A restaurant along Route 66 in Monrovia, California, will honor famed Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela, a longtime customer who died last month at age 63.
Max’s Mexican Cuisine at 1101 Huntington Drive (aka Route 66) will hold a tribute to Valenzuela on Nov. 12.
According to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, his favorite table at the restaurant will be renumbered “34” — his uniform number — and a mural will be unveiled in his honor. Area mayors also will laud his baseball legacy and the local philanthropies he supported.
The restaurant’s CEO told the newspaper that Valenzuela regularly would sit at the restaurant, order machaca with eggs, beans and rice, coffee with creamer, and talk to staff. All the while, he monitored the progress of Dodgers games on his smartphone.
“That’s the blessing we had here in our part of the Valley,” Gutierrez said. “In his last years, he would be here, he let his hair down and be funny and joyful.” […]
Arteaga thinks Valenzuela, whose birthday is Nov. 1, wouldn’t have too much to say about the championship, “but his smile would say it all. I know his presence was with us the whole time. He loved his Dodgers, he loved baseball. Baseball was the heartbeat of his heart, even in his final moments.” […]
Aside from being a loyal customer, Valenzuela attended every fundraiser at the restaurant. In the past two years, he helped raise more than $20,000 for the Latino Philanthropy Council-USC and USC Arcadia Hospital Foundation.
Max’s Mexican Cuisine was founded in the nearby Route 66 town of Asuza in 2000, then moved to Monrovia in 2011.
As a 20-year-old Dodgers rookie in 1981, Valenzuela not only won Rookie of the Year but the Cy Young Award in the National League. Using a screwball that baffled hitters, he led the league in strikeouts and shutouts.
Valenzuela won his first eight starts in the majors, five by shutout. The Mexican-born pitcher’s sudden success ignited interest from the Los Angeles’ Latino community, drawing huge crowds at Dodger Stadium. The city’s Latinos previously were mostly indifferent to the Dodgers, partly because of the city’s eviction of them during the 1950s from Chavez Ravine, the future site of the stadium.
The same season, his Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees to win the World Series.
Valenzuela spent most of his career with the Dodgers, earning 141 of his 173 career victories there. He was an All-Star six times.
Alas, Valenzuela died before his Dodgers won the World Series — again, against the Yankees — last week. During the Series, Dodgers players wore a No. 34 patch on their uniforms in his memory.
(Image of Fernando Valenzuela in 1983 by Brandon Burke via Flickr)