As a kid, I liked football. I had no idea that baseball could be equally (or even more) exciting. In LA, we had the Rams, who had just been to the Super Bowl. Then there was the Lakers, with Magic Johnson and Kareem (though I preferred Michael Cooper and his majestic 3-pointers). Baseball…. the Dodgers, right? What did they have? It seemed like a quaint sport to me. I knew a little about them, like that first baseman Steve Garvey’s wife, Cyndy was the co-host of “A.M. Los Angeles” with Regis Philbin. I followed the rumors of marriage problems between them more than I did any of Steve’s games. Hey, this was Hollywood after all.
But as March went into April of 1981, and as the Dodgers made their annual trek back from Dodgertown in Vero Beach to the Southland, I had no idea I was about to become a 13 year old drug addict, and that my addiction would be to the Dodgers. But I knew I was going to be ok, because Vin Scully told me so, and I grew to really trust that man. The 1981 season would be the high that I would chase (usually unsuccessfully) my whole life.
I actually tuned in for that first game of the year, April 9th, in Chavez Ravine, against Houston. I was bored and was kind of tired of “Hogan’s Heroes” reruns. Football was over and I was jonesing for a new sport. I watched the game even though Jerry Reuss had gotten hurt and couldn’t be the opening day starter. They were starting a 20 year old rookie instead, a fat kid from Mexico who looked more like a fat guy in his thirties. Fernando Valenzuela. I’d never heard of him but then again, I’d never heard of most of these guys.
There was a lot of excitement in the stands….. who were these fans who were cheering for Fernando? They seemed to know him well. The first twinge of excitement I ever felt watching baseball was witnessing the movement on Fernando’s screwball that night as it approached home plate. I didn’t have the best reception on this TV in our apartment in Central Hollywood, but I could see he was baffling the Astros hitters. I can still hear Vin, “Young Val-en-sway-la winds up, looks heavenward…and got him looking, again!”
They started showing replays of Fernando on his windup; he looked straight up into the sky and somehow got his bearings enough to deliver the ball almost perfectly to the plate every time. Screwball, fastball, screwball in….out! I wondered if Fernando was looking upward for the long delayed debut of the Space Shuttle (he would have four more days to wait if that was the case). As Vin would say, “he twirled a gem.” Dodgers win 2-0.
Vin Scully and Manager Tommy Lasorda
The next day was Friday and I went to school, everybody was talking about this game! This was even more excitement than when Reagan got shot a couple of weeks before. My friends Enrique and his brother Ismael were talking too; in fact all of LeConte Junior High’s Mexican students were chatty and proud that day.
Thinking about Enrique that day made me realize what had been going on at Dodger Stadium. Fernando was already bringing Mexican fans to the games, right from the get-go. It might be a bit of a stretch to say they were coming back for the first time since they were evicted by the City from their homes in the Ravine back in 1959 (for the construction of Dodger Stadium); but not by too much. I wanted a piece of this action; I wanted to be an honorary Mexican.
Fernando
When Fernando gave interviews after the game I could tell he really was a 20 year old, though I couldn’t understand what he was saying. His soft spoken Spanish made me resolve to pay more attention in Miss Berdofe’s Spanish class. I had a similar and much weaker resolve listening to interviews of Ichiro much later in 2001.
The excitement around the Dodgers that spring was a reflection of the international flavor that was coming to baseball. The team, the city and the fans were all pumped. Finally baseball had its own version of Showtime for Angelinos. Fernando was my favorite, but I got to know all the players, Cey, Baker, Yeager, Garvey (finally learning more about him than his wife), Davey Lopes and Bill Russell. One day early on I pulled a piece of paper out of my Pee-Chee folder and started logging games and their results. I carried it around in my Velcro wallet all year. Following the games quickly became my obsession.
When games were not on Channel 11, I’d always try to catch them on KABC Radio. I actually preferred to listen than watch; there was more drama that way. I could picture the villainy of new manager Bobby Cox and the rival Atlanta Braves, who had their own wunderkind in Dale Murphy (who always seemed to have LA’s number). And I got to hear my second favorite Dodger, Vin Scully, call all their games.
He must have been old by 1981, after all he’d been calling Dodger games since black and white prehistory back in Brooklyn. But he had a young and soothing voice, and he introduced me to a lot of colorful baseball expressions that made me appreciate the history and traditions of the game.
If Russell and Lopes were on third and first base with another Dodger batting, Vin called it “ducks on the pond.” If Pedro Guerrero belted a sharp liner to right field, it was a “frozen rope.” A pitcher who worked quickly did so “as if he was double parked.” Squibbers, dribblers, these were wonderful expressions that brought me there via radio; I didn’t need to see anything. I actually preferred those times when the manager would come out and replace a pitcher, because in between those Cal Worthington commercials (“If you’re lookin’ for a better set of wheels, I will stand upon my head to beat all deals!”) Vin would pass the time with fascinating baseball anecdotes, the delight always evident in his voice.
He called the listeners “friends,” as in “Say, friends, we’ll see you next time at Dodger Stadium.” I definitely considered myself a friend of Vin Scully, who seemed at once ageless and yet fresh and exuberant. But by June, even Vin Scully couldn’t sugar coat the trouble that was coming to baseball.
It was my first year as a baseball fan, and baseball went on strike. It was two lost months where they almost lost me as a fledgling fan. Even as baseball was becoming more of a world embracing sport, so it was also running towards fat contracts and player manager disputes. It looked like the season would be lost, which was too bad; because that X-Factor charisma that Valenzuela brought to the team was what they needed all along. And they were coasting in first place. LA fans held their breath, I never knew what it was all about, I just knew I needed my fix; I needed to log more games onto my creased sheet of Mead paper.
Cey to Russell to Lopes to Garvey
And then the tension broke, they saved the season, and on my birthday the Dodgers came back; Jerry Reuss got his opening day start (sorta) and they shut out Cincinnati 4-0. The excitement quickly resumed though Fernando had cooled off from his 8-0 start to the season, when it seemed like he may actually never lose, he was that unhittable.
They made the playoffs; they won there and faced the Yankees in the World Series. The early 80’s had become a Renaissance of professional sports in Los Angeles but there was never more excitement than this. How would the soon-to-be 21 year old Fernando Valenzuela do against the Yankees (who always seemed to be the stodgiest part of baseball, all cigars, fedoras and line scores)? From what I heard the Yankees almost always won when these two teams played.
Tommy Lasorda may have bled Dodger Blue, but it must have been a little thin at the beginning of the Series, for he held Fernando back until game 3 and Reuss and Burt Hooton lost the first two games; putting LA in a hole. But sometimes something different CAN happen in baseball, that’s why there’s always a need for new blood. Fernando came out and won game three. He wasn’t his best, he seemed nervous but The Blue Crew helped him out with a lot of runs.
The magic season ended with a Series win against New York. Fernando Valenzuela was not only the Rookie of the Year; he also won the Cy Young Award! I never saw another season like this in baseball; it united LA’s residents, Mexicanos and Gringos alike.
Years passed by, Fernando retired in the ‘90’s. I grew up and got older and saw hundreds of players come and go. I changed my allegiances (preferring somehow the corporate professionalism of the Yankees), but always wanted to follow the Dodgers again, I always looked for that thrill again (and almost got there with the ’96 Yankees and the ’01 Mariners).
I still have my yellowing old sheet of lined paper folded up and taped together, the diary of an amazing season. Here I am now, middle aged, a little gray, things change right? How is that I am now watching a Dodgers game (with MLBTV) with another international rookie sensation (Korea’s Hyun-Jin Ryu) in a game called by the impossible Vin Scully, sounding the same on April 7th, 2013 as he did on April 9th, 1981? Little kids who weren’t even thinking of baseball back in ’81 have had careers and then retired from the game during this time.
How old is this guy anyway? How does he know so much about players, their stats and even their families? How does he know that Matt Kemp swings at the first pitch 45% of the time? Well, I guess I don’t care; I just want to keep listening. Because through Vin Scully I can channel my own youth, and I don’t feel as if I’d aged at all.