The exploits of baseball slugger Yasiel Puig, and the dramatic story of how he got out of Cuba, has attracted much media attention. But this is not the first time a rags-to-riches immigrant tale has captured the imagination of Dodger fans in Los Angeles. Nothing, in fact, will ever quite match the pop-culture furor surrounding the phenomenon that came to be known as Fernando-mania. The two sports superstars, a generation apart, are now even drawing comparisons by sports writers.
It was 1981 when Fernando Valenzuela, a 20-year-old kid from the town of Navojoa, Sonora, took the mound at Dodger Stadium and took the baseball world by storm. He led the Dodgers to the World Series and became a folk hero for Latinos in L.A. A story like that is bound to inspire songwriters, from professionals to arm-chair composers. And sure enough, composers penned countless songs to El Toro Valenzuela.
Several of these tuneful tributes are included among the 45 rpm singles of the Frontera Collection. There’s the humorous matador parody “Ole! Fernando,” by the late Lalo Guerrero, known as the Father of Chicano Music, backed by the L.A.-based Mariachi Sol de Mexico of Jose Hernandez, who did the arrangement. Lalo wrote and sang the lyrics in English:
Fernando, you’re a breath of fresh air to us all
And when you’re pitching the ball
You do it with style and grace
You got us all back in the race.
The vinyl on this collector’s item (Ambiente AMB-001) was pressed in Dodger Blue. Oddly, the B-side is the exact same song, though the title is missing the “Ole!”
My favorite is the tribute by singer/songwriter Cornelio Reyna, formerly of Los Relampagos del Norte. He wrote the tune, “El Niño Fenómeno” (The Phenomenal Kid). There are actually two versions of the song, in different styles and with some verse variations. There’s a norteño version, on Texas-based Freddie Records, with a catchy accordion that refers to Valenzuela’s Yaqui heritage from Sonora. The second version appears on Musart, a Mexican label, backed by Mariachi Nuevo Tecalitlan. This one, however, seems commercialized and sanitized for radio play in Mexico, with a faster pace, fewer verses and no allusion to Yaquis.
In either rendition, the song has bounce and spirit. You feel the genuine fan admiration come through in Cornelio’s husky voice. During instrumental breaks on both records, he eggs on his favorite pitcher with an appeal to ethnic pride, and a certain vicarious revenge against the U.S. domination over Mexico, a long-festering issue: “Échale,paisano. Ponchete a los hueros.”
Literally, that means, “Strike out the white guys.” It may be just a linguistic coincidence that the Spanish slang for striking out a batter also means to punch them out.
I also like the video for this tune by Los Invasores del Norte, in a heroic corrido style.
-AgustÍn Gurza
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