His journey from a small town in Mexico to rousing success in Major League Baseball inspired generations of fans and created a seismic shift in the demographics of the Dodgers fan base. “It is the most puzzling, wonderful, rewarding thing I think we’ve seen in baseball in many, many years,” Vin Scully exclaimed on the air after the fifth of …
If you were a young Mexican Catholic boy growing up in 1980s Southern California, your family taught you at least three gestures based on the Holy Cross. Former Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela looks skyward during his windup, a delivery he made famous in the 1980s. They didn’t want to “lanzar como Fernando” — throw like Fernando — the way my …
