"No, never. They never mentioned or talked about what happened."
-- Fernando Valenzuela
A few minutes into a beautiful, delicately delivered documentary that examines the impact Fernando Valenzuela had on the pueblo of Los Angeles during the 1980s, that quote from the former Dodgers star left-hander hangs out over the plate like one of his deceptive screwballs.
For as much history as he made on the mound at Chavez Ravine, Fernando seems to be saying he really couldn't speak to what happened more than a half-century ago, when a generation of Mexican-American citizens before him, living in that rugged 170-acre terrain north of downtown where Dodger Stadium still stands, ultimately were displaced, some in disturbing ways.
In Spanish, Fernando answers the question. In English, there are the subtitles. But there's probably something lost in translation.
"That really took me by surprise," admitted Cruz Angeles, the independent filmmaker who directs "Fernando Nation," which debuts Tuesday as part of ESPN's "30 for 30" series (and today on ESPN Deportes).
Angeles asks Valenzuela if he knew the story about how some of those 300 families, once promised in the early 1950s a first shot at returning to a new housing project on that land, not only didn't get it but were forcibly evicted so the stadium could be built after the land was then promised to Walter O'Malley.
"I don't think he knew any real details about it," Angeles said of Valenzuela, who seems to imply no one from the Dodgers organization ever told him. "I tried to tell him a little more about it but really didn't have much time to explain it all."
Angeles instead shows it. He invests about five minutes of the 50-minute documentary using stock black-and-white footage of the sheriffs coming in and dragging some people off their porches as their children watched. It's horribly regrettable, with blame to go around.
But it's an incredibly poignant teaching moment for the documentary. Angeles circles back to it at the end, to marvel at how remarkable a feat it was that Valenzuela's Cinderella story united all cultures of the city on the same spot where historians still might misrepresent how those Mexican-American families were sacrificed for the good of a baseball team.
There's some truth in all those stories you hear. And if you put your ear to the ground, there's an even deeper, richer Hispanic cultural history in Southern California, with baseball as a contextual starting point.
Saturday, for example, a movement called the Latino Baseball History Project had a display of rare photos and materials integrated as part of the Los Angeles Archives Bazaar celebration at the Doheny Library on the USC campus, a substantial annual gathering of important historical collections from the city.
Today in Alhambra, Richard Santillan, co-author of the upcoming book, "Mexican American Baseball in Los Angeles," is hosting a party to thank many of the former amateur and semi-pro players for their help. Two or three of the famous Pena brothers might attend; at one point, there were nine Pena brothers playing for the East L.A. Carmelita Chorizeros in the 1950s, drawing the attention of "Ripley's Believe It Or Not."
Starting Nov. 1 at the Cal State San Bernardino Library, the project will host a "Legends of Mexican American Baseball" display. The focus is on Jim "Chayo" Rodriguez, founder and coach of a famed Inland Empire fast-pitch softball team called the Chicanos from 1973-90.
The group recently got city approval for a plaque at East L.A.'s Belvedere Park, honoring Manuel "Shorty" Perez, who managed the Chorizeros, the so-called "New York Yankees of barrio baseball," from 1947 until his death in 1981.
Also this past week, the organization mourned the passing of Saul Toledo, an important figure as a player and writer of the history of Mexican-American baseball in the city.
"I guess the timeliness of all this, in connection with the Fernando documentary, is that a lot of people in Los Angeles think that Mexican baseball in the City of the Angels began with Fernando," said Terry Cannon, the executive director of the Baseball Reliquary and a committee member of the Latino Baseball History Project.
"In fact, there was an incredibly rich Mexican American baseball culture throughout Southern California. They drew crowds in the hundreds and even thousands to ball fields on Sunday afternoons from the post-World War II era through the 1970s.
"We are trying to reclaim and reinvigorate that history."
Valenzuela's transcending place in L.A. history never will be denied. This documentary definitely brings that out, pointing out it wasn't until Valenzuela's arrival many disillusioned Mexican-Americans felt compelled to return to Dodger Stadium.
"We were a sleeping giant until Fernando came along," says Angeles, born in Mexico City and raised in the South Central L.A. but hardly looking old enough to have any first-hand remembrances of Valenzuela's 1981 rookie season that ended with a Cy Young Award.
Sleeping, maybe. But now's as good a time as any to reawaken the Hispanic baseball narrative that also laid the groundwork for Fernando's arrival.