Renewed Interest Brought Fernando Back

There is a different way of thinking in an atmosphere that inspires spectators to spin themselves dizzy, then lurch toward a base for prizes; or to swing a bat at water balloons. Those are the rites of spring training, where the credo maybe isn’t so much “Anything is possible,” as “What the heck.”

That spirit has summoned Fernando Valenzuela, once a left-handed phenom and most recently a retired father of four, to camp. Two years after his big-league career apparently ended, he is pitching for a longshot place in the Baltimore Orioles’ rotation.

He is (or used to be) 32 and still is bemused that people are skeptical about his published age. He is trim, cheerful and doing well so far. Signed to a minor-league contract, he has not allowed a run in 10 innings, including five scoreless innings in his third spring appearance Friday. He just could not stay away.

“When you don’t care about the game, I don’t think it’s a good idea to stay in the game. You have to feel the game,” Valenzuela said, having kept such strong feelings that he pitched last year in Mexico--in both the summer and winter leagues.

Orioles scout Fred Uhlman Sr. was impressed when he saw Valenzuela pitch in the wintertime Caribbean Series and Assistant General Manager Frank Robinson endorsed the idea of giving the old guy a shot.

“They were serious. They said they wanted me to come in to camp. I said give me one day to pack and I’ll be there,” Valenzuela said.

That sparked a Florida mini-revival of the frenzy--Fernandomania, they called it--he created with the Los Angeles Dodgers during 1981, when he opened with eight straight victories and became the first pitcher to win the Cy Young and Rookie of the Year awards in the same season.

“I get a little more emotionally involved, I get a few more goose bumps,” said Orioles Coach Davey Lopes, a Dodgers teammate back then. “He still has that charisma.”

Valenzuela still rolls his eyes and looks heavenward during his windup. He can move people off their rented seat cushions (yes, people do scrupulously return them after the games in another unique spring training custom).

He is different now, of course. He wears glasses. He lives in Los Angeles and no longer needs an interpreter. When someone asks him how he feels, he’ll say, “With my hands.”

He throws only 84 m.p.h., though. That rate might raise eyebrows in the Measure-Your-Fastball booth at spring training parks, but not on the mound.

“My arm feels pretty good. That’s one of the reasons we did this,” he said. “I don’t think a pitcher has to have good velocity, a great breaking ball, good slider or whatever. I think he has to know where he’s throwing that pitch.”

Valenzuela is a thinking pitcher who is thinking young. He was one of the first Orioles in the clubhouse on a recent morning, sipping coffee after putting on his socks before 8:30. He set two lockers away from Mike Flanagan, 41, who is trying to come back as a middle reliever. “He’s a kid compared to me,” Flanagan said.

Given Valenzuela’s 0-2 record and 12.15 ERA with the California Angels in 1991, a skeptic might suggest his comeback is just one more spring gimmick. But the Orioles genuinely are looking for a fifth starter. Not just any prospect has the nerve and skill to strike out World Series MVP Pat Borders with a bases-loaded screwball, as Valenzuela did recently.

Manager Johnny Oates said the knock on Fernando two years ago was a lack of arm strength, a condition that might have been addressed by the 262 1/3 innings he pitched in his native Mexico last year.

“When I was playing in Mexico, a lot of people said, ‘Why are you here, after you’ve been on the top all the time?’ I said because I love the game,” he said. “Baseball everywhere is the same.”