For one, unlike his famous relative, Uriel throws with his right arm rather than the left. And when he goes into his windup, Uriel favors a conventional motion, unlike the twisting, turning, quick-look-up-to-the-sky release that helped make Fernando Valenzuela a baseball phenomenon throughout Mexico and the United States.

"I have heard that Fernando Valenzuela was very famous, and I want to be like him," says the eight-year-old hurler who has just started the third grade. "I want to make a lot of money."

During the World Series this past October, Fernando "El Toro" Valenzuela was named the lefthanded pitcher of Major League Baseball's all-time Latino Legends all-star team. He burst into the majors in 1981 as a 20year-old rookie with the Los Angeles Dodgers, where he reeled off a record 10 consecutive victories to begin the season. At the end of the 1981 campaign, Valenzuela won both the Rookie of the Year Award and the Cy Young Award for best pitcher.

In addition to his dominance on the mound, Valenzuela's charismatic and quirky style sparked a wave of "Fernandomania" that saw ballparks sell out in every city where he pitched. He remained one of the game's biggest pitching stars until he retired in 1997 with 173 career victories.

Today, in his tiny, dusty hometown of Etchohuaquila, Fernando-mania lives on. At the town's school, Valenzuela is held up again and again as a model of success. And unlike much of Mexico, where soccer is king, here, baseball is the only sport that matters.

Youngsters like Irian Uriel gather each day at the local baseball diamond, now called "La Loma de (The Mound of) Fernando Valenzuela," to play pickup games and dream of becoming the next pride of Etchohuaquila.

"My grampa (second cousin of Fernando Valenzuela and an accomplished player in his own right) taught me how to throw the ball and how to bat," says Irian Uriel from the dusty field where El Toro himself got his start as a ballplayer. "I like baseball very much, and here in town, my friends all say that I am a good pitcher and that I have good velocity."

In fact, even at eight years of age, the little fireballer is already representing his town in regional baseball tournaments, just as his great uncle did before landing professional contracts with teams from Guanajuato, Merida, Ciudad Obregon, and then, Los Angeles.

Who knows, maybe in another 10 or 12 years, baseball fans will be swept up in a wave of "Irianmania" and pointing to tiny Etchohuaquila once again as the cradle of Mexican baseball legends.