For those too young to understand what Fernando Valenzuela meant to Mexico, to Los Angeles, to baseball, here are numbers from the first eight starts of his career in 1981. He was 20. He threw a devastating screwball. And for a month, he was the biggest sports star in the world.
The Oakland A’s were killed by greed. Do not allow the people responsible for this to spin it any other way. John Fisher did not have to move this team. Major League Baseball and its owners did not need to be complicit in it. This was a choice. A wrong one. History will sneer.