The Dodgers always seemed to know before anyone else that baseball was meant as a multicultural game. While in Brooklyn, the team shattered Major League Baseball’s color barrier in 1947 with the arrival of Jackie Robinson. And in the 1960s, Sandy Koufax captured the imagination of L.A.’s Jewish community. Yet, for more than two decades, the Dodgers lacked a star to whom the city’s large Mexican and Mexican American communities could relate.
That all changed in 1981, when Fernando Valenzuela took the mound on opening day, throwing a five-hit shutout against the Houston Astros en route to an 8-0 start to the season.