April 9, 1981: The birth of Fernandomania on Opening Day at Dodger Stadium

On Opening Day in 1981, the Los Angeles Dodgers found themselves in the peculiar position of needing a starting pitcher. Normally, they would have gone with a veteran who would – they hoped – mow down opposing batters while Dodgers fans looked on in awe, cheering their team to victory. This day was different.

Jerry Reuss, the 1980 National League Cy Young Award runner-up and the ace of the Dodgers’ rotation, was a late scratch after a calf muscle he had strained the day before left him unable to walk. The number-two starter, Burt Hooten, had just had a procedure to remove an ingrown toenail, which took him out of contention for the starting job. The third man in the Dodgers’ rotation, Bob Welch, was recovering from a bone spur in his elbow, while the two men at the bottom of the rotation, Dave Goltz and Rick Sutcliffe, were healthy scratches for the opener. Both had pitched in an exhibition series against the California Angels just prior to the season opener.1 That left southpaw Fernando Valenzuela as the lone option to start the game against the formidable Houston Astros, who had ended the Dodgers’ season the previous year in a one-game tiebreaker.

Additionally, the Astros had signed former Dodgers pitching great Don Sutton in the offseason, a move that Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda seemed to take in stride. “We knew there was a possibility of losing Don Sutton (who played out his option and signed with the Astros), so we had to plan ahead.” Speaking of Valenzuela, Lasorda said, “We were looking at him as the replacement for Don.”2 Valenzuela made quite a debut after getting promoted to the Dodgers in September 1980. He threw 17⅔ shutout innings, allowed just eight hits, and struck out 16. The native of Etchohuaquila, Sonora, Mexico, went 2-0.

The April 9 game was a David vs. Goliath matchup. Valenzuela was 20 years old and the first rookie to start on Opening Day in the team’s history. To make matters worse, many in the crowd of 50,511 struggled to understand why he was pitching. Blissfully unaware of the fans’ apprehension, Valenzuela pitched batting practice, then went into the training room and took a nap before jogging out to the bullpen and then onto the field as the Opening Day festivities began.

Making the situation even more comical, Valenzuela threw a screwball, a pitch that no one else had thrown with regularity since Carl Hubbell in the 1930s. Hubbell used that pitch in the 1934 All-Star Game to strike out, in order, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons, and Joe Cronin, all future Hall of Famers.3

Valenzuela was opposed by Joe Niekro, who together with his brother and fellow knuckleball pitcher Phil, would eventually post a total of 539 wins, the most by any pair of brothers in the major leagues.4 The previous season, Niekro had pitched the Astros to a 7-1 victory over the Dodgers in a one-game tiebreaker for the National League West title.5 The Astros were unfazed by Valenzuela. Astros pitcher Joe Sambito said, “When we heard that Reuss wasn’t going to start and that we were going up against a rookie, we felt we had a much better chance against [Valenzuela] than the veteran all-star.”6

When Valenzuela took the mound to start the game, the Astros were ready to pounce on the untested rookie, but they were in for a surprise. Valenzuela’s delivery befuddled everyone, including Astros hitters. With his hands clasped he reached toward the sky, while simultaneously lifting his right leg and his eyes toward the heavens, as if to ask for divine intervention, before delivering his pitch. Valenzuela threw a screwball to Astros leadoff hitter Terry Puhl, who hit a grounder to shortstop for the first recorded out of the game. Craig Reynolds then singled to center field, but Valenzuela retired the next two batters. Niekro held the Dodgers hitters in check in the bottom of the first inning. Davey Lopes flied out to left field to start the inning. Ken Landreaux doubled, but Niekro got Dusty Baker and Steve Garvey to fly out.

Valenzuela walked Art Howe to start the second, and Howe got to second when Dave Roberts flied out to center field and to third with two outs on Dickie Thon’s groundball to second. But Luis Pujols’ popup to first retired the side. Niekro dealt with a threat of his own in the second. After Pedro Guerrero singled to right field and stole second, Niekro struck out Mike Scioscia and got Bill Russell to ground out to shortstop to end the inning. With two innings down, both sides seemed equally matched, and both pitchers settled in for the long haul.

Valenzuela and Niekro pitched scoreless third innings. In the top of the fourth, Valenzuela recorded his first strikeout of the game, against César Cedeño. The Dodgers broke the ice when Garvey tripled to right field in the bottom of the fourth and scored on Cey’s fly to left field.

Pitching with a 1-0 lead, Valenzuela worked around an infield hit by Pujols in the fifth, striking out pitcher Niekro to retire the side. Niekro allowed a walk and a single in the bottom of the fifth inning but Landreaux’s fly ball ended the inning.

“Fernando was using mostly his fastball and curve in the first few innings, then started working the screwball in,” Dodgers catcher Scioscia said after the game. “From the sixth through the ninth he had awesome command of everything.”7 Valenzuela’s only trouble came in the top of the sixth inning, when Reynolds smacked a one-out single into center field and Cedeño doubled to put runners in scoring position. But Valenzuela retired José Cruz on a lineout to shortstop and followed that by collecting Howe’s comebacker and throwing him out to end the inning.8

In the bottom of the sixth, Garvey hit a one-out single to left field. Cey blooped a hit that bounced off home plate, Astros catcher Pujols grabbed the ball and threw out Cey as Garvey went to second base. On a wild pitch to Pedro Guerrero, Garvey took third base. Guerrero then walloped a line drive to left field just of Cruz’s reach, scoring Garvey making the Dodgers’ lead 2-0.

Niekro was replaced by Dave Smith to start the eighth; Smith blanked the Dodgers. In the Astros’ ninth, Valenzuela gave up a two-out single to Howe, then ended the game with a screwball to strike out Dave Roberts. After retiring 11 of the last 12 batters to post a five-hit shutout, Valenzuela said, “I mixed in the fastball, slider, and screwball early but the last three innings it was almost all screwballs. … That’s my pitch, and when I need the big outs that’s what I go to.”9

While the victory over the Astros provided a measure of retribution for the playoff loss in 1980, the game is better remembered as the birth of Fernandomania. It marked the beginning of a string of victories that made Valenzuela the star of the league and a hero to Dodgers fans. Sportswriter Paul Oberjuerge summed up fans’ feelings when he wrote, “Enroll me in the Fernando Valenzuela fan club. Any guy who can get people out despite that Pillsbury Doughboy physique is all right in my book.”10 In this Opening Day victory, a star was born for the Los Angeles Dodgers, one that would continue to shine brightly for many years to come.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference, Retrosheet, Baseball Almanac, Stats Crew, and the Fernando Valenzuela player file at the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Thanks to Dodgers team historian Mark Langill and Rachel Wells at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, as well as Joy and Pat Scheller, Holly Scheller, and Greg Fowler for their support. In memory of Rick Bush.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/LAN/LAN198104090.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1981/B04090LAN1981.htm

Photo credit: Fernando Valenzuela, courtesy of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Notes

1 Erik Sherman, Daybreak at Chavez Ravine: Fernandomania and the Remaking of the Los Angeles Dodgers (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2023), 55.

2 Mike Davis, “Valenzuela Crafts 5-hitter, Blanks Astros in 1st Start,” San Bernardino County (California) Sun, April 10, 1981: 64.

3 Stew Thornley, “July 10, 1934: Carl Hubbell Strikes Out Five Hall of Famers in a Row at All-Star Game,” SABR Games Project, https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/july-10-1934-carl-hubbell-strikes-out-five-hall-of-famers-in-a-row-at-all-star-game/, accessed November 24, 2023.

4 Sherman, 56.

5 “Chubby Rookie Blanks Astros, 2-0,” Santa Cruz (California) Sentinel, April 10, 1981: 48.

6 Sherman, 56.

7 “Valenzuela Crafts 5-hitter, Blanks Astros in 1st Start.”

8 Sherman, 58.

9 Logan Hobson (United Press International), “Dodger Rookie Baffles Astros,” Ukiah (California) Daily Journal, April 10, 1981: 4; Jason Turbow, They Bled Blue: Fernandomania, Strike Season Mayhem, and the Weirdest Championship Baseball Had Ever Seen: The 1981 Los Angeles Dodgers (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019), 53.

10 Paul Oberjuerge, “Fernando Has Dodgers in Fat City,” San Bernardino County Sun, April 15, 1981: 21.