; her sister, Linda, 7, plays in the aisle, and the two sons, Fernando Jr., 10, and Ricardo, 9, are in the Charros’ dugout.

Valenzuela’s wife is homesick for Los Angeles and eager for news, even if it means talking to a reporter. “How’s L.A.? What’s the weather like. Tell me about the earthquake.”

I fill her in and ask: “So, you’re living in Guadalajara now?” Her face tightens. Her reply is crisp: “We’re on vacation. Our home is in L.A. We’re going back at the end of August.”

Does she like Guadalajara? She sighs. “I don’t really like it down here that much.” She adds quickly: “Oh, it’s not that bad. I kind of like it.”

Valenzuela strikes out the first batter in the eighth. The crowd cheers. The second batter pops out. The Charros are four outs from victory.

“I think Fernando’s getting stronger,” says Bedford, the sports editor.

The third batter blasts a line-drive home run into the empty right-field bleachers. The score is tied 3-3, the ninth is scoreless, and the game goes into extra innings. Valenzuela has thrown 137 pitches, enough to justify resting his troubled arm, but no new pitcher warms up.

“Surely they aren’t going to let Fernando pitch!” Bedford exclaims.

But Valenzuela walks out to the mound. He dispatches Union Laguna on 18 pitches and marches proudly back to the dugout. In the bottom of the 10th, the second Charros batter, outfielder Nelson Simmons, a former big leaguer, drives the ball deep into right. The outfielder digs for the fence. Going, going . . . GONE. Linda Valenzuela leaps to her feet, face flushed, hands clasped together.

AT THE END OF THE WEEK, THE CHARROS ARE ON THE ROAD IN MONTERrey. They have just lost the first game of a three-game series to the hometown Industriales. It’s about 1 a.m. in the disco of the Granada Inn. The club is crowded with about 250 young Mexicans. Six Charros players huddle with me around a small table covered with glasses, cola, an ice bucket and a liter of cheap brandy, emptying rapidly.

Another liter of brandy arrives. Cigarettes are passed around. Valenzuela’s name comes up. I mention that he left about midnight in a car driven by his personal aide. The table grows silent, sullen. “Fernando’s an airhead,” snaps Raymond DeLeon, 22, a first baseman from Texas. He sees me taking notes and adds nervously: “But he loves the game and is down here rebuilding.” A veteran Mexican player sneers and grinds his cigarette into the ash tray: “Fernando thinks he’s too good for us. He’s just another one from up there down here trying to hang on.”

A Charros pitcher mutters: “He don’t even ride with us (in the bus).” At that point the Mexican players ask not to be quoted by name. “We’re not rich like Fernando,” one explains. He adds somberly: “I gotta find a real job, 9 to 5.”

Luis de los Santos, 25, the Charros’ top hitter, angrily swirls his cola: “It’s a little hard to take. He don’t show me nothin’. He don’t have the speed.” De los Santos was born in the Dominican Republic and grew up in New York City. He has played for the Kansas City Royals and the Detroit Tigers. He is batting .350 in Mexico. He shakes his head and mutters: “Fernando’s just like the rest of us trying to get back (to the majors). We want to keep playing . . . looking for a chance to keep playing. We’ve got to keep trying. You’ve got to believe in yourself, stay in shape, have the right mental attitude. Ignore the poverty you see around you and the conditions you’re playing under. Fernando acts like we’re one of the bad conditions he’s got to put up with.”

Valenzuela is even less popular with American players on other teams.

“Valenzuela gets a lot of help from the umpires,” claims James Steels, an outfielder for the Monterrey Industriales, before the game the next day. “They widen the plate (strike zone).” Steels, 31, a dangerous hitter, was with the San Diego Padres in 1987 before returning to the minors. He’s 3 for 4 against Valenzuela.

Steels grins scornfully. “When I come up against Valenzuela, I just laugh in his face. It really gets him mad. He’s nothing.”

Steels’ teammate, Jim Wilson, 30, a former first baseman in the San Francisco Giants’ farm system, walks over. He has been playing in Mexico for six months. Like many Americans, he’s homesick, frustrated and depressed. Wilson’s voice is nasty: “Fernando’s got to know he doesn’t have it anymore. Everybody else knows it. I don’t know who he thinks he’s kidding.”

VALENZUELA DUCKS AND DODGES me for five days before the road trip. He says, through intermediaries, no interviews or photographs. Not now, not anytime. When I approach him, Valenzuela shakes his head vehemently, snaps “Forget it!” and walks away. He treats Mexican reporters the same.

On the sixth day the team buses the 400 or so miles from Guadalajara to Monterrey. Valenzuela takes a plane; he flies first class. I book the same flight--in coach.

“You again,” he groans. Finally he agrees to an interview, but only at the ballpark before the game. The ballpark, his business manager explains later, is where Valenzuela feels most comfortable, secure.

Valenzuela can be gruff, rude and contemptuous with reporters, especially in front of his teammates. One on one, he is polite and thoughtful, with disarmingly large, expressive, soft brown eyes. He wears his diamond and gold pendant. It hangs from a thick gold chain and depicts a baseball resting on crossed bats under the diamond-inlaid numerals “34,” his old Dodger number.

We sit next to the dugout. Fans line up for autographs. First, Valenzuela pens his name on 12 balls for the opposing team, and one for my son. He answers questions slowly, carefully, while signing autographs with mechanical smoothness.

Valenzuela explains why he shuns the press. “If I start talking to reporters, that’s all I’m gonna be doing every day . . . answering the same questions . . . ‘How’s your arm? Your arm sore? Your arm . . . Whatta about your arm?’ When I have something to say, I’ll say it.”

So I ask, “How’s your arm?” Valenzuela laughs good-naturedly. “I feel pretty good. I feel good. Last 10 games I’ve been throwing a lot of strikes.” Instinctively, he flexes his shoulder and works his arm. “A few games I had a little trouble in the beginning. But I spent a lot of time--eight months--out of baseball.”

Valenzuela rejects the notion the Dodgers overworked him. “When I play, I come to pitch. That’s the way I am. All the time. I like to finish the game. Nobody was making me pitch.”

Valenzuela is asked why he chose to play in Mexico, and not, say, Japan, where he could make more money.

He frowns. “Mexico is my country. These are my people.”

“Then money is no problem?” I ask.

Valenzuela nods. “I could play golf every day if I wanted. I’m not doing this for money.” Valenzuela’s salary with the Charros is at least $10,000 a month.

(Los Angeles County land records show that Valenzuela and his wife own an investment property in La Puente valued at $162,000 and a home near Hollywood worth $750,000. Last year, Valenzuela showed reporters a $200,000 check from his investments. “Fernando’s financial situation is quite enviable and firm,” says De Marco, the agent who has managed Valenzuela’s affairs for 12 years, “He doesn’t have to work for the rest of his life. You have to respect his right to play his game. It’s not an obligation to retire just because everybody thinks so.”)

Valenzuela signs another autograph and observes, voice unemotional: “A lot of people say my career is over. Everybody’s free to their own opinion. I like this game and I think I can still pitch. Why shouldn’t I keep pitching?”

He is told that players, Mexican and American, resent his aloofness, his refusal to travel with them. Valenzuela tries to look surprised. “Nobody says that to me. The players talk to me, joke around.”

He fidgets, looks around, stares at the ground. He’s tired of signing autographs, tired of me, and it’s almost game time.

“Realistically, what’s your goal?” I ask.

“Going back to the big leagues,” he replies firmly.

“Fernando,” I ask softly, “Do you really believe, deep down in your heart, you’ll ever pitch in the majors again?”

He stares at the ground. His voice is steady. “Well, I think I’m good enough to play in the big leagues.” He sighs. “But baseball is a business. There are a lot of good young pitchers coming up.” He gazes across the infield. Shrugs. Stands. Works his shoulder. “I plan to keep going. Keep my mind on this. One thing at a time . . . I can still pitch.”

VALENZUELA FINISHED THE SEAson last month with 10 wins and 9 losses. He won 8 of his last 9 games and finished 13 of his last 14. Then he returned to Los Angeles and was considering playing winter ball in the Mexican Pacific League.

Mike Brito, the Dodger scout who discovered Valenzuela when the pitcher was a teen-ager, watched him play his last game in Mexico on Aug. 19. “He looked outstanding,” Brito says. “His screwball is working very effectively. For me, I’m saying he’s got a shot at the big leagues, but he may not be the same Fernando. He’s got his control and confidence back.”

He says that Valenzuela has made good progress since he watched him pitch earlier in the season. “I felt sorry for him when I first saw him pitch in Mexico. You had to feel sorry for the guy.

“You wait and see. Fernando’s going to come back. He’s going to make it in the big leagues. People are gonna say Mike Brito was right.”