Fernando Valenzuela, 1994 Stadium Club 1st Day Issue #69

It's Cinco de Mayo, so I give you the gift of the most popular Mexican player in major league history: Fernando Valenzuela. (Sorry, Karim Garcia fans.) He's wearing a Baltimore Black Sox cap in homage to one of Charm City's great Negro League teams. Here at Orioles Card "O" the Day, we are nothing if not multicultural.

Fernando Valenzuela, 1993 Leaf #472

Adam Jones and the rest of Team USA had a rough debut at the World Baseball Classic last night, falling to Team Mexico by a 5-2 score. Nobody on the American side did much hitting against Yovani Gallardo and the Mexican bullpen, all of whom are being coached by former Oriole Fernando Valenzuela. Jones went 0-for-3 with a walk in his first-ever WBC game. Fortunately, the U.S. has an immediate shot at redemption, as they face Team Italy (featuring ex-O's farmhand Mike Costanzo) at 9:00 this evening.

Fernando Valenzuela, 1994 Donruss #408

Today is Fernando Valenzuela's 49th birthday. Which do you find harder to believe: that he is two months younger than Cal Ripken, Jr. and just two years older than Jamie Moyer, or that he's not still pitching somewhere? Of course, given what I know about "El Toro", I wouldn't be surprised if he is still toeing the slab somewhere in Mexico as I type this. Feliz cumpleaños, Fernando!

Fernando Valenzuela, 1994 Fleer #22

Last weekend, I had the excellent fortune to attend an acoustic performance by Brian Vander Ark for the second straight year. Chances are good that you don't recognize the name. In another lifetime (1997 to be exact) Brian and The Verve Pipe had a #1 hit with "The Freshmen". I preferred their lesser hit, "Photograph", probably because it wasn't played to death on the radio and TV. At any rate, I hadn't given the group much thought since my high school days, except for the occasions when one of those two songs shuffled to the front of the line on my mp3 player. They apparently released a few more albums with much less fanfare, and drifted apart save for the occasional impromptu reunion concert. I owe my reintroduction to their music - and to Brian Vander Ark himself - to my friend Lauren.

To call Lauren a Verve Pipe devotee would be an understatement. She tells stories of following the band on tour as a teenager, and I don't doubt her for a second. Everything came to a head last summer, when she announced her intent to celebrate her birthday (and the birthday of her boyfriend Andy) by hosting a concert by Brian Vander Ark in the beautiful old home that the couple rents in Washington, DC. As it so happens, Brian's spent the past five or six years focusing on a solo career, free from the shackles of a corporate record label. As of this writing, he's released four solo albums and a few live bootlegs. Of course, Verve Pipe royalties only go so far, presumably. So to help cover his expenses, he takes bookings all around the country for a reasonable fee: he's played venues ranging from colleges and coffee houses to living rooms and back yards. I personally think this is incredibly cool, though some of my friends

assumed that such an enterprise was an act of desperation, a Spinal Tap-esque tour of denial.

The thing is, Brian Vander Ark is playing his music in the smallest of venues, and he seems to be loving every minute of it. He travels with no entourage, and mingles with the guests before and after his performance, introducing himself as simply "Brian". He allows his hosts to choose much of the set list, though he teased Lauren for her Verve Pipe-heavy preferences, insisting that he'd need help remembering the words ("Are you sure you don't want to hear 'The Freshmen'?"). He even invited Lauren to share the microphone for a song or two.

This year's show (again meant to celebrate Lauren's birthday) had a bit of a different vibe. A fellow Brian Vander Ark fan that she knew had already been planning to book him, so Lauren offered up her house for convenience's sake. This meant that there were several toddlers bouncing around the living room, a rare sight at this particular venue. When Brian entered unannounced, guitar case in hand, he remarked, "I'd forgotten how great this place is!". If the children were a distraction, he didn't let on. In fact, he laughed right along with us as a few of the kids bopped manically to his soulful, introspective music. He also obliged a young boy who insisted upon receiving a high-five at the conclusion of each song. Of course, it probably helps that he's now a father himself: he wrote the song "Evangeline" for his daughter.

Brian gets some laughs when he introduces the song "Colorful" by talking about his participation in the Mark Wahlberg film "Rock Star". "I had a mullet for four months, for about thirty seconds of screen time." Wahlberg sings "Colorful" to Jennifer Aniston in the film's climactic scene - or so it would seem. "I'm watching the movie, and he opens up his mouth, and my voice comes out," Vander Ark tells us. "It was a weird feeling...until I started getting the checks. They'll put my daughter through community college. 'The Freshmen', on the other hand..."

He closes the show by leading the motley crowd in a cover of "Here Comes the Sun", just as he did last year. It's a happy note to go out on. There might be a snide connotation to "One Hit Wonders", but don't forget that these musicians are capable of some really moving artistic expression. Just because it doesn't sell a million copies doesn't mean that it's not worth seeking out. Brian Vander Ark is a gifted storyteller with his guitar. But he's a devoted father and husband, and an easygoing and grateful person, too.

Fernando Valenzuela, 1993 Fleer Flair #159

For me, one of the special benefits in becoming a baseball fan in 1993 was that I got to witness the comeback of Mexican sensation Fernando Valenzuela. Here was a guy who loved to play baseball, and his joy was contagious. As a pudgy rookie for the Dodgers in 1981, he set the world on fire with his masterful pitching, touching off "Fernandomania". Yet after a solid decade in which he won 141 games for Los Angeles, Valenzuela was unceremoniously released by both the Dodgers and the Angels (twice) during the 1991 season. Not ready to hang it up at the age of thirty-one, he recharged his batteries in the Mexican league and earned a shot with the Orioles.

After waiting until May 18 to record his first win in orange and black, Fernando bounced back. He tossed two shutouts, a rain-shortened eight-inning two-hitter against the Indians and a six-hit gem vs. the eventual World Champion Blue Jays. The latter effort sparked a personal four-game win streak. He finished the season 8-10 with a 4.94 ERA that was inflated by a rough stretch from mid-August to season's end. Perhaps noting that Fernando had worn down late in the year, no one signed him for 1994 and he returned to Mexico, performing well enough to earn a spot with the Phillies in July. He stuck around after the players' strike, having a couple of good years in San Diego (including a 13-8, 3.62 line in 1996). A rocky 1997 proved to be his final campaign in the majors, but the thirty-six year-old went back to Mexico once more and played professionally for another decade, even becoming teammates with son Fernando Junior in 2006!

I love the fact that Fernando Valenzuela pitched for seventeen years in the major leagues and roughly a dozen more in his native country. It seems fair to say that you don't play professionally for almost thirty years unless you truly enjoy it. Most people in Fernando's position would find it a bitter pill to swallow, to go from a millionaire with one of the most prominent franchises in pro sports to having to earn your way back from the bottom up on multiple occasions. I'm going somewhere with this, but I want to give the second half of the story its own focus. Look for that on Tuesday.