Three days before the Los Angeles Dodgers faced the New York Yankees in the World Series, the star of the last Dodgers team to beat the Yankees in the Series, Fernando Valenzuela, passed away at the age of 63. The New York Yankees will play the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 2024 World Series for the first time in 43 years. A rivalry that was an almost annual occurrence during the Eisenhower era and then revived in the 1970s is returning to the Bronx and Chavez Ravine. As the recently deceased James Earl Jones said in Field of Dreams, a hokey baseball movie that Jones elevated, “This ballpark, this game is part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that was once good, and it may be so again.” If this sounds Trump-like, and in the mouth of another actor it might be, Jones is about the peace and joy of youth, not a longing look at more reactionary times.

Rip Fernando Valenzuela Dodgers Ladies Boyfriend Shirt

However, no great play is without tragedy, even if its timing is something a screenwriter would reject. The symbol of the magical 1981 Dodgers season, which ended with the Dodgers defeating the hated Yankees, was a rotund rookie pitcher from the small town of Etchohuaquila, Mexico, named Fernando Valenzuela. Last night, the great Fernando passed away. Young fans simply cannot understand what Fernandomania was like in 1981 when, at the age of 20, this unknown left-hander burst onto the scene. He was a truly unique person, with an inspiring pitch for poets. He wriggled his thick body and looked up at the sky in an almost contrite manner, before releasing the ball. As Susan Sarandon’s character Annie Savoy said in the 1988 baseball film Bull Durham, Fernando was breathing through his eyelids when he looked up at the sky.