No Mas

From his house to their house, it’s 4.4 miles.

From his gates to their gates, it’s a 12-minute drive.

Twenty years after first capturing the heart of a community from the pitching mound at Dodger Stadium, Fernando Valenzuela still lives in a large home virtually around the corner.

But a mysterious universe apart.

The one thing missing from the Fernandomania anniversary celebrations has been, well, Fernando.

The Dodgers invited him to throw out the first pitch at this year’s season opener. He declined.

They invited him to appear at his personally approved bobble-head doll night later this month. He declined.

They invited him to be honored in any other manner he deemed appropriate. He declined.

After contacting him only through his representatives, they invited him to personally come to the phone and explain exactly how they could make him happy.

He declined.

When it comes to the Dodgers, not only won’t he drive across the street, he won’t even personally speak to them.

“We want him back, he means a tremendous amount to the organization,” Dodger President Bob Graziano said. “But we haven’t even had an opportunity to sit down directly with him and find out what he wants to do.”

And it hasn’t only been this year. Valenzuela has turned his back on the Dodgers every year since he last appeared in the major leagues in 1997.

They have offered him field jobs, front-office jobs, ambassador jobs, show-up-and-wave-to-fans-from-a-luxury-suite-with-plenty-of-food jobs.

He has declined them all.

They have asked former Valenzuela interpreter Jaime Jarrin, their longtime Spanish-language broadcaster, to intercede for them.

Again, no luck.

Even when Jarrin asked Valenzuela to appear with him at Dodger Stadium in 1998 for ceremonies honoring Jarrin’s induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, Valenzuela declined. Instead, wife Linda came.

“It would be so perfect to have him here,” Jarrin said. “But . . . “

His voice trails off into an emptiness that has occupied a little corner of Dodger Stadium during Valenzuela’s obvious absence.

So splendid to be celebrating the anniversary of a major event in this team’s history and this city’s culture.

So sad that the guest of honor refuses to show up.

And why?

Valenzuela has not said, and is not saying.

He doesn’t tell the Dodgers--other than to send word that he is busy--and he wouldn’t agree to an interview if it included this question.

But numerous sources say the reason is as clear as Valenzuela is stubborn.

The pitcher is still angry at the Dodgers, they say, over being put on waivers 11 days before the start of the 1991 season.

He is angry that he wasn’t waived in time to find another major league job before the start of the season, leading him to skip most of the year before joining the Angels late in the season.

He is also angry that he was waived two days before his $2.55-million contract would become guaranteed, forcing the Dodgers to pay him “only” $630,494.

Sources say he is angriest at former manager Tom Lasorda, who testified against Valenzuela in a hearing over a union grievance filed by the pitcher claiming that he was released for economic reasons. The Dodgers won the case.

“I had to go into that hearing, and what am I gonna do?” Lasorda remembered this week in a phone interview from Japan. “Fernando had a great career, but there comes a certain time when they all have to go. And that’s what I said. I had to defend the team.”

While everyone thought Valenzuela was angry over being pitched so much, sources say he was only angry when the Dodgers told him he could no longer pitch.

All of which was a long time ago. But friends say Valenzuela never forgets.

“Like an elephant,” said one.

Mokie DeMarco, son of Valenzuela’s ailing agent Tony DeMarco, said Valenzuela denies these reports.

“He says he has absolutely no animosity toward Lasorda or anybody there, and he’s quite put out that anybody would think that,” DeMarco said. “He’s just a very private person. He doesn’t like big productions. He has always been introverted and shy, and doesn’t want to make a big deal out of things.”

Yet few former Dodgers are as visible around town as Valenzuela.

He plays golf nearly every day on local public courses, often just driving up and joining a threesome.

He regularly attends sporting events involving one son who plays baseball at Glendale College, and another who plays football at St. Francis High in La Canada Flintridge.

The past few winters, he has flown to Mexico and caused a national stir by pitching in the Mexican League.

At times, one must be forgiven for thinking that he is only introverted and shy when it comes to the Dodgers.

“We’re disappointed, but not discouraged,” Graziano said. “We will keep waiting until Fernando is comfortable.”

That discomfort apparently began on a March afternoon in Vero Beach in 1991.

With tears in the eyes of several Dodger officials, but with only a glare in the eyes of Valenzuela, the pitcher was waived.

At the time, even though he was only officially 30, Valenzuela looked like a pitcher much older. In his previous two seasons combined, he had gone 23-26 with a 4.02 earned-run average, poor numbers in those pitch-happy days.

The warning signs turned serious late in 1990, when he had gone 1-3 with an 8.40 ERA in his last six starts and been partially blamed for the Dodgers’ failure to catch the eventual National League West champion Cincinnati Reds in September.

Yes, he had thrown a no-hitter earlier that season, prompting Vin Scully’s memorable, “If you have a sombrero, throw it to the sky.”

But by the end of the season, his 4.59 ERA was the worst of any regular National League starter.

If the Dodgers made a questionable move, it was signing Valenzuela to a contract that winter in the first place.

At the time, the already embittered pitcher wondered if it was only to allow him to pitch in an exhibition game in Monterrey, Mexico, his first appearance in his homeland in 10 years.

That was indeed an emotional game, with Valenzuela holding the Milwaukee Brewers to two hits in five innings.

Eleven days later, with a 7.88 spring ERA, he was cut.

“I still feel good, I still feel I can pitch,” he said at the time. “I hope I can get with a new team, start a new life.”

While the Dodger rotation helped the team finish the 1991 season with the best ERA in baseball, Valenzuela began an odyssey that took him to five teams over the next seven years.

Although he experienced a brief rebirth with the San Diego Padres in 1996, going 13-8 with a 3.62 ERA, he went 2-12 with the Padres and St. Louis Cardinals the next year, and has not pitched in the major leagues since.

Not coincidentally, he has also never returned to his baseball home.

Although, on July 29 against the Colorado Rockies, he will be there in ceramic form. Thousands of him, held by thousands of Angelenos, in a bobble-head doll night that is expected to be a sellout and one of the season’s biggest celebrations.

Valenzuela will be on vacation in Mexico that day.

But Graziano hopes that somehow, he will be watching.

“I hope that night, he sees how many people love him,,” Graziano said. “I hope he sees how much he has affected this community. I hope he will soften about coming back.”

*

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

FERNANDO’S FADEAWAY

Fernando Valenzuela’s pitching career started to decline in 1988, and his 4.59 ERA in 1990 was the highest among full-time starters in the National League. A look at Valenzuela’s key statistics in 1990, and those of Dodger starters in 1991:

VALENZUELA IN FINAL DODGER SEASON (1990)

*--*

GS CG IP H BB SO W-L ERA 33 5 204 223 77 115 13-13 4.59

*--*

* Factoid: Valenzuela’s ERA in 1990 was the highest in his 11 seasons with the Dodgers. His ERA for his 10 previous seasons was 3.20.

*

DODGER STARTING PITCHERS IN 1991

*--*

GS CG IP H BB SO W-L ERA Tim Belcher 33 2 2091/3 189 75 186 10-9 2.62 Mike Morgan 33 5 2361/3 197 61 140 14-10 2.78 Bob Ojeda 31 2 1891/3 181 70 120 12-9 3.18 Ramon Martinez 33 6 2201/3 190 69 150 17-13 3.27 Orel Hershiser 21 0 112 112 32 73 7-2 3.46 Kevin Gross 10 0 1152/3 119 53 93 10-11 3.73

*--*

* Factoid: The ERA for the Dodger pitching staff in 1991 was 3.06, the best in the National League by 38 percentage points.

*

THE DECLINE AND FALL

Valenzuela’s key statistics in final three seasons with the Dodgers (1988-90), and the previous three (1985-87):

*--*

1985-87 1988-90 Win-Loss Record, Pct. 52-35, .598 28-37, .430 Earned-Run Average 3.17 4.08 Pct. of Starts Completed 44.7% 10.4% Hits Allowed Per 9 Innings 7.85 9.13 Walks Allowed Per 9 Innings 3.52 4.16 Strikeouts Per 9 Innings 7.26 4.89

*--*

*

BEFORE AND AFTER

Valenzuela’s key statistics with the Dodgers (1980-1990), and with five other teams (Angels, Baltimore, Philadelphia, San Diego and St. Louis) in his final six seasons (1991, 1993-1997):

*--*

With Dodgers After Dodgers Win-Loss Record, Pct. 141-108 .566 32-45, .415 Earned-Run Average 3.33 4.46 Pct. of Starts Completed 36.2% 6.7% Hits Allowed Per 9 Innings 8.04 9.62 Walks Allowed Per 9 Innings 3.50 3.64 Strikeouts Per 9 Innings 6.35 4.88

*--*