GARVEY

Revered or reviled? Loved or hated? Steve Garvey generated a lot of different emotions in players and fans. Steven Patrick Garvey, born December 22, 1948, in Tampa, Florida. His parents, Joseph and Mildred, had recently relocated to Tampa from Long Island, NY.

Joe passed on his love of baseball, especially the Dodgers, to his son Steve. Steve used to hit old grapefruits with a broomstick because there were 11 of them in his backyard. His dad was a bus driver for Greyhound. In 1956 he was assigned to drive the Brooklyn Dodgers to spring training in Vero Beach. He asked if his 7-year-old son, Steve, could be a batboy for the team. It was a position Garvey would hold for the next 6 springs.

The player who impressed him the most was Gil Hodges. Garvey was amazed at how much time Gil took signing autographs and connecting with the fans, and even finding time to play catch with him now and then. So Hodges became the player he wanted to most emulate. When he was about 10, his mom asked what he wanted for Christmas, and he replied “a new baseball glove“. When he told her it cost 25.00, try getting one that cheap now, she said that was a lot of money, his reply was 25.00 now would turn into 25,000 later. He was right, but the amount was way low.

Garvey also at times was a batboy for the Yankees and Tigers. He was small, 5’7″ 165lbs. for a high school athlete, he excelled at Chamberlin High playing both football and baseball. He hit .472 in his junior year and .465 as a senior, grabbing the attention of pro scouts.

After high school he went to Michigan State University where he was encouraged by Duffy Daugherty, the Spartans head football coach, to play multiple sports there. He made 30 tackles as a defensive back on the 1967 team, earning a letter. His first at-bat for the baseball team ended with a grand slam homer that landed in the Red Cedar River. Garvey also participated in MSU’s loss to USC in 1967. He chased OJ Simpson on one of his TD runs.

Garvey was drafted by the Dodgers in the secondary phase of the first round in 1968. Some say this is the best draft class ever, Lopes, Cey, Buckner, Paciorek, Ferguson, Valentine, Zahn, and Alexander and Garvey. Not a bad haul. All would play in the majors.

His college coach, Danny Withiler, said Garvey could hit monster home runs and had the ability to come back after a bad day at the plate. But he did question his defense. He did not have an outfielders arm and was only adequate at 3rd. Garvey spent his first season at Ogden, and then in 1968, he was at Albuquerque playing for Tommy Lasorda. He hit .373 with 14 HRs and 85 RBIs. He was called up to the Dodgers and made his debut on September 1st against Jack DiLauro and struck out.

He started the 1970 season in a slump and was sent to the minors. He was called back up in September. but his fielding at 3rd was still a problem. The same thing in 1972 as he made 28 errors at 3rd and rumors began to circulate that his time in LA was drawing to a close.

In 1973 he rode the bench most of the first part of the season through June. Faced with lineup issues on the 23rd of June, Alston on the suggestion of Bill Buckner, inserted Garvey at first and moved Bucks to LF. Buckner played 1st in LA on rare occasions after that. Garvey took to the position like a duck to water. He batted .309 over the rest of the year and had a .993 fielding pct at the position.

1974 would be a landmark season for Garvey. He hit .312, with 21 HRs and 111 RBI’s. He won the NL MVP award, was the MVP in the all-star game as a write-in, and won his first gold glove as the Dodgers would win the pennant and face the A’s in the World Series. He hit .389 in the NLCS and .381 in the World Series. But he only drove in 1 run in the series.

With Garvey installed at first, Lopes at second, Russell at SS, and Cey at third, the Dodgers had an infield that would be together for 8 seasons. And they would form a formidable quartet defensively and offensively. Except for Russell, they would all have 20 plus homer seasons. Garvey and Cey would crush 33 and 30 in 77. Garvey would have 4 more 100 plus RBI seasons in LA.

His first brush with controversy came in the 1974 MVP vote. Garvey had 270 votes and runner-up Lou Brock had 233. Brock had set a record with 118 stolen bases that year, but it had been downplayed by many of the writers. Brock said that conception was based on the old prejudice that base stealers did it for personal gain and not for the team. He said it was true he did not win it, but he also did not lose it. He said he earned it.

Consistency was the watchword for Garvey’s game. And he indeed became one of the most consistent players in the majors. He also was becoming a star in the city where stars are adored. He parlayed that into a 6 year 1.971 contract that would expire in 1982. He also started making appearances on TV shows like Mike Douglas Show, Fantasy Island, and also the TV movie, Hey Coach and Mickey’s 50th birthday for Disney.

Garvey pretty much had it all, the trophy wife, big contract. It looked like the so-called perfect family. And the adoration of oh so many Dodger fans. But did he have the respect of his teammates? Some were reported as saying he was more worried about improving his image than the team. Of course, it did not look like that on the stat line. He was clutch and played every game for 1207 consecutive games. But you had to believe that some time or another it would all come to a head.

As early as 1975 Betty Cuniberti of San Bernardino Sun reported that Garvey did not have a friend on the team. The fact that Garvey had this All-American squeaky clean image, and the fact that he did not smoke or drink caused his teammates to think he was judging them. He was every ad man’s dream. But Davey Lopes opined that even though the team knew Garvey came to play, he wondered that if he would have gone out to have a beer with the guys that the perception in the dugout would have been much more receptive.

This came to a head in 1977 when Don Sutton did an interview with Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post in Philadelphia on the 15th of August. Sutton was quoted as saying “All you hear about on our team is Steve Garvey, the All American boy, well the best player on our team is Reggie Smith. As Reggie goes, so go us. And Reggie doesn’t go out and publicize himself. He doesn’t smile at all the right people and says the right things. He tells the truth, even if it sometimes alienates people”.

Everything was quiet until the 20th of August in New York. Garvey expressed displeasure to Sutton over the remarks, saying we are a team, if you have something to say to me, say it to my face. No one knows exactly what happened but in a short time, Garvey and Sutton were rolling on the floor in a battle royal. According to some scratching and clawing at each other. The press dubbed it “The Grapple in the Apple”. One reporter said that Sutton leaped at Garvey and shoved him into a locker. Some of the bigger players on the team separated them. Ferguson said they thought that if they kept fighting they might have killed each other.

Things calmed down and he went on a tear for the rest of the season. They ended up in the World Series. But would lose to the Yankees again and in 78. Garvey continued to be a force in the Dodger lineup. His HR in game 4 of the playoff against the Expos in 1981 put them up 3-1 in that game. In 1982, his walk year, he hit only .282 with 16 and 86. Campanis had a record of not signing his own free agents. He had traded Lopes and would do the same with Cey. He only re-signed Bill Russell. So the negotiations with the Dodgers commenced. They offered 5 million for 4 years as their final offer. So Garvey signed with the Padres for 4 years and 6.6 million.

On the 15th of April, 1983, Garvey returned to Dodger Stadium as a member of the Padres and was given a rousing ovation by the fans. He went 0-4 but it was his 1,117th consecutive game, tying him with Billy Williams for the NL all-time record. He would get to 1207 in July when he broke his thumb and missed the rest of the year. He helped the Padres get to the World Series in 1984 against the Tigers. He hit only .200 in the series after having an excellent series against the Cubs.

He had problems with his teammates in San Diego, but his teammates found better ways to resolve them more pleasantly. At a pool party at his house, HOF reliever Goose Gossage said that when Garvey walked by his pool, a bunch of his teammates threw him in the shallow end of the pool headfirst. When Garvey popped up gasping for air, Gossage said every hair was still in place. Gossage said, Perfect, Steve Garvey has to be the only guy in the world who could get tossed into a swimming pool and come out looking the same way he did when he went in”.

Garvey took his last at-bat in the majors on May 23rd in San Diego. He flew out and then prepared to have surgery on his shoulder. He was 38 years old. His #6 was retired by the Padres on April 16, 1988. That was the first number retired by the team.

In retirement, he formed Garvey Communications. He also served on the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation as its honorary chairman. He also still appeared on TV shows and commercials. Garvey’s image was not tarnish-proof though. He had met and married Candace Thomas in 1989. This was his second marriage, his first to Cyndi Garvey ended in a messy divorce. Then in 1989, he was named in two paternity suits. Dick William’s came to his defense saying he never saw any of that. Never saw him in bars and he seemed as clean as his image.

To his credit, Garvey never denied the charges saying could he have been more careful, yes. But he paid for both. He took responsibility for his actions. Garvey, like Hodges before him, manned 1st base for over a decade for the Dodgers and both have fallen short in their road to Cooperstown. Sabermetrics have affected Garvey since he did not generate what was seen as enough power for his position. He only hit 30 HRs once. As for Hodges, do not get me started on Gil not being enshrined. I look at Garvey’s hall candidacy the same way I do Fernando’s. Very good players, but not great players.

Garvey still is part of the Dodger family doing things for the speaker’s bureau and such. Former mates, Yeager and Cey also participate in that capacity.