Fernando Valenzuela, beloved Dodgers pitching ace, died from septic shock, medical examiner says
Fernando Valenzuela, the beloved Los Angeles Dodgers pitching ace who helped the team win the 1981 World Series, died of septic shock last month, according to his death certificate.
TMZ Sports obtained the document on Tuesday. Valenzuela died on Oct. 22 at age 63, a few weeks after stepping away from his job on the Dodgers’ Spanish-language television broadcast and days before the Dodgers began their run to the team’s eighth World Series championship. No cause of death was provided at the time.
Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s office listed septic shock as the immediate cause of death. It is a life-threatening condition that occurs when organs malfunction, leading to dangerously low blood pressure. Each year, at least 350,000 people in the U.S. die of the condition, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The medical examiner listed decompensated alcoholic cirrhosis and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis cirrhosis as underlying causes. Also listed as a significant condition contributing to Valenzuela’s death was “probable” Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rapidly progressive brain disorder.
The document also shows Valenzuela was cremated. A public Mass was held last week at Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles.
He was a native of Etchohauquila, Sonora, Mexico and known affectionately to fans across the baseball world as “El Toro.”
The man behind “Fernandomania,” which took Los Angeles by storm during the 1980s, spent 11 of his 17 seasons in Major League Baseball with the Dodgers, leading them to a World Series title in 1981.