Five minutes. How much can you really know someone in five minutes? What if it’s your childhood icon? Will they live up to the image of them in your head?

Those five minutes. That’s how much time I had to talk to Fernando Valenzuela! Bigger than life! Inspiration for Fernandomania! Someone who shared a Mexican ancestry with me. Someone whose diamond feats were among my happiest childhood memories!

His passing hurts. His memory brings smiles.

It was 1996. I was a reporter in San Diego at what used to be KSDO News Talk Radio.

The Padres were about to start a new season only two years after a player strike wiped out the 1994 World Series and drove so many fans away.

One of many efforts to bring fans back was a preseason media day. Journalists could meet Padres players, then tell their stories and perhaps win over San Diegans. Fernando Valenzuela was among them.

As I and other journalists entered the room where these interviews were taking place, I had one of those “melting window” experiences. When your brain takes you back in time.

In this case, my mind took me back to Major League Baseball’s opening day in 1981, when I was growing up in a Los Angeles suburb. Of course (my apologies, San Diego), my favorite team was the Dodgers!

My mom had a very generous boss at the time. He gave her opening day tickets! As memory serves, something came up that kept her from joining me and my dad. I wish she could have been there.

The end of the previous season had seen Fernando make his Major League Baseball debut. This came against the backdrop of a strained relationship the team had had with Los Angeles’ Mexican American community.

My dad used to tell me stories about Dodger Stadium being built on land where many poverty-stricken but proud Mexican American families lived. He remembered newspaper photos of some family members being forcibly carried out of their homes.

Some of those houses were bulldozed as soon as the people who lived there were taken out. By 1981 those painful memories may have faded for some, but not for all. There was talk that Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley had wanted a “Mexican Sandy Koufax” — a superstar who could win over this significant part of the community.

Some tried. Like pitcher Vicente Romo. And L.A. native Bobby Castillo. He’s the guy who would teach Fernando Valenzuela how to throw that devastating screwball, and would often serve as Fernando’s English-language translator at the start of his career.

So there we were. Me and my dad. In the stands that Opening Day for the Dodgers in 1981. Little did we know we would be on the ground floor of “Fernandomania!”

We watched this guy who looked like us — no chiseled physique, just a 20-year-old from Mexico living his dream. And that made him all the more likable. All the more heroic. Seemingly coming out of nowhere to be a baseball superstar! By season’s end he would be Rookie of the Year! Cy Young Award winner! World Series champion!

Fast forward to that 1996 day. When I got to talk with him, he was the image in my head. Humble. Grateful. Proud. Telling me he hoped Padres fans would like him and that he would give them his best. He wanted to be part of a winning Padres team.

As a journalist, I probably should not have done this. But I whispered in his ear how much he meant to me and other Mexican American kids like me. He smiled. Shook my hand. Seemingly honored by what I told him. I could tell he heard it before.

But he was gracious and kind. Without words, his kindness and graciousness were la fuerza! Strength. Power! His image was real. That guy dominated games in his prime but seemed playfully bashful in post-game interviews.

That guy was the man I was talking to. My hero was real. To this day, he is my best example of powerful kindness! May the legacy of his powerful kindness live, por siempre! Forever!

Olivas, a former radio reporter in San Diego, is a journalist who lives in Baltimore.