Pregame: Star struck

I have to admit that I don’t get star struck very often. In fact, these days I never do. The truth is Larry Bowa and Mike Schmidt helped me get over youthful affection for some of my baseball heroes when they proved that ballplayers really aren’t much different than regular folks. Worse, in many cases they are far less interesting than your friends, neighbors and family members.

But that Fernando Valenzuela… I’ll tell you what. My Uncle Jim has nothing on Fernando. Really – a guy who taught science for 30 years or a lefty screwball pitcher who could breathe through his eyes like the lava lizards of the Galapagos Islands.

Yep, that was Fernando. And as I ate a light lunch in the media dining room and sat across from the ex-Dodger great and Cy Young Award winner, I was regaled with tales about the proper technique and arm angle of how to throw the scroogie. I also was star struck for the first time since Eddie Vedder showed up for batting practice about five years ago for a game at the Vet.

Wouldn’t you know it that Eddie was so short and wiry that you can pick him up and put him in your pocket.

Fernando, not so much. However, the old lefty looks just like he did when he was pitching during the 1980s and ‘90s. The shoulder-length hair brought back by Javier Bardem in “No Country For Old Men, has been neatly shorn. Though he has put on a few more pounds I doubt Fernando has lost the zip on his fastball.

Anyway, here are a few things I learned about Fernando this afternoon:

No, he cannot breathe through his eyelids. This was a disappointing fact to learn.

Fernando was once a teammate with Jamie Moyer in Baltimore in 1993.

Nope, Fernando had no idea what a guy like me can do for fun in LA. Another disappointing fact to learn.

Gary Matthews chatted with Fernando earlier. I learned this when I walked up to Sarge and said, “Did you see that! That was Fernando Valenzuela!”

Fernando brought the heat at 90 mph and threw the screwball in the 70s. He had two pitches – a fastball which he changed speeds with and the screwball. If he threw the screwball to lefties, he’s plunk them, he said. Once, he drilled Roberto Alomar with one simply because he couldn’t control it.

Fernando has no idea why pitchers don’t throw the scroogie any more.

So yeah, how about that? Fernando Valenzuela. Not bad.

Anthem time. Check back after the first.