Dodgers News: First Look at Jonas Never’s Fernando Valenzuela Mural at ONT Field
ONTARIO, CA — Alysha Del Valle and the Bleed Los Podcast crew made a trip out to ONT Field this week, and they brought back something that feels like pure Dodgers heart. The new ballpark is home to the Ontario Tower Buzzers, the Dodgers’ new Single-A affiliate, and one of the first things you’ll notice when you pull up is a huge new mural in progress. The artist is Jonas Never, and the subject is Fernando Valenzuela. It’s the kind of project that connects the past to the future in one wall-sized story.
Jonas said the idea came from a simple question: if Ontario is building something new with the Dodgers, who represents the history you want to honor right away? “This team’s new, so there’s no real history with the Dodgers in the city of Ontario,” he said. “So when you think back to the Dodgers history, who better than Fernando?” He talked about tying it directly to the minor-league path too. “One of the paintings up on the wall, he’s got the San Antonio Dodgers hat,” Jonas said. “We want to tie into the minor league, showing that anyone that’s playing out here could theoretically become the next Fernando.”
Alysha asked how the project even came together, and Jonas pointed to the stadium work and local connections that made it feel like a natural fit. “Being a Dodgers affiliate, they obviously have strong ties to Dodgers, and painting at the stadium, I’m sure, helped,” he said. “Inland Empire connections, UC Riverside, Joe Kelly, I’m sure there were tie-ins there. If you look around the stadium, there’s a lot of touches that resemble Dodger Stadium. So it kind of felt right to paint here, and I’m stoked they actually asked me to do it.”
He’s hoping the mural lands as both a tribute and a spark for the area. “I’m hoping that it’ll be warm, both for me and just respect to Fernando,” Jonas said. “It’s an area where there aren’t that many murals around here. There’s a lot of murals in downtown Ontario, but it’s not like downtown LA where there’s murals everywhere. So hopefully this leads to more murals.” He also talked about the visibility of the wall and what it could do for the new team. “Driving down Riverside Drive, you see the wall,” he said. “People who don’t know what’s going on there, they go, ‘Oh.’ They look it up and see that it’s Dodger affiliated and it gives them another reason to come to the park.” And with the larger complex being built around the stadium, he kept coming back to the kids. “Hopefully it inspires little kids to dream big.”
When Alysha asked what Fernando means to him personally, Jonas didn’t hesitate. “Fernando is iconic,” he said. “He’s one of the few people that transcend sport culture. Everyone growing up emulated his windup, like him and Hideo Nomo. There’s certain windups that stick.” He even has a personal baseball tie to the Valenzuela family. “I played ball with Fernando Jr. when I was like 13,” he said. “So the personal connection is cool.” Then he shared a moment that says a lot about Fernando as a person. “When I was painting at Spectrum Sports, I met him and Orel Hershiser,” Jonas said. “Someone told me, ‘Hey, he painted you over by the stadium,’ and Fernando couldn’t wrap his head around why someone would paint him. He was so humble and didn’t even realize how big he was.”
That humility is part of what Jonas wants the mural to capture. “It’s really cool to be able to do something like this and show all the different facets of him,” he said, “as a family man, as a pitcher, as a minor leaguer, as a human.”
The timeline is tight, because Opening Day is right around the corner. “The design process is really ongoing,” Jonas said. “Working with the family, with the team, we want to hit all sides of him, and hopefully it’ll be done next week when they turn over the stadium to the city. Opening day is first week of April, so it’s got to be ready by then.”
Jonas also talked about what it means to paint LA sports icons when he grew up loving them the same way everyone else did. “It’s so special,” he said. “Watching these players like Kobe, Fernando, these guys who were icons of the city for years and years, and to be able to go to a stadium and see my artwork on the wall and feel some sort of personal connection.” He summed it up in a line that every kid with a glove in Southern California understands. “Everyone grows up in LA wanting to be a Dodger, a Laker,” Jonas said. “I didn’t make it as a ball player, but I’m still in these stadiums in a different way.”
Before Alysha wrapped it up, she asked about Jonas’ famous Joe Kelly mural and whether it should stay up now that Kelly has retired. Jonas had the perfect answer for Dodgers fans. “Joe did an interview where he said that since I painted the mural, they’ve been winning World Series,” Jonas said. “So if it gets painted over, they might stop. You don’t want to mess with superstition. Keep it up there. There’s plenty of walls to the stadium. Joe should last forever.”
That’s the vibe of this whole Ontario project. It’s art, it’s baseball, it’s history, and it’s a new home for the next wave of Dodgers. Fernando on the wall feels right, and Jonas Never sounds determined to make sure the tribute carries everything Fernando meant to the city.
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