Fernando Valenzuela, a barrel-chested Mexican pitcher whose look-to-the-heavens windup and wicked screwball baffled hitters, dazzled fans and helped the Los Angeles Dodgers to the 1981 World Series title, died Tuesday at a Los Angeles hospital. He was 63.

The Dodgers confirmed his death but did not provide further details. He was hospitalized this month for undisclosed health issues after suspending his work as a Spanish-language radio broadcaster covering the team.

In a sport that often celebrates eccentricities, Valenzuela possessed all the makings of a great baseball saga over his 17 seasons. His rookie year generated so much buzz that it was dubbed “Fernandomania.” Among Southern California’s vast Mexican communities, Valenzuela was treated like a saint – complete with sidewalk shrines and mariachi ballads. Fans dubbed him “El Toro,” or the bull.

The Dodgers played the Abba hit “Fernando” as his stadium theme song. Legions of baseball nerds analyzed every millisecond of his screwball, debated his age (he was listed as 20 but no one was quite sure) and relished Valenzuela’s double-threat legitimacy as a pitcher who could hit – a bonus that furthered his mystique.

He sported a fireplug frame with a waistline, enhanced by his love of beer, that mushroomed above the belt of his uniform. On the mound, Valenzuela held his glove chin-high and rolled his eyes skyward as he began his delivery. He said the move was tactical, not mystical – helping him focus on the batter after he dropped his chin and stared back at the plate.

Even his signature pitch was an oddity. The screwball is one of baseball’s black swans. Few pitchers try it and fewer master the pitch, which acts like a reverse curveball.

Valenzuela learned the screwball from a Dodgers teammate, Bobby “Babo” Castillo, who was discovered by the team after using the pitch to strike out a Dodgers scout (and former minor league player) during a semipro game in East Los Angeles. “It’s like a movie script,” said that scout, Mike Brito, who later chanced upon Valenzuela in the late 1970s while combing the Mexican leagues.

The left-handed Valenzuela gave his own touch to the pitch, gripping the top of the ball with his ring and middle fingers and adding a vicious inward wrist snap to give the ball extra spin and break. He was so confident in the pitch that batters knew it was coming in clutch situations. And they still missed.

“Once I get on the mound,” he once said, “I don’t know what the word ‘afraid’ means.”

In September 1980, his first month in the major leagues, he pitched 17 2/3 scoreless innings of relief over 10 games as the Dodgers clawed back to tie the Houston Astros for the National League West title. In a one-game playoff, Valenzuela pitched two scoreless innings, but the Dodgers lost 7-1 to the Astros. (The Philadelphia Phillies went on to win the World Series.)

The next season began with the Dodgers looking to Valenzuela to recapture that brilliance. He was picked as the Opening Day starter against the Astros after pitcher Jerry Reuss suffered a calf strain. Valenzuela hurled a five-hit shutout in a 2-0 victory.

“He may be 20,” marveled Astros Manager Bill Virdon, “but he pitches 30.” In his next start, against the host San Francisco Giants, he struck out 10 and allowed four hits and one run in a complete game as the Dodgers won, 7-1.

Dodgers pitching great Sandy Koufax said Valenzuela “owned” the edges of the strike zone.

Over Valenzuela’s next six starts, the Dodgers won each game, and while steely on the mound, he delighted sportswriters and fans with his carefree joy. In Montreal, after nearly pitching a complete game in a 6-1 win over the Expos, he gobbled down four slabs of meatloaf while talking with reporters through an interpreter.

In New York on May 8, in Valenzuela’s seventh start of the season, extra ticket booths were added to accommodate the sellout crowd. He blanked the Mets 1-0, with 11 strikeouts.

A week later back in Los Angeles, he allowed three hits in a 3-2 win over the Expos. His record went to 8-0 with 68 strikeouts and an eye-popping 0.50 ERA. Abba’s “Fernando” was cranked up in the locker room as Valenzuela iced his arm.

His first 1981 loss was against the Phillies, 4-0. He was yanked in his next two outings after giving up early runs. Then Fernandomania – and all of baseball – was put on hold by a seven-week strike over owners’ demands to amend rules on free-agent compensation. When the season resumed in early August, Valenzuela regained some of his dominance.

He threw three more shutouts and finished the 1981 season with a 13-7 record, a 2.48 ERA, 180 strikeouts and eight shutouts. He became the first player to win the Cy Young Award and the Rookie of the Year award in the same season.

In the World Series against the New York Yankees, Valenzuela had Game 3 duty in Los Angeles after the Yankees took the first two games. In the eighth inning, with the Dodgers ahead 5-4, New York had two men on with no outs. Dodgers relief pitcher Steve Howe was warming up, but Valenzuela stayed in the game.

“Well, Lasorda is going to stick it out all the way with Fernando,” said ABC sportscaster Howard Cosell. On the next pitch, Bobby Murcer popped up a bunt that was caught by third baseman Ron Cey, who threw to first for a double play. The next batter, Willie Randolph, chopped a bouncer to Cey for the third out.

In the ninth, Valenzuela struck out Lou Piniella for the win. The Dodgers took the next three games to capture the World Series, four games to two, for the franchise’s first championship since 1965.

Valenzuela remained a centerpiece of the Dodgers’ pitching staff through much of the 1980s, including leading the National League with 21 wins in 1986 when he signed a then-record contract worth $5.5 million over three years. But he was nagged by shoulder problems that gradually reduced his innings and kept him off the mound during the Dodgers’ 1988 World Series win over Oakland.

There was one more magic moment left for Valenzuela as a Dodger. On June 29, 1990, against the St. Louis Cardinals at Dodger Stadium, his screwball was working like the old days. Inning by inning, he sent Cardinals batters back to the dugout. In the ninth inning, the scoreboard showed no hits for the Cardinals. The Dodgers were up 6-0 and Valenzuela – now wearing glasses when he pitched – was three outs away from a no-hitter.

He struck out Vince Coleman on a 2-2 pitch. He then walked Willie McGee. Next at the plate was a former Dodger teammate and close friend, Pedro Guerrero. “There’s almost some poetry in the moment,” said the team’s play-by-play announcer, Vin Scully.

Guerrero lined an 0-2 pitch directly over second base for a double play. Valenzuela didn’t stick around for the celebrations. He rushed home with his family to try to catch some of the World Cup soccer tournament on TV.

The Dodgers released Valenzuela before the 1991 season. He spent the rest of his career as a journeyman with five teams (in addition to part of the 1992 season with Jalisco of the Mexican League). He was 13-8 with the San Diego Padres in 1996 and was put on waivers in July 1997 by the Cardinals, finishing his major league career with a 173-153 record and a 3.54 ERA.

Cardinals Manager Tony La Russa floated the idea that Valenzuela could stay with the team in an inspirational role. Valenzuela refused. “I didn’t throw the ball over the plate,” he said after his last major league game.

Fernando Valenzuela Anguamea was born in Etchohuaquila, a village in Mexico’s Sonora state, on Nov. 1, 1960, according to MLB records. His parents farmed a small plot of land with the help of their 12 children, the youngest being Fernando.

He played soccer and baseball but said it was clear what sport was his future. “God put the talent in my arm, not in my feet,” he told Sports Illustrated.

He signed his first professional baseball contract at 17 with the Mayos de Navojoa – a team whose name was a reference to his family’s Indigenous Mayo roots. He soon moved up to bigger teams in more prominent leagues. When Dodgers scout Brito went to Mexico to check out a shortstop, he watched wide-eyed as the teenage Valenzuela blew three straight strikes past the prospect. “I forgot about the shortstop,” Brito recalled.

The Dodgers bought out Valenzuela’s Mexican league contract in July 1979, but coaches felt he needed to expand his pitching repertoire and asked Castillo to teach him the screwball.

Valenzuela became a U.S. citizen in 2015 in Los Angeles. He had returned to the Dodgers in 2003 as the Spanish-language radio color commentator. In the offseason, he pitched in Mexico’s Pacific League until 2006.

In 1981, Valenzuela married Linda Burgos. They had four children. Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.

On an August evening in 2023, the Dodgers retired his number 34 in a pregame tribute as part of a weekend of “Fernandomania” events in Los Angeles.

Valenzuela was on the mound one more time for a ceremonial pitch to Mike Scioscia, his former catcher. Later, a mariachi band played an ode to Valenzuela. “I feel like I’m at home singing to my uncle,” said band member Julian Torres in a mix of Spanish and English.