Hall of Nearly Great -- Fernando

From the day I learned to read until I left for college, mornings meant cereal and box scores.  Occasionally there may have been some eggs or French toast, but page D7 was a constant.  I probably learned to read on page D7.

Yet, though my box score ritual was the same for over a decade, now, 25 years later, I only remember one particular instance of combing the box scores.  It was in May 1981 -- I suspect it was May 9^th, a Saturday.  As I play the scene back in my head, I at the table, my mother behind me in the kitchen, each of us move in the more languid movements of the weekend.  

While I may have lingered later, I hustled to the table with immediate business – there was a box score I was anticipating – and when I got a glimpse, there, he’d done it again.  I had to share my wonder and blurted out:  "Mom, the Dodgers have this rookie who's won all 7 of his games and only given up 2 runs."  

But mom knew how to question a narrative:  "Is there something odd about his delivery?"  

"Yeah, he's a lefty and right before he pitches he looks at the sky."  I wondered how she knew but was completely undeterred.

"Better wait 'til he goes around the League again to get too excited."

You don't hear that much anymore.  In the age of video, batters don’t wait to see a pitcher the first time, much less the second, to learn about his stuff and motion.  And, teams today have 4 times the opponents that teams had 50 years ago, making the tight two-to-three-week spiral around the league that bore the phrase a forgotten relic.

Whether mom was right or wrong in her suspicions regarding the new, unseen LA phenom, by the end of the summer, I've got to say, she sure seemed prescient.  

Still, whether you’re in elementary school or not, the power of a pitcher’s first 8 starts rendering 8 complete-game victories with only 4 runs surrendered is almost limitless.  

Limitless especially when it fills a void.

* * *

In his Fernando entry in the new eBook Hall of Nearly Great, Eric Nusbaum observes that as Fernandomania grew to a religious pique, Vin Scully served as the ideal proselytizer to see that the spark of Valenzuela's performance was properly fanned into a public frenzy.  "Scully's propensity for long silences,” Nusbaum says, “only added to the fervor by allowing those wildly exuberant early crowds to speak and scream for themselves."  

Replay an iconic oration – choose any speech or sportcaster’s call -- and you’ll realize silence is a tool as powerful as any utterance.  Silence potentiates word and word amplifies silence.  But then, really, there is no silence -- an good orator knows when his/her silence will be filled by the thrill of a crowd.

* * *

Those who spend copious time discussing Baseball History often talk about what work-stoppages cost.  Cost Tim Raines.  Cost baseball in Montreal.  Cost the sport in goodwill.  Cost the '81 Cincinnati Reds.  The few handfuls of players whose careers spanned '81-'94 lost three-quarters of a season to work stoppages.  We sometimes try to fill-in that vacuum of time when the baseball stage stood dark.  Tony Gwynn had “x” chance to hit .400, Matt Williams was on pace to . . ., Barry would have ended his career with . . .

Both at the time and ever since, I’ve always thought that the effects on players’ careers had been strictly negative – they’d lost time, lost stats; who could have benefited from that?*  But didn’t Fernando benefit?  For the two months of stoppage, the legend of Fernando stood unchallenged -- our hero's inevitable fall remained suspended.  The narrator of The Great Unraveling of The Story of Baseball knew just when to stop the narrative to realize the full weight of “Fernandomania.”

*Okay, Steve McCatty, probably benefited.  He was not likely to have ever led the league in Wins in a full season.  And Pete Vukovich, who tied him that year, could go right back to obscurity the next season, right?

Essentially the Strike took a five-week phenomenon and made it last . . . how long?  Four months?  A season?  Forever?

After his 8-0 start, Fernando Valenzuela was 5-7 with a 3.66 ERA in 1981.  After the 8-0 start, Fernando Valenzuela was 163-153 with a 3.65 ERA for his career.  

None of which is to say that Fernando was not a good pitcher.  He was above average for many years and then somewhat below, but serviceable for many years -- and let's all say it together, "there's a lot of value in being average."  Fernando fielded his position well and hit well (okay, he only walked every other year).  By the numbers, he was a solid, unremarkable pitcher who you'd take on your team in a second.

And yet, he was remarkable.  He looked like no one else.  Moved like no one else.  He did not meet our expectations of what a pitcher should be, of what someone who looked like him could do.  And through it all, he was nonplussed even as we were agog.  He would take some getting used to. Just as mom said.

* * *

Without a strike, the myth of Fernando probably would have dissipated as spring turned to summer.  After those opening 8 starts with just 4 earned runs allowed, Fernando gave up 4, 4, 7, 2, 7 & 2 earned runs his six remaining starts before the Strike began on June 12th.  Just before Fernando completely fell back to the League, the Strike came and froze his numbers. 

Fernandomania was unsustainable by anything but a stoppage of time.  And, oddly, a stoppage of time was exactly what occurred.

For two months without games, the Legend of Fernando stood unchallenged.  With no new baseball to talk about, fans just continued bantering about what was newest.  What would have been a quick, twinkling flash became a supernova visible even in the daytime for 2 months. 

In Baseball’s silence, the cheers of the fans amplified the story. 

For two months, Fernando was frozen at 9-4, 2.45 ERA & leading the League.  For two months, he was the catalyst driving a first-place team, as the Dodgers remained a half-game ahead of Cincinnati.  None of that was likely to continue.  Fernando was going to fall back to Earth.  Cincinnati was probably going to catch the Dodgers.  By mid-summer, the whole thing could have shimmered out of existence like a Sonoran mirage.

And then, just as Time prepared to start again, Commissioner Bowie Kuhn made the ephemeral permanent by announcing that, based on those first 57 games, the Dodgers were winners of the NL West's first-half.  As the declared winners of the mini-season, the Dodgers were already in the post-season. 

The Reds would finish 1981 with 3 more wins and 5 fewer losses than the Dodgers, and the Reds would go home.  The Dodgers would barely play .500 ball after the Strike and they would go on to win the World Series. 

With their once-in-the-history-of-baseball reprieve, the Dodgers would go down in history, rather than as the second-place also ran whose rookie phenom couldn't sustain his brilliance.  Tommy Lasorda won his first World Series, and maybe the chance to stick around for his second.  Fernando, at 13-7 with a 2.48 ERA for a post-season club got a lot more Cy Young votes than a ~16-12 with a ~2.83 ERA Fernando playing for a second-place team.  Maybe Seaver (14-2, 2.54) would collect another Cy Young or Nolan (11-5, 1.69) would get his one & only.

Maybe Fernando loses his regality.  Maybe without that mystique, he pitches only 10 more years and loses the chance at that second wind in his 30’s. 

Whatever would have happened, I’m glad we’ve got Fernando as he is.  The work stoppages robbed us, fan and player, of a lot.  But, man, I tell you -- if Baseball, by shutting up and letting the crowd roar, gave us the myth of Fernando, it may have all been worth it.