Celebrating Fernando Valenzuela: Artist creates mural in honor of late Dodger great

Boyle Heights native Robert Vargas, whose Shohei Otani mural has drawn tourists from around the world to Little Tokyo, is racing against time this week. 

His goal: completing a three-panel tribute to late Dodger great Fernando Valenzuela before today, what would have been the player's 64th birthday.

When we meet him, he’s only about a third of the way through his mural, on the side of the Boyle Heights Apartments, about a block west of Mariachi Plaza.

His towering portrait of Fernando Valenzuela stands high above us, staring up, catchers mitt in hand, preparing to toss a strikeout.

At over 50 feet, it’s tall — almost as high as his ambition of completing two more giant panels on the building in three days in time for what would have been Valenzuela’s 64th birthday.

And he’s doing it all freehand.

"That's the only way I work," he said. "I've always worked that way. It's having a relationship with the wall and just, that's my gift, I guess."

From mural to a community ofrenda

Fans have created a makeshift altar in front of Fernando Valenzuela's mural.

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Gillian Moran Perez/LAist

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He started the project before Valenzuela died not knowing the significance the mural would take on.

Now it’s become a space for community members to marvel and grieve ahead of Dia De Los Muertos, a holiday when Latin American families remember and celebrate those who've died, often with an altar, called an ofrenda.

People have come by the mural and posted pictures, written personal notes in Spanish, and left behind traditional gold and yellow marigold also called flor de muerto or flowers of the dead.

Sure, Valenzuela had a successful career that spanned over 17 seasons and won two World Series Championships with the Dodgers.

And yes, the Dodgers honored him last year by retiring his No. 34 jersey, but his impact on the Latino community goes beyond the field and is hard to overstate.

We asked passerby Stephanie Aceves, what does Fernando mean to you?

"History, culture, unity,  blue blood, " she said.

That’s Dodger Blue.

Onlooker Omar Leyva said Valenzuela represents perseverance.

"To overcome any obstacles, any goals. In his case, he was in the minor leagues for a while, he was in the minor leagues in Mexico, working up on his craft and on his mechanics, and he never gave up," Leyva said. "And to picture and visualize someone like him at his age, that's striving for that level of athleticism, to eventually end up in a Division I. World class team. That's tenacity."

Fernando's legacy — unity and healing

Vargas said Valenzuela’s place in history goes beyond baseball.

"He was an inspiration for someone who's Indigenous looking, playing for the Dodgers, and really giving the Mexican Americans, and Latinos in general, the kind of acceptance to be able to go to Dodger Stadium again and support the team after the displacement of so many," he said.

The displacement he’s talking about stems from one of the darkest chapters in Dodger history when the city of L.A. used eminent domain to push out the predominantly Latino community living the hills of Chavez Ravine to make way for Dodger Stadium.

The sting lingered for decades as heard in a documentary from 2003. A former Chavez resident said: " I remember looking at my house and knew I wasn't going to see it again. My father built that house. I was born there. I've never felt about any other house the way I felt about that one."

Valenzuela wasn’t the first Latino on the Dodgers, but when he joined the team nearly three decades later, people found his dedication and humility relatable.

Here he is in 1981 after an away game against the Mets:

"What was Fernando feeling about coming to New York City to pitch in front of so many people... one of the world's great population centers? I was very impressed with the city. I don't know much about it, but I feel very good about New York. I know I had a lot of competition, but I pitched the way I always pitch. And I was successful tonight."

Years on, Vargas wants to keep his memory alive, while also reminding people how far long-marginalized communities have come.

That’s why his latest wall art comes six months after he finished another famous work: The mural of Shohei Otani that’s become a draw for visitors from around the world.

Neighbor Sammy Tang said she lives in between both pieces, Shohei's and Fernando's.

"If you really think about the east side and the west side, right? Like the west side being Little Tokyo, east side being here," she said. "But deep, the deep roots of what our people had to go through and some of the challenges that. . . many different communities have faced here in, in Los Angeles, this unity is very important, so it serves more as a bridge of unity."

Vargas said that’s the point.

"The bridge is the bridge, but now you actually anchor it with these two things, these two people in their very communities," he said. "These are two immigrants, you know, who are doing amazing things with their lives, inspiring people who look like them, people who look like them, under the umbrella of the Dodgers, unites everybody, so it's all about, everyone has a seat at the table."

The completed mural will showcase Valenzuela's iconic windup, step by step, showing strikes one, two and three — a nod to his legacy at the mound.

We all lost a hometown hero too soon. But Vargas’s mural will keep his legacy alive for years to come.