MEXICO CITY -- Bruce Bochy realized rather quickly that he didn’t have any say in the matter.
The 1996 Padres were heading to Monterrey, Mexico, for a three-game series against the Mets -- Major League Baseball’s first international games outside of the United States and Canada.
Bochy’s Padres were locked in a tight division race, tied with the Dodgers atop the NL West. But for one weekend in August, that took a backseat in Bochy’s rotation planning. There was only one person who could possibly start the first MLB game ever played in Mexico: Fernando Valenzuela.
“We made sure,” recalled Bochy, the Padres’ manager at the time. “I was not going to leave that country if he didn't start that game. I understood that. … So we made sure he was set up for that game.”
It made for one of the great spectacles in international baseball history. Then a 35-year-old veteran, Valenzuela was in the twilight of a wonderful 17-year big league career. He’d accomplished plenty -- a Cy Young, six straight All-Star Games, two World Series titles with the Dodgers.
But the native of Etchohuaquila, a small town in Navojoa, had never pitched a big league game in his home country.
Until Aug. 16, 1996.
Bochy adjusted his rotation accordingly. Valenzuela -- the Mexican baseball icon who tragically passed away in October 2024 at the age of 63 -- would get the ball for Game 1.
“MLB and the team wanted to make the best first impression possible,” said Padres center fielder Steve Finley. “Who better to start that game than Fernando?”
Thirty years later, MLB’s international series are a staple of the sport. This weekend, the Padres and Diamondbacks are slated to square off in Mexico City -- baseball’s eighth regular-season trip to Mexico and third to the Mexican capital.
But when Valenzuela took the mound that Friday night in 1996, it was truly unprecedented.
“It was the Padres reconnecting to Mexico,” said Eduardo Ortega, the team’s beloved longtime Spanish-language announcer. “Not only being so close to the border. But they had the big stars -- Tony Gywnn, [Ken] Caminiti.
“Coming home, with Fernando -- I got very emotional when we landed there. Because this was the first time. This was Major League Baseball coming to Mexico.”
And what a scene. Valenzuela became, surely, one of the only people in baseball history to throw out the ceremonial first pitch and the actual first pitch in the same game. Such was his legend in Mexican baseball.
“I knew what Fernandomania was,” said John Flaherty, who caught Valenzuela that night. “But I didn’t know what it really meant. There was just so much excitement, just to be a teammate and see the reaction of a whole country. When I got on that field that night and saw the reaction of the crowd … it was pretty cool to be a teammate and be catching him that day.”
Added Finley (who, that night, would become the first player in MLB history to hit a home run outside the United States and Canada): “Every time he made an appearance out of the dugout, the crowd just erupted. It gave you the perspective of what he meant to the fans down there. He could do no wrong. It was amazing when he stepped out on the mound. It was a playoff atmosphere.”
Both Finley and Flaherty described the atmosphere as “electric.” Fans chanted “Toro, Toro,” Valenzuela’s nickname, at a deafening pitch. And Valenzuela himself?
“Everything he did, everybody was following him,” Flaherty said. “I laugh, because, you wouldn’t have been able to tell, by watching him, whether it was a Spring Training game or this night in Monterrey, Mexico. The guy was so quiet, humble, confident. … The anticipation, all the media, it was so hyped. But there was nothing hyped with him that night. It was just business.”
Never mind that Valenzuela received rousing cheers for everything he did. It being the National League in the 1990s, he came to the plate on four separate occasions. When he flied out to center in his first at-bat, he received a standing ovation.
“He was such a humble guy,” Bochy recalled. “He really didn't want the attention, but he handled it very well. The windup, I'll never forget, looking up to the gods before he threw the pitch. In this game, you're lucky to manage so many great people. He was one of them.”
Amid all the fanfare, Valenzuela absolutely delivered on the mound.
This was not peak Fernando Valenzuela. His fastball often clocked in below 90 mph. But he still threw an airbending screwball and complemented it with a late-moving cutter.
In one of the sport’s most hitter-friendly environments, Finley, Caminiti, Flaherty and Greg Vaughn all went deep. Valenzuela, meanwhile, just kept putting up zeros. He took the mound for the seventh inning with a 15-0 lead.
“I remember him pitching well,” Flaherty said. “But to be quite honest with you, I don’t ever remember him not pitching well. It just seemed like that’s what he did. It was at the end of his career. He would give you six innings, maybe a couple of runs. He was an incredibly fun guy to catch.”
On a different night, of course, Valenzuela almost certainly would’ve been lifted with a 15-run lead. But Bochy knew what the moment meant to Valenzuela, to the sport and to the entire country. So Valenzuela returned for the seventh inning. He allowed a run and put two other men aboard before Bochy called for his bullpen.
“My probably greatest moment was when Fernando pitched the first game,” Ortega said. “It was a Friday; he left the game leading. And then that standing ovation -- it was crazy. The whole stadium was crazy. It was very special -- that he won the game, and the way that the whole country was paying attention. That, for me, was the memory that I have.”
Ortega, a Tijuana native who has called Padres games in Spanish for four decades, recalled soaking in the entire weekend. He remembers talking with fans at the Estadio Monterrey who had flocked from every corner of the country to watch Valenzuela pitch.
“That was such a big thing for the whole country,” Ortega recalled. “They had followed him for so long. He was getting closer and closer to the end of his career. They had a chance to see him in an official Major League game -- this big legend, this living legend, having him home.”
The Padres' 15-0 lead turned into a 15-10 victory, with Valenzuela seemingly the only pitcher capable of handling the environment on the night. Afterward, he took the mic and addressed the crowd, saying:
“Tonight was good for baseball, good for Mexican baseball.”
Understated as ever.
In hindsight, it was a groundbreaking moment -- for baseball in Mexico and the sport as a whole. Major League Baseball has since visited Japan, England, Puerto Rico, Australia and South Korea. Meanwhile, trips to Mexico are now a semiregular occurrence and a highlight on the league’s calendar. It all started 30 years ago in Monterrey.
“That was probably one of the best moments, not only for the Padres, but for Major League Baseball,” Ortega recalled. “Having a real game -- an official game, the Padres and the Mets -- that was something the whole country was paying attention to.”
Thus, it was only fitting that Valenzuela would be on the mound for it. He’d signed with the Padres the previous season and posted a 4.98 ERA. But he rekindled some of his magic in 1996, going 13-8 with a 3.62 mark.
The Padres would win two of three over the Mets that weekend, with Caminiti famously hitting two homers in the finale, known as “the Snickers game.” (Caminiti required an IV in the clubhouse for an illness but refused to be taken out of the lineup. As the story goes, the only thing he could get down were a couple Snickers bars. He homered in his first two at-bats, then was removed from the game after the fifth inning.)
The series proved vital for a Padres team that won the NL West by one game, sweeping the Dodgers on the final weekend. Perhaps ironically, the most memorable game of that season -- in theory, the game that proved the difference in those standings -- was started by Valenzuela, a Dodgers legend.
“You couldn’t have written the story better,” said Finley. “He wanted that start all along.”
And there was never any doubt he would get it, nor any doubt that he would deliver.
In the early 1980s, Fernandomania was a sensation. It swept the sport.
For one night, more than a decade later, Fernandomania returned in full force -- and Valenzuela himself was right at home.
Giants beat reporter Maria Guardado contributed reporting for this story.