Fernando Valenzuela’s Magical Rookie Cards of 1981
For those who have only read about it or heard about it, Fernandomania was definitely a thing. Trust me. Growing up in Los Angeles, I was not only there for it but the perfect age for it as well. As an eleven-year-old kid with an insatiable appetite for baseball history and an unbounded love for the Dodgers, I’d attained the wisdom but maintained the innocence to know for certain I was witnessing something magical.
In March of 1981, when the new season’s baseball card packs hit the shelves at my local liquor store on Venice and Sepulveda, I wanted the card my friends at school wanted, the card every collector my age in L.A. wanted: Steve Garvey. By April, when Valenzuela’s wins and scoreless innings started piling up, pulling a Fernando card (or Fernand, for the Fleer collectors) had already become the new "golden ticket."
Fernando had a multi-player rookie card in the Topps set, one he shared with Jack Perconte and Mike Scioscia, and a solo card in the Fleer set, one that left the “o” off the end of his first name. (Fleer corrected dozens of early errors from this set but for some reason left "Fernand" alone.) Whatever their flaws, these cards quickly became the currency of classroom cool. The Hobby was different back then, so I’ll note that the allure of the cardboard wasn’t that these were Fernando’s rookie cards. It was that they were Fernando’s only cards, at least as far as we knew.
My first card show of the new baseball season affirmed that indeed these were Fernando’s only cards as of this early point in the season. The show also introduced me to something I never would have imagined in a million years. These two Fernando cards, the exact ones you could find in 30-cent packs, were selling for a dollar. A whole dollar! That may not sound like much now, but it was absolutely mind-blowing then. A dollar for a card you could get in a pack?! What will they think of next?!
As the year went on, additional Fernando cards emerged. While one could be had simply by approaching a police officer and being polite, the others were either unknown within my small Hobby circle or too expensive for a kid whose habit was funded by the spare nickels and dimes his mom kept for parking meters. The holy grail, which one friend received for his birthday, came from a company called Permagraphics and looked exactly like a credit card. My jealousy was off the charts. I don’t even think my parents had credit cards back then, and here my friend had one with Fernando.
The unicorn, however, was from the late season 1981 Topps Traded set. What even was a Traded set? Certainly it was something I’d never seen in all my four whole years of collecting! The card was unavailable in packs, but it was everywhere at card shows. $6 for the 132-card set or $2 for just Fernando. And yes, you read that right. A card that just came out was two whole dollars! That’s literally what I’d paid that year for my 1961 Sandy Koufax. Clearly the Hobby was changing, with Fernando as the catalyst.
Fast forward past an amazing Dodgers-Yankees World Series and a long offseason settling for basketball and football cards, and the 1982 season brought even more Fernando cards into our collections. Donruss finally got in on the act, Topps included Fernando on four cards, and Fleer put him on three, spelling his name right every time. My favorite back then, and still my favorite today, was the Fleer card subtitled “N.L. Strike Out King.”
For a set much maligned for its photos, this one was perfection. Here was Fernando looking to the heavens, as was his trademark, before delivering the scroogie, just as today we look heavenward as well, hoping for one last glimpse of a mound magician who left us too—sigh—young. Rest in peace, Fernando.
Jason A. Schwartz is a collectibles expert whose work can be found regularly at SABR Baseball Cards, Hobby News Daily, and 1939Bruins.com. His collection of Hank Aaron baseball cards and memorabilia is currently on exhibit at the Atlanta History Center, and his collectibles-themed artwork is on display at the Honus Wagner Museum and PNC Park.