Clean Slate: Steve Garvey Still Hoping for Hall of Fame Call

Earlier this month, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum announced ten candidates for a Cooperstown plaque via the “Modern Baseball” Committee, which is tasked with voting on players (and one executive) who have been previously overlooked in the Hall of Fame vote. One of those candidates is Steve Garvey, the long-time first baseman for the Dodgers and San Diego Padres. Garvey was the Iron Man before Cal Ripken Jr., having played in 1,207 consecutive games from 1975 to 1983, a National League record that remains to this day.

Known as “Mr. Clean” during his playing days due to his grooming and manners, Garvey was one of the game’s most popular players in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He was one of those players who you just knew would be a Hall of Famer in the future and probably a U.S. Senator in his post-playing days. The script hasn’t quite worked out for Garvey. His playing career fizzled in his late 30’s and he was also tarnished with scandals in his personal life that short-circuited a potential career in politics.

Garvey hit the Hall of Fame ballot in December 1992 (for the Class of 1993) and finished with 42% of the vote from the Baseball Writers Association of America (the BBWAA). In the previous history of the Hall of Fame voting, every single player who hit their first ballot with at least 40% of the vote wound up with a Hall of Fame plaque within ten years. But it didn’t happen for Steve Garvey. After 15 years on the BBWAA ballot without being elected, this is his fourth appearance on one of the Eras Committee ballots (previously known as the Veterans Committee).

Cooperstown Cred: Steve Garvey (1B)

• Los Angeles Dodgers (1969-82), San Diego Padres (1983-87)
• Career: .294 BA, 272 HR, 1,308 RBI, 2,599 hits
• Career: 117 OPS+, 38.1 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
• 10-time All-Star
• 4-time Gold Glove Winner
• 1974 N.L. MVP (.312 BA, 21 HR, 111 RBI)
• 5 times in the top 6 of N.L. MVP voting
• 6 times with 200 or more hits
• 7 times with a .300 batting average or better
• 5 times with 100 or more RBI
• Career post-season: .338 BA, 11 HR, 31 RBI, .910 OPS
• MVP of 1978 and 1984 NLCS
• Career in 10 All-Star Games: .393 BA, 2 HR, 7 RBI, 1.255 OPS (two-time MVP)
• 1,207 consecutive games played (1975-1983), the longest streak in N.L. history

(cover photo: Dodgers Nation)

Steve Garvey was the most Blue of the Dodger Blue. He was the biggest star on a team that made the playoffs four times between 1974 and 1981. With Davey Lopes, Bill Russell, and Ron Cey, Garvey was the anchor of one of the greatest long-standing infields in the game’s history.

If you’re a serious baseball fan of a certain age (late 40’s and above), you will agree that, during his playing career, Steve Garvey was one of those players that you just assumed would eventually be in the Hall of Fame.

In a Sporting News poll of 12 National League managers in 1986, Garvey’s name came up 5th in the answer to a question about which players would deserve a Hall of Fame plaque if their careers came to an end right away. He was behind only Pete Rose, Steve Carlton, Mike Schmidt, and Nolan Ryan.

Today, 32 years after Garvey’s last on the diamond, if you’re a Hall of Fame enthusiast who is not familiar with the modern metrics of today (such as OPS+ or WAR), the 10-time All-Star’s “Cooperstown Cred” (above) looks pretty darned compelling.

This piece will be a profile of Garvey’s life and career and then take a look at both the pros and cons of his Hall of Fame case. This is a complete look at Garvey’s career and, in today’s time-compressed world, a tad lengthy. Please use the headlines (call them chapters if you want) to navigate through the parts you find most interesting.

Steve Garvey: Early Life

Steven Patrick Garvey was born on December 22, 1948, in Tampa, Florida. As Tom Friend wrote in his piece “Bliss in Paradise” for the Los Angeles Times, Garvey was “reared perfectly, an only child in a home fit for a king or a president. Not that Joe and Millie Garvey were rich, because they were far from it. But Joe and Millie Garvey were reared correctly and, consequently, reared their son correctly.” Everything about Garvey’s life in baseball and the image he attempted to carefully maintain was based on manners and politeness.

Joe Garvey was a bus driver for Greyhound. In March 1956, he had the fortuitous assignment of driving the defending World Champion Brooklyn Dodgers to Vero Beach on the east coast of the state. Joe, a lifelong Dodgers fan as a transplant from Long Island, New York, asked if his 7-year old son Steve could serve as the team’s batboy whenever the team visited Tampa. Joe’s request was granted.

As a young boy and occasional Dodgers batboy, Steve’s favorite player was Gil Hodges, the Dodgers’ slugging first baseman. Pee Wee Reese once said, “if you had a son, it would be a great thing to have him grow up to be just like Gil Hodges.” As fate would have it, people would say similar things about Garvey when he later donned Dodger Blue.

As a teenager, Garvey was a star at Tampa’s Chamberlain High School in both baseball and football. In 1966, after his senior year, he was offered a contract by the Minnesota Twins but chose instead to enroll at Michigan State University, where he starred both on the diamond and the gridiron.

Steve Garvey at Michigan State

Garvey’s athletic career for Michigan State started in the fall of 1966. As a freshman, he wasn’t allowed to play football but he did play a key role in preparing the 2nd-ranked Spartans for the famous “Game of the Century” against top-ranked Notre Dame. A quarterback in high school, Garvey played the role of Irish quarterback Terry Hanratty in practice. The downside of that “honor” is that he got pummeled all week long by one of college football’s greatest defenses, one that included future Hall of Famers Bubba Smith and George Webster. Garvey later compared Spartan head coach Duffy Daugherty to Dodgers manager Tom Lasorda in the way they handled their teams and players.

Garvey never played quarterback at Michigan State but did letter as a defensive back in 1967, recording 30 tackles. On the diamond, Garvey was an All-American in the spring of ’68, hitting .376 with 9 home runs and 38 RBI.

MSU baseball coach Danny Litwhiler gave a glowing report to MLB organizations about his young third baseman, noting that he hit “towering home runs” while also commenting on his mental toughness. The big question was about Garvey’s defense, saying that he was “no more than acceptable” at third base and didn’t have the arm to play in the outfield. An injury to Garvey’s right arm, suffered on the football field, limited his throwing ability. It was a shortcoming that remained with him throughout his Major League Baseball career.

The Dodgers Draft Picks of 1968

In 1968, the Los Angeles Dodgers had one of the remarkable hauls of draft picks in the history of baseball. From 1965-86, the Major League Baseball player drafts had four phases per year, a “regular” and “secondary” phase in January and another regular and secondary phase in June. In those four draft phases, under the supervision of General Manager Buzzie Bavasi and Scouting Director Al Campanis, the Dodgers selected and signed a whopping 11 players who would eventually make the majors, with 9 of them having careers that could be described as significant.

If you’re a baseball fan in your late 40’s or older, you may have heard of a lot of these guys.

January Secondary Phase:

• 2nd round: Davey Lopes (2B)
• 5th round: Geoff Zahn (SP)

June Regular Phase:

• 1st round: Bobby Valentine (INF)
• 2nd round: Bill Buckner (1B)
• 5th round: Tom Paciorek (OF)
• 8th round: Joe Ferguson (C)
• 9th round: Doyle Alexander (SP)

June Secondary Phase:

• 1st round: Steve Garvey (1B)
• 3rd round: Ron Cey (3B)

Quite a collection of talent, eh? The 1968 draft booty laid the foundation that led to the Dodgers’ four N.L. pennants from 1974-81. Most fans know that Garvey, Lopes, and Cey formed three-quarters of the longtime infield in Chavez Ravine; shortstop Bill Russell had been drafted in 1966. The quartet played together full-time for 8 full seasons, from 1974-81.

Among the other players taken in the various phases of the 1968 draft, take a look at what they brought back in various trades over the years:

• Dec. 1971: Alexander was part of a 6-man trade to Baltimore for future Hall of Famer Frank Robinson and reliever Pete Richert
• Nov. 1972: Valentine was the key member of a 7-player deal that brought pitcher Andy Messersmith to L.A. (Frank Robinson was traded with Valentine to the California Angels)
• May 1975: Zahn was traded to the Cubs for pitcher Burt Hooton
• Nov. 1975: Paciorek was a member of a 6-player trade that put OF Dusty Baker in Dodger Blue
• June 1976: Ferguson was traded with 2 nobodies to St. Louis for OF Reggie Smith
• Jan. 1977: Buckner was a part of a 5-player deal for OF Rick Monday

When Hooton threw a complete game to defeat the New York Yankees in Game 2 of the 1977 World Series, the only members of the starting nine who were NOT linked to the 1968 draft class were Russell and catcher Steve Yeager. (Incidentally, Yeager was drafted in 1967 so the entire lineup was directly or indirectly a byproduct of drafts from ’66 to ’68).

Steve Garvey’s Road to Los Angeles

Now that we’ve completed our fun history lesson about the Dodgers’ draft loot in the late 1960s, let’s take a look at the path taken by Steve Garvey to be a part of the great Dodgers’ teams from 1974-81.

Garvey started his professional career in the Pioneer League. Playing for the Ogden Dodgers and manager Tommy Lasorda in Utah, Garvey hit .338 with 20 home runs and 59 RBI in just 62 games. Garvey’s 20 taters represented 38% of the team’s total of 53. With Buckner at first base, the 19-year old slugger had to play at third and struggled, committing 23 errors for a woeful .874 fielding percentage.

Garvey and Buckner both opened the 1969 season with Albuquerque in the Texas League (the New Mexico city housed the Dodgers’ AA squad at this time in history). Garvey, splitting time between first and third base, was by far the team’s hitting star once again, hitting .373 with 14 long balls and 85 ribbies. That performance earned him a cup of coffee and 3 pinch-hitting appearances with the big club in September.

Still just 21 years old, Garvey started the 1970 season in Chavez Ravine with the big club; after a 2 for 23 start (.087), however, he was optioned to AAA Spokane. Reunited with skipper Lasorda (who had been promoted), Garvey was part of a team that featured 20 players who would at some point make the majors, including Buckner, Lopes, Russell, Paciorek, Alexander, and Zahn. In 95 games, Garvey hit .317 with 15 dingers and 87 runs driven in. He had a brief call-up with the Dodgers in June and was back with the team in September. By playing for Lasorda in the minors and Walter Alston in Los Angeles, Garvey had the privilege of playing for two future Hall of Fame managers in the same season.

With slick-fielding veteran Wes Parker entrenched at first base, Garvey played at the hot corner in all but one of his 28 games in L.A. in 1970.

1971-72: Part-time Performer

Steve Garvey was with the Dodgers in Los Angeles for good to start the 1971 season but did not become a full-time player until the middle of 1973. With Parker still at first, Garvey began the ’71 campaign as a starter at the hot corner but got off to another slow start. After 27 games, the 22-year old was hitting .253 but with just 2 home runs and 9 RBI and started to lose playing time, mostly to Valentine. All told, Garvey played in 43 of the team’s first 60 games (hitting .231 with a .702 OPS) before a bruised hand sidelined him for over six weeks.

Garvey returned from the disabled list at the end of July with the Dodgers 8 1/2 games behind the San Francisco Giants. The roster construction of the ’71 Dodgers featured four players who were best suited for first base. Besides Garvey and Parker, there was Dick Allen and Buckner. Allen filled in at the hot corner while Garvey was hurt and also played a lot in left field while Buckner spent a lot of time in right. More often than not, Garvey was the odd man out; he started just 24 of the team’s final 58 games, finishing the season with a .227 BA and .673 OPS. The Dodgers wound up one game behind the Giants to miss the playoffs.

In the first half of the 1972 season, Garvey was the Dodgers’ starting third sacker most of the time. He started 62 of the team’s 89 games before the All-Star break, hitting .267 with 7 HR and 22 RBI in 253 plate appearances. After the Mid-Summer Classic, Garvey was the odd man out in a positional shuffle; he started only 14 of the Dodgers’ final 73 contests, losing most of his playing time again to Valentine. Garvey’s loss of playing time can be partially explained by his throwing problems. Despite playing just 85 games at the hot corner, he led N.L. third sackers with 28 errors.

1973: Opportunity Opens

Parker, a 6-time Gold Glover at first, surprised the Dodgers in November 1972 by announcing his retirement at the age of 33, intending to pursue business opportunities. So, first base was an open position for the Dodgers in the spring of 1973 but the team decided to give the job to Buckner. With Ron Cey having had two monster seasons in AAA, he became the starting third baseman. Garvey was tried out in left field during spring training but was mostly a bench player for the first 71 games of the season, starting just 7 games. Garvey, frustrated by his lack of playing time, asked for a trade.

A solution presented itself in late June when left fielders Manny Mota and Von Joshua were injured; Buckner volunteered to move to the outfield to give Garvey an opening at first. Finally, with a position of his own, Steve Garvey made the most of it, hitting .309 in his final 73 games, 68 of which he started.

Through the end of the 1973 campaign, in which he spent all or parts of 5 seasons in Los Angeles, Garvey had a .271 career batting average with 25 home runs and 112 RBI in 1,035 plate appearances. Dodger fans could be forgiven for not anticipating his breakout campaign of 1974 and that they had a perennial All-Star manning first base.

1974: Write-in All-Star

I started watching baseball in 1975, at the age of eight, my initial interest piqued by collecting baseball cards. It was how I started learning about the game. I learned about Hank Aaron breaking the all-time home run record in 1974 because of his ’75 baseball card.

Card collecting allowed me to learn the names of a lot of players, including the name Steve Garvey. The first baseman for the Los Angeles Dodgers had two cards for collectors that year, his regular card and his “’74 Highlights” card which touted his write-in candidacy and MVP performance in the All-Star Game in Pittsburgh.

Although Garvey had become the Dodgers full-time first baseman in the second half of the ’73 campaign his name was left off the ’74 All-Star ballot, which was handed out to fans at the ballparks in those days. Instead, Buckner was listed as the Dodgers’ first baseman. In reality, Buckner started at first on Opening Day and on only four other occasions during the entire season.

Finally, with a full-time job, Garvey hit .313 in the first half of the campaign with 15 HR and 65 RBI, leading the Dodgers to a 5 1/2 game edge over the defending N.L. West Champion Cincinnati Reds at the All-Star break. Among Garvey’s 65 RBI were three of the walk-off variety, all within a five-week period. The last of the three was a walk-off home run off the Pirates’ Jim Rooker.

Regarding the All-Star Game, as of June 18th, Garvey was in 5th place in the first base balloting, with 116,949 votes, which was over 45,000 shy of Tony Perez. Two weeks later, Garvey was in 2nd place but now over 100,000 votes shy of Perez’ total. When the tallies were finally revealed on July 15th, Garvey had edged Perez by just under 23,000 votes. All in all, the Dodgers first baseman got 1,082,489 votes, all as a write-in candidate. It was the first of what would be 10 All-Star appearances for Garvey, with 9 of them as the National League’s starter at the position.

Capitalizing on the good story, Garvey went 2 for 4 with a run scored and game-tying RBI double in the 4th inning of the Mid-Summer Classic and was the MVP of the game.

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October and Accolades

Steve Garvey’s emergence as a big name in the game of baseball continued with the Dodgers’ first playoff appearance since 1966. In the team’s four-game NLCS win over the Pittsburgh Pirates, Garvey was one of the hitting stars, hitting .389 with 2 home runs and 5 RBI.

The Dodgers, in the World Series for the first time since 1966, would fall to the two-time defending champion Oakland Athletics. Garvey hit .381 in the losing effort.

Shortly after the Fall Classic ended, Garvey’s magical 1974 continued with his first Gold Glove Award and his first and only trophy as the National League MVP. For the season, Garvey hit .312 with 21 HR and 111 RBI. He stroked 200 hits on the nose and scored 95 runs. The Gold Glove was the first of four consecutive that he would earn.

An All-Star Among All-Stars

All of what happened in 1974 was before I started personally watching the game of baseball. One of the first games I ever did see (on TV) was the 1975 All-Star Game. Memories are often vague at that age but I distinctly remember seeing the legend Aaron in the game (he made an out in a pinch-hitting appearance). I also vaguely remember watching Garvey and L.A. teammate Jim Wynn hit back-to-back home runs in the 2nd inning.

I attended my first All-Star Game in 1977. I was a New York City kid; the game was at Yankee Stadium and a classmate’s father had tickets to the game. In the top of the third, you guessed it, Garvey hit the N.L.’s third home run of the game, a solo shot off future Hall of Famer Jim Palmer. It was a blast that landed not too far from our seats in the left-field stands. The N.L. went on to win that game 7-5.

If you’re under the age of 45 you might not realize what a big deal the All-Star Game was in the 1970s. The players really wanted to win and the National League players took pride in their seemingly endless ability to whip the American League in those Mid-Summer Classics. All told, the ’77 All-Star win was the 14th victory out of the previous 15 contests for the Senior Circuit. The N.L. would go on to win the next five All-Star Games, led by Garvey in ’78 when he earned his second All-Star MVP. In that game (in San Diego), Garvey delivered a game-tying two-run single off Palmer in the third inning and sparked the N.L.’s rally in the 8th when he led off the inning (in a tie game) with a triple off another future Hall of Famer, Goose Gossage.

For whatever it’s worth, since All-Star MVP honors were initially rewarded in 1962, five players have had the honor bestowed on them two times. The names are Willie Mays, Gary Carter, Cal Ripken Jr., Mike Trout, and Steve Garvey. That’s three Hall of Famers, a future lock for the Hall (Trout) and Garvey.

1975-76: The Streak Begins

Now an All-Star, Steve Garvey began the 1975 season, finally, without any doubt about what his playing time would be. He got off to a fabulous start in ’75, hitting .374 with 17 RBI in the team’s first 22 games.

Garvey started the first 136 games for Los Angeles before missing two contests in early September with a case of the flu. Once back in the lineup on September 3rd, Garvey would play in every one of his team’s games until late July 1983, when he was with the San Diego Padres.

For the ’75 campaign, Garvey established what would be career highs in batting (.319), hits (210), and doubles (38). He also hit 18 HR with 95 RBI, led all first sackers with a .995 fielding percentage, and finished 11th in the MVP balloting. The Dodgers won 88 games but finished 20 games behind the eventual World Series champion Reds, who won 108.

In 1976, Garvey’s power production numbers dipped (to 13 HR and 80 RBI) but he still managed exactly 200 hits and hit .317. Defensively, Garvey had just three miscues (good enough for a .998 FLD%). His overall performance was good enough for a 6th place MVP finish. As for the team, in Walter Alston’s swan song, 92 wins was only good enough for a distant 2nd place N.L. West finish, behind the Big Red Machine.

1977: Back to the Post-Season

In February 1977, the Dodgers signed Steve Garvey to a six-year, $1.971 million contract, with General Manager Al Campanis calling him “Mr. Consistency.” In the meantime, third-base coach Tommy Lasorda took over the managerial reins, inheriting a team with many players he had managed in the minor leagues, including his All-Star first baseman.

Lasorda felt that Garvey had not reached his full power potential and encouraged him to focus more on driving the ball out of the park. The result was that Garvey set career highs with 33 HR and 115 RBI (both of which led the team); his batting average dipped to .297 and he only rapped 192 hits. With Cey, Dusty Baker, and Reggie Smith also swatting at least 30 home runs each, the Dodgers became the first team in baseball history to feature four players with at least 30 taters.

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With a rotation of five good to excellent starters (Future Hall of Famer Don Sutton, Tommy John, Burt Hooton, Rick Rhoden, and Doug Rau), the Dodgers easily won the N.L. West with 98 victories. After dispatching the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League Championship Series, the Dodgers faced off in the Fall Classic against the New York Yankees, the first matchup of the iconic franchises since 1963.

The Yankees and Dodgers split the first two games at Dodger Stadium, with Garvey hitting a solo home run off Cy Young reliever Sparky Lyle in the second contest. Although the Yankees would win the series in 6 games, Garvey finished the Fall Classic with a .375 batting average and 1.025 OPS. It wasn’t enough to combat Reggie Jackson’s five home runs, three of which occurred in Game 6.

In December, during awards season, Garvey finished 6th in the N.L. MVP vote.

1978: Back to Back Pennants

In 1978, the Los Angeles Dodgers won their second straight N.L. West title under Lasorda. Steve Garvey and his 30-HR mates all saw their tater totals dip but the team still hit well enough to lead the squad to 95 wins. Garvey paced all Dodgers with a .316 BA, 202 hits, 36 doubles, and 113 RBI, hitting 21 home runs along the way.

Back in the NLCS against the Phillies, Garvey was the star of the 4-Game series win, hitting .389 with 4 HR, 7 RBI, and a 1.611 OPS, which earned him MVP honors.

In the World Series, the Dodgers fell to the Yankees once again in 6 games. For Garvey, it was a rare postseason series in which his bat fell cold. He hit just .208 with no RBI in the 6 games.

After the season, Garvey finished 2nd in the MVP vote to Dave Parker. For the first time in his career as a full-time player, he did not win the Gold Glove, losing out to Keith Hernandez, who would win 11 in a row.

1979-80: Garvey’s Last Two Top Shelf Campaigns

After two straight N.L. West titles and six consecutive seasons with at least 88 wins, the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1979 were a major disappointment, going 79-83. Tommy John had departed for the Bronx as a free agent. The Dodgers pitching staff, after posting a team ERA of 3.12 in ’78, combined for a 3.83 ERA in ’79. Outfielders Reggie Smith and Rick Monday missed considerable time due to injury, combining for just 308 plate appearances.

Steve Garvey remained “Mr. Consistency” in 1979, hitting .315 with 28 HR, 110 RBI, and 204 hits. As a member of a non-contending team, he didn’t fare as well as in previous years in MVP balloting, finishing in 14th place. In fairness, he did slip a bit defensively; after five straight years in which he was 1st or 2nd in Range Factor (putouts + assists) for first basemen, he was below the league average. Garvey also led the league in a category that no hitter wants to lead in, GDP (double plays grounded into).

With a pitching rebound in 1980 (staff ERA of 3.25), the Dodgers were back in playoff contention, in a 3-way race with the Reds and the Houston Astros, who had added two future Hall of Famers (Joe Morgan and Nolan Ryan) in the off-season. The Dodgers slumped down the stretch, winning just 10 of the last 20 games of the scheduled regular season, but Garvey did his part, hitting .375 in those 20 contests with a .987 OPS.

Going into the last weekend of the regular season, Los Angeles trailed Houston by 3 games but forced a 3-game playoff by sweeping a 3-game series against the Astros at Dodger Stadium. In the second game of that series, Garvey hit a 4th inning solo home run off Ryan to break a 1-1 tie in a game that finished with a 2-1 Dodger victory. Despite the fast finish, Houston dominated the one-game playoff, winning 7-1 behind a complete game from Joe Niekro.

For the season, Garvey finished with a .304 BA, 26 HR, 106 RBI, and 200 hits; he finished 6th in the MVP vote, his fifth Top 6 vote in a span of 8 years.

Overall, from 1974-80, Garvey played in all but 8 games, averaging .311 with 23 HR, 104 RBI, and 201 hits. During those 8 seasons, Garvey had 4 in which he hit .300 or better, swatted at least 20 HR, drove in at least 100, and rapped 200 or more hits. The only other players to reach these 4 benchmarks between ’74 and ’80 were Jim Rice (3 times) along with George Brett and Cecil Cooper (once each).

As we’ll discuss later, there are many more relevant statistics than BA, HR, RBI, and Hits but in the 1970s, these were the key numbers that fans and writers cared about.

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1981: Strike Season

The 1981 season is unique in the history of Major League Baseball. A 50-day player strike wiped out nearly two months of play, with a total of 713 games that were lost. When the strike hit after the games of June 11th, Los Angeles had a 36-21 record and held a lead of one half a game over Cincinnati in the N.L. West. In order to give all fans throughout the game some postseason hope once the strike was over, MLB decided to split the season into two halves. The four teams who were leading their respective divisions (including the Dodgers) were anointed “first half division champions” and were automatically entered into a new playoff round, the “Division Series.”

With a playoff berth assured, the Dodgers slumped to 27-26 in the second half of the season, with the Astros leading the West as 2nd Half champs.

Overall, for the 110-game regular season, Garvey hit .283 with 10 HR, 64 RBI, and 122 Hits. If you’re wondering how good that is, I’ll help with the math: projected to 162 games, the numbers would be 15 HR, 94 RBI, and 180 Hits. Respectable numbers, but not up to the standards he had set for himself in the previous 8 campaigns.

The 1981 N.L. Division Series

As he typically would do, Steve Garvey turned on his bat in October. Game 1 of the N.L. Division Series at the Astrodome featured a matchup of Ryan and the Dodgers’ wunderkind, 20-year old Fernando Valenzuela. In his rookie season, Valenzuela became one of baseball’s biggest stars. He started the season with 7 complete-game victories, giving up just 2 runs in 63 innings. Fernando-mania gripped the nation; the Mexican-born lefty started the All-Star Game after the strike and eventually won the N.L. Rookie of the Year and Cy Young Awards.

Anyway, Valenzuela and Ryan matched zeroes until Houston scratched out a run in the bottom of the 6th. With the Dodgers trailing 1-0 in the top of the 7th inning, Garvey swatted a solo home run to center field off Ryan to tie the score at 1. In the end, Astros’ catcher Alan Ashby won the game with a 2-run walk-off tater in the bottom of the 9th against rookie reliever Dave Stewart, who would be a future postseason star in Oakland.

In Game 2, Joe Niekro and Jerry Reuss were both brilliant; neither starter gave up a run. The Astros won in walk-off fashion again, this time in the bottom of the 11th on a Denny Walling RBI single off another rookie reliever, Tom Niedenfuer.

So, the Dodgers returned to Chavez Ravine needing a 3-game sweep to take the Division Series. In the bottom of the 1st inning, it was Garvey who set the tone. After an RBI double by Dusty Baker (off Bob Knepper), Garvey hit a two-run homer, giving the Dodgers a 3-0 lead that they would never relinquish. After Valenzuela out-pitched Vern Ruhle for a 2-1 Game 4 victory, the teams faced a winner-take-all scenario in Game 5.

With Reuss facing Ryan, Game 5 was scoreless going into the bottom of the 6th inning. After a one-out walk to Baker, Garvey singled, sparking a 3-run inning. The Dodgers All-Star first baseman later delivered the coup de grace, an RBI triple to left-center field off reliever Frank LaCorte in the bottom of the 8th. Reuss tossed a shutout, sending the Dodgers to the NLCS against the Montreal Expos.

Reuss, with 18 scoreless innings pitched, would have been the NLDS MVP if one was named; Garvey was the hitting star, hitting .368 with 2 HR, 4 RBI, and a 1.158 OPS.

Steve Garvey Finally Gets His Ring

In the NLCS, the Dodgers once again found themselves in a situation in which they had to win multiple elimination games to advance to the next round. The Expos had a 2-to-1 series lead after the first three contests. In Game 4 at Olympic Stadium in Montreal, the score was tied at 1 after 7 innings. With one out and Baker on first base, Garvey hit a two-run home run to left field (off Bill Gullickson) to give the Dodgers a lead of 3-1, which would stand up.

Famously, Garvey yielded the spotlight to Rick Monday in Game 5; Monday hit a solo tater in the 9th inning to send the Dodgers back to another World Series matchup against the New York Yankees.

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Garvey had an excellent Fall Classic with the bat (hitting .417 with a .920 OPS) but didn’t have signature moments. In a team effort, Steve Yeager, Ron Cey, and Pedro Guerrero split the MVP Award in the Dodgers’ 6-Game series win.

For the entire 1981 postseason, Steve Garvey hit .359 with 3 HR, 6 RBI, and a .926 OPS. At this point in his career, Garvey had a postseason record to brag about: .346 BA, 10 HR, 22 RBI, .942 OPS.

1982: Steve Garvey’s Final Season in Los Angeles

In 1982, by his standards, Garvey slumped to a .282 BA with 16 HR, 86 RBI, and just 176 Hits, even while playing all 162 games. Never one known to work the count, Garvey walked just 20 times in ’82, resulting in a woeful .301 on-base percentage. For the first time in his career as a full-time player, Garvey was not an All-Star.

In a season in which the Dodgers finished one game behind the Atlanta Braves in the N.L. West, Garvey did finish strong, hitting .333 with 24 RBI in the team’s final 31 games. However, in the very last game of the regular season (a must-win), he struck out in the bottom of the 8th inning against San Francisco’s Greg Minton in an at bat in which he represented the tying run. (This game is most famous for Joe Morgan, now a Giant, hitting a 3-run go-ahead blast in the 7th to essentially end the Dodgers’ season).

Anyway, nobody knew it for sure at the time but the 8th inning whiff was the final at bat for Steve Garvey in Dodger Blue.

Free Agency

After the season, to protect his rights, Steve Garvey, now 34 years old, filed for free agency. As he tells it in his biography, owner Peter O’Malley’s final offer was for $5 million over 4 years. At the time, when contract negotiations broke down in early November, Garvey called the day the “saddest in my life.” He would not follow in the footsteps of his boyhood idol (Gil Hodges) by being a Dodger for his entire playing career.

Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray, who would be elected to the Hall of Fame as the Spink Award winner in 1987, was scathing in his commentary on how Dodgers’ management handled Garvey’s negotiations.

“If they could have ordered one from heaven, the Dodgers couldn’t have improved on a model like Steve Garvey… He always said the right thing, batted .300, showed up for every game… Best of all, he worked cheap… That the Dodgers would even trifle with symbol of everything they stood for is stupefying… Garvey had worked for years at one-third the going rate (his contract paid him $328,500 per year)… He made no waves when the franchise reached out and threw truckloads of money at pitchers who couldn’t get anybody out.” 

— Jim Murray, Los Angeles Times (November 7, 1982)

On December 21st, on the day before his 34th birthday, the longtime Dodger signed a 5-year, $6.6 million deal with the San Diego Padres, allowing him to remain in Southern California.

A Padre Comes Home

With his move 120 miles from Dodger Stadium to Jack Murphy Stadium, Steve Garvey left an organization with a rich tradition in baseball history to a franchise that had none whatsoever. The San Diego Padres, in 14 years of existence, had a total of one season in which they won more games than they lost. In one element of historical continuity, Garvey continued his streak of playing every single game of his MLB career for a future Hall of Fame manager; the Padres skipper was Dick Williams, who had won two World Series titles with the Oakland A’s in 1972 and 1973.

As the baseball gods would have it, San Diego’s 10th game of the season was scheduled in Chavez Ravine. 52,392 fans filled Dodger Stadium on a Friday night; it was the team’s largest crowd in two years, for a game in April against a perennial doormat. The first ovation occurred at 6:08p when Garvey emerged from the dugout in his brown and gold Padres uniform to do a round of TV interviews. As Mike Littwin from the Times put it, “as homecomings go, this one had everything going for it but floats. Actually, it was more like a circus.” Another ovation, lasting nearly 2 minutes, came before his first at bat in the game.

Garvey went 0 for 4 against Valenzuela but it didn’t matter. The mutual lovefest between Steve Garvey and the Dodger faithful was genuine. The new Padres first sacker paid $15,000 for a full-page ad in the Sunday paper to thank the fans. Almost lost in the emotion of the homecoming was the fact that, on Friday night, Garvey tied Billy Williams‘ National League record with his 1,117th consecutive game played. He broke that record the next day.

The streak ultimately ended during Garvey’s 100th game in a Padres uniform. On a Friday night against the Atlanta Braves, Garvey broke his thumb while trying to score on a wild pitch. His season was over and his streak ended at 1,207 straight games played. For the truncated campaign, Garvey hit .294 with 14 HR and 59 RBI.

Padres in the Postseason

In the months prior to the 1984 season, the Padres added two more veterans to the roster in the form of a pair of Yankees, closer Goose Gossage (a future Hall of Famer) and third baseman Graig Nettles. Although the 39-year old Nettles and 35-year old Garvey were both showing signs of age (reflected in diminished statistics) they both contributed significantly to a team that featured a blossoming All-Star and MVP candidate, right fielder Tony Gwynn.

The 24-year old Gwynn (a future Cooperstown inductee) collected 213 hits en route to a .351 batting average (both best in MLB). Garvey had a power outage (just 8 HR) but still drove in 86 runs with his .284 BA. Defensively, Garvey did not commit a single error in 161 games played. The Padres won 92 games to easily win their first N.L. West title.

The Friars were matched up in the NLCS against the Chicago Cubs, in the postseason for the first time since 1945. In something that Garvey was used to (from 1981), the Padres lost the first two games of the series, facing three elimination games in a row.

The Cubs won the first two games of the NLCS at Wrigley Field, with the Padres winning Game 3 as the series moved to San Diego. In Game 4, facing elimination, in the bottom of the 5th inning, Garvey tied the score at 3 with an RBI single. In the bottom of the 7th, Garvey broke that tie with another run-scoring single. Finally, after the Cubs had tied the score at 5, Garvey hit a two-run home run to right-center field in the bottom of the 9th inning (off the Cubs’ closer Lee Smith, a future Hall of Famer) to deliver the Padres a 7-5 victory. Watching the clip of Garvey’s walk-off never gets old. You can link to it here.

In Game 5, in the bottom of the 7th, Garvey came to the plate with the Padres up 5-3. He drove in Gwynn for an insurance run, a run-scoring single that sent Cubs’ starter Rick Sutcliffe (the eventual N.L. Cy Young winner) to the showers. The Padres had their first trip to the World Series thanks mostly to the historic offensive performance by the NLCS MVP, Steve Garvey, who hit .400 in the series.

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Although they would fall to the 104-win Detroit Tigers in the World Series (with Garvey hitting just .200), it was the most successful Padres season in the franchise’s history.

1985-87: Steve Garvey’s Final Years

Steve Garvey, now 36 years old in his 17th MLB campaign, played all 162 games for the 1985 Padres. He was elected to his 10th and final All-Star squad, his 9th as a starter. For the season, he hit a respectable .281 with 17 HR, 81 RBI, and 184 Hits, his highest total since 1980. The Padres won 82 games, finishing far behind the Dodgers in the N.L. West.

In 1986, Garvey played in 155 games and managed 21 taters with 81 ribbies but his overall hitting clearly declined. He only hit .255, his worst BA since he was a part-time player in 1971. The ’86 Friars won only 74 games under new manager Steve Boros, Garvey’s first skipper who didn’t have a Cooperstown plaque in his future.

Playing for another new leader in the dugout (Larry Bowa), Garvey only managed to play in 27 games in 1987 before being forced to the disabled list for just the third time in his career. A torn biceps tendon in his left shoulder required season-ending surgery. At the time Garvey intended to come back to play in 1988 but no offers were forthcoming. He hit just .211 in 78 plate appearances in his final injury-shortened campaign.

Upon announcing his season-ending surgery, Garvey tipped his cap to the only two organizations he ever played for, saying “I’m very pleased with what I’ve accomplished here (in San Diego). There’s no reason why this couldn’t be the second-best organization in baseball, right behind the Dodgers.”

On January 13, 1988, a few weeks after he turned 39, Steve Garvey announced his retirement.

“Mr. Clean”

During his playing days, Steve Garvey was known as one of the good guys and the ultimate role model for young fans nationwide. “Mr. Clean”  was always clean-shaven with his hair perfectly coiffed. Like Cal Ripken Jr., who became baseball’s all-time Iron Man 12 years after Garvey became the Senior Circuit’s Iron Man, Garvey would sign autographs for hours. When Garvey played for Tommy Lasorda in the minors, the future Hall of Fame manager said “if he ever came to date my daughter, I’d lock the door and not let him out.”

Like Ripken, he was admired for being the rare baseball player who never took a day off from work. Like Ripken, he always treated members of the media with the utmost of respect. Also, Rick Reilly noted in Sports Illustrated that Garvey played at times “with a hyperextended elbow, 22 stitches in his chin, a pulled hamstring, a bruised heel, a migraine, the flu, a 103° fever and a toenail so impacted they had to drill a hole in it to relieve the pressure” during his streak of 1,207 consecutive games.

As a major league star in the mid-1970s, Garvey had a beautiful wife, two daughters and had such a wholesome image that a junior high school in Lindsey, CA tossed aside the name of Abraham Lincoln in favor of Garvey. He was viewed during his playing days as a future politician, possibly a U.S. Senator. He was heavily involved in charitable causes, having been given awards for distinguished service by the Multiple Sclerosis Society and the Special Olympics.

Garvey’s clean image, however, often was met with amusement by his teammates. When he was with the Padres, after the team clinched the ’84 N.L. West crown, Garvey showed up at a party at the home of Goose Gossage.

“After sundown more and more Padres showed up. Finally, in came the immaculately groomed Steve Garvey… To say Steve Garvey cared about his appearance is like saying Colonel Sanders cared about his fried chicken…. On this particular evening, Garvey’s teammates decided Steve looked a little too suave for his own good. As he walked past the swimming pool, several guys tossed him into the shallow end. Head first. When Garvey came up for air, every hair was still in place. He stepped out of the pool looking as composed and unruffled as James Bond.”

— Richard “Goose” Gossage (“The Goose is Loose”, 2000)

There has been much that’s been written in the past decades about troubles that Garvey has had that have dirtied that clean image. He’s been divorced and admitted to fathering multiple children outside of his marriage. He’s had to declare bankruptcy. I’m not going to go into the details here about Garvey’s troubles. To me, they don’t matter anymore.

Garvey’s Image and his Dodger Teammates

There is, however, one element of Garvey’s persona that I found interesting and a little sad while researching this piece. I came across a piece from 1978 in the Los Angeles Times by Skip Bayless entitled “The Isolation of Steve Garvey, Mr. Clean.” Bayless wrote that, since his MVP year of 1974, some teammates have quietly “resented, envied and misunderstood him.”

Players who talked to Bayless noted that Garvey and his wife seemed to calculatedly seek publicity. They wondered why he would sometimes sit alone on the front of the team plane rather than in the back “with the boys” and why he “wasn’t unable to self-consciously join teammates in off the field drinking, joking, cussing, and bantering.” In this article, Bayless wrote that sometimes Garvey was so depressed by his estrangement from his teammates that he wished he’d taken up an “individual sport such as tennis,” since “all you have to worry about are the elements and the competition.”

All of this actually came to a head in an “incident” involving pitcher Don Sutton later in the ’78 season. Sutton had been quoted by Tom Boswell in the Washington Post: “All you hear about on our team is Steve Garvey the All-American boy. But Reggie Smith was the real MVP. We all know it . . . (Smith) has carried us the last two years. He is not a facade. He does not have the Madison Avenue image.”

A few days after the article was published, Garvey approached the future Hall of Famer in the locker room, chatted briefly, and then, suddenly, Sutton leaped at Garvey and threw him against a row of lockers across the room. The two players went down to the ground in a fight that a veteran reporter characterized this way:

“I’ve seen plenty of baseball fights before, but I’ve never seen one where the participants showed more cold, concentrated fury amounting to an almost homicidal desire to take one another apart than in the struggle between Sutton and Garvey. This wasn’t one of those all-in-the-family pillow fights. Sutton and Garvey really went after each other. They weren’t fooling around. They were playing for keeps.”

— Milton Richman (United Press International, August 1978)

 

The bad blood between Garvey and Sutton lasted for years. Sutton is one of only two living teammates of Garvey who is in the Hall of Fame (Gossage is the other). He was a member of the 2018 Modern Baseball Committee, which elected Jack Morris and Alan Trammell and not Garvey. The two patched things up many years ago but it still makes you wonder how passionate an advocate Sutton has been for the Hall of Fame candidacy of his former teammate.

Should Steve Garvey be in the Hall of Fame?

If you have read the entire piece so far, congratulations. You are an Iron Man (or Woman) of reading as Steve Garvey was on the field.

Should Garvey be in the Hall of Fame? During his prime, while he was playing, this was an easy question to answer. The answer was “yes.” We’ve recapped all of his accolades. If it’s about fame, Garvey had it. If it’s about hitting benchmarks like 200 hits or a .300 batting average, Garvey did it. If it’s about succeeding on the game’s biggest stages (the post-season and All-Star Games), Garvey succeeded.

Garvey reached the 200-hit mark six times, something achieved by only 13 other players in baseball history at the time of his retirement. All of the other 13 are in the Hall of Fame with the exception of Pete Rose.

While he was playing, Garvey was voted to 10 All-Star teams. Only one currently or previously eligible Hall of Fame candidate not linked to scandal (gambling or PEDs) has failed to get a Cooperstown plaque with that many All-Star appearances. That one person is Detroit Tigers’ catcher Bill Freehan, who played in 11 Mid-Summer Classics.

After the Padres won their first pennant in 1984, Garvey’s October exploits of the previous eleven seasons included 11 home runs and 31 RBI. For the first 16 years of the LCS era (starting in 1969), those marks were second best in both categories only to Mr. October himself, Reggie Jackson.

There was no reason to think that Garvey wasn’t on his way to the Hall of Fame. In an espn.com piece penned by Steve Wulf seven years ago, George Brett is quoted as saying “I don’t think I was imagining it. I know I read a lot of stories about ‘future Hall of Famer’ Steve Garvey.”

Once he was retired, the Hall of Fame question became harder to answer and not just because embarrassing revelations about his personal life sullied his “Mr. Clean” image.

As a player who got 200 hits six times between 1974 to 1980, one might have expected Garvey to finish with over 3,000 for his career. Unfortunately, he fell 401 hits short of that milestone. As we’ve seen, his career was unexpectedly cut short by a torn tendon in his right biceps in early 1987. He was 38 years old. If he could have hung around as a part-time player into his early 40’s, he could have reached the milestone and would likely already be in the Hall.

When Garvey tasted champagne with his teammates after the World Series victory in 1981, his career batting average was .303. But in the ensuing years, his average dipped, not by much, but below the magic .300 number (to .294).

Steve Garvey and the 1993 BBWAA ballot

When he hit the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) ballot in early 1993, Steve Garvey got 42% of the vote, which was the 5th best among the 33 players on the ballot. As noted at the top of the piece, in the previous history of the Hall of Fame voting, every single player who hit their first ballot with at least 40% of the vote wound up with a Hall of Fame plaque within ten years.

Why didn’t Garvey do better? Besides the rumblings that his dirtied “Mr. Clean” image might have cost him some votes, his 272 home runs looked weak for a first baseman; this only got worse the longer he lasted on the Hall of Fame ballot as balls flew out of ballparks at record rates. In his 7th year on the ballot (the results revealed in January 1999), Garvey’s voting support dipped from 41% to 30%. Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that Mark McGwire hit 70 home runs in the previous season.

In Garvey’s first eight years on the BBWAA ballot, it also didn’t help that he shared the ballot with Tony Perez, a member of the Dodgers’ long-time division rival Cincinnati Reds. Perez had hit the ballot one year earlier, earning 50% of the vote. On the 1993 ballot, Perez got 55% compared to Garvey’s 42%. That’s not a dramatic difference but Perez eventually climbed over the 75% finish line while Garvey’s voting support would never get above 43%.

Garvey, Perez and Cepeda

Here are how Garvey and Perez stack up statistically.

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Side by side, it’s clear that Perez had a more prolific career.

Like Garvey, the Big Dog, of course, was also a post-season hero. Although he didn’t have the prolific October numbers that Garvey did, he was a key factor in the Big Red Machine’s Games 5 & 7 wins over the Boston Red Sox in the classic 1975 World Series, hitting three home runs in those two wins.

Complicating matters further was that another first baseman (Orlando Cepeda) was on his 14th ballot while Garvey was on his first. Cepeda gobbled up 60% of the 1993 vote. Maybe a voter would check two first basemen on their ballot, but three? So let’s add the Baby Bull to this chart. In this graphic, I’m also going to add two key modern sabermetric statistics, OPS+, and WAR.

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When Garvey, Perez, and Cepeda were all on the same ballot in 1993 and 1994, there was no such thing as WAR or OPS+ in the consciousness of any voter. Still, all you had to do was pull out a MacMillan Encyclopedia to compare the career numbers of the three first sackers on the ballot and it’s pretty easy to see why Garvey was third out of these three.

Steve Garvey’s WAR Problem

If your curious, let me explain why Garvey’s WAR is so low. It’s not because he was an average fielder and base runner and it’s not because he couldn’t hit. It’s because he didn’t take a lot of walks. Garvey got 200 hits six times but only managed to reach base 250 times once in his 19-year career. From 1974-1986, not one other player could match Garvey’s six 200-hit seasons. However, during those same 13 seasons, 36 players reached base 250 times or more (via hit, walk or hit batter) two times or more.

Keith Hernandez, one of Garvey’s contemporaries at first base, only managed 200+ hits one time but he reached base 250+ times eight different times in his career.

It’s easy for an old school fan to dismiss Garvey’s low on-base percentage as statistically irrelevant. While he was playing, OBP was not something that was considered important in the baseball mainstream. The players’ batting average was what was on the consciousness of every fan (and almost all writers) in the game. Sabermetric pioneer Bill James, writing about Garvey in The New Historical Baseball Abstract (in 2000), wrote that “Garvey had a ‘program’ for getting 200 hits. He was supposed to bunt for a hit a certain number of times… He was supposed to go with the pitch and slap it into right field a certain number of times.”

(Incidentally, James was the one man in America who did understand, at the time, the importance of drawing a walk. I became aware of the importance of on-base percentage by reading James’ Baseball Abstracts in the early 1980s).

The Importance of Walks

Is it fair for sabermetric thinking to punish a player from the 1970s and 1980s because they didn’t think walks were important? Garvey was a #3 or #4 hitter. In his time, he was an RBI man. RBI men weren’t supposed to take walks when runners were on base, ready to be driven in. For whatever it’s worth, Garvey’s career batting average was .294. His average with runners on 2nd and 3rd was .366; his average with the bases loaded was .329. It’s likely that, if Garvey were playing today, working counts and drawing walks would have been a part of his game plan.

Still, I’ll admit, that argument is a bit of a cop-out. There were plenty of players, Garvey’s contemporaries, who drew plenty of walks, and it’s not just because they were getting pitched around. In Garvey’s MVP season (1974), he hit .312 and got 200 hits on the nose but only walked 31 times, the 11th lowest number among the 66 players who qualified for the N.L. batting title.

In that same season, six players drew 100 walks, including the immortal Bob Bailey (nobody pitching around was him) and Pete Rose, a player who certainly liked getting his hits! You don’t have to use advanced metrics to see that Garvey probably wasn’t the best player in the N.L. that year. What he was, however, was the player with the great story (his write-in All-Star MVP journey) and the most famous player on the team that led the league with 102 wins.

What Mattered to Garvey: Hits and RBI

For however you want to value it, when he was playing, it was clearly important for Steve Garvey to get his hits and his RBI. As we’ve seen, Garvey collected 200 or more hits 6 times in his career. In five different campaigns, he drove in 100 or more runs. As we shared earlier (you’re forgiven if you missed it), in four different seasons, Garvey hit .300 with 200 hits, at least 20 taters, and 100 or more RBI. The only other players to reach these 4 benchmarks between ’74 and ’80 (Garvey’s best years) were Jim Rice (3 times) along with George Brett and Cecil Cooper (once each).

From 1974 to ’80, Garvey drove in 730 runs. Only Mike Schmidt (with 732) drove in more. Garvey’s 1,408 hits in these seven seasons were the most in baseball, 3 more than Pete Rose’s 1,405.

If you take the totality of Garvey’s 13 years as a full-time player (1974 to ’86), he had 2,321 hits, 168 more than Rice, who had the 2nd most. Garvey’s 1,187 RBI in these 13 campaigns are behind only Hall of Famers Schmidt, Rice, and Dave Winfield.

Key stat:

Here’s another statistical nugget to chew on. If you go to Baseball-Reference and do a “Play Index” search for every player from 1871 to 1987 who accumulated at least 225 HR, 1,200 RBI, 2,250 Hits, with a .280 BA, you will find 21 names. Those names contain 19 Hall of Famers plus Steve Garvey and Ted Simmons.

When you make a list like this, you have to be careful not to rig it too precisely to the statistics of the player in question. In this case, Garvey finished significantly ahead of these four benchmarks (he had 272 HR, 1,308 RBI, 2,599 hits, and a .294 BA).

Garvey’s 19th Chance

Steve Garvey now has yet another chance (his 19th) at a Cooperstown plaque, his fourth on the modern process of 10 names on a ballot with 16 committee members. Many players who felt that they were worthy of the Hall of Fame but have experienced decades of disappointment have expressed bitterness about the voting process. Many have the right to feel bitter. The 20th-century versions of the Veterans Committees inducted players like drunken sailors while the more recent versions have been shutting the door for years.

There are 53 players who debuted in the major leagues between 1910 and 1929 who are in the Hall of Fame; there were just 16 teams during those decades and no African-American players. Among players who debuted between 1960 and 1979, only 39 have made the Hall, despite expansion raising the total number of teams from 16 all the way up to 26.

Searching the internet for some nuggets for this piece, I can’t find a quote of Garvey expressing bitterness. He’s said that he’s “disappointed” but that’s about it. In an interview he did a couple of years ago with Christopher Russo on MLB Network’s High Heat, he made his case, rattling off his accomplishments, almost as if he were a politician running for office. He also said he was happy that there were 8 other players on the “Modern Baseball” ballot. In addition to noting that former MLB Executive Director Marvin Miller should have been in the Hall of Fame “a long time ago,” he went on to say that “any one of the guys, I think, should have a great chance to be in the Hall of Fame.”

Another Stacked Hall of Fame Ballot

This last line is so important. Just as it was two years ago, there are ten people on the ballot (nine players and Miller). Every single one of them has an excellent case to be in the Hall of Fame. If any single one of them are inducted, they will do honor to the club they’re joining. There will be 16 members of the Modern Baseball Committee who will be tasked with voting for no more than four out of these ten men. Among these 16 members, there will be Hall of Fame players, managers, and executives; there will be a couple of well-respected long-time media members; there will be some current baseball executives who are not in the Hall. Each of these 16 voters has a very difficult decision.

Besides Miller and Garvey, the candidates are Garvey’s former teammate Tommy John along with Don Mattingly, Thurman Munson, Ted Simmons, Dale Murphy, Dwight Evans, Dave Parker, and Lou Whitaker. This is an illustrious group.

Which four out of these ten to vote for? It’s a tough call. If you go strictly by WAR, it’s Whitaker, Evans, John, and Simmons (dropping Simmons if you choose to vote for Miller posthumously). Most of the members of this committee will not be going by WAR and they shouldn’t. However, as the years pass, as younger, more statistically savvy players enter the Hall of Fame and sit on these committees, future committees might. If Garvey doesn’t make it while he’s alive and future panels who didn’t see him play are tasked with evaluating his career strictly by the numbers, he’s not going to make it.

Garvey’s WAR is low, uncomfortably so, but WAR is just a guidepost that points us towards further study. Garvey’s overall career statistics are not what I’m sure he thought he’d finish his career with. The question is how do you measure what WAR doesn’t. How do you measure the All-Star performances, the October performances, the MVP trophy, and his consecutive games streak? Another Bill James invention, the “Hall of Fame monitor,” gives him 131 “points” which, based on past inductees, should have made him a virtual cinch. But it’s important to note that James’ points system attempts to assess “how likely (not how deserving) a player is to make the Hall of Fame.” The Hall of Fame monitor gives credit for accolades; WAR has no use for them.

A Plea from a Dodgers Fan

I’m going to finish with an excerpt of an article written by comedian Jimmy Kimmel, long before he started talking about politics. This was a Page2 story on espn.com, and Kimmel’s words eloquently capture how the Hall of Fame debate is so important to so many people. It also captures what was the growing chasm between old school fans and analytically oriented fans, a chasm that continues to this day.

“Before I begin the annual tirade that my friends are now very sick of hearing, I should admit that — like all sports fans — I’m biased. My favorite sport is baseball and my favorite athlete, hands-down, is Steve Garvey… 

…Hindsight is cold. We have computers now that “re-value” baseball players of the past. They travel back in time with new and frequently nonsensical formulas designed to quantify greatness — or, more often, to make a case against it… These are the “facts” pointed to most often when Garvey’s Hall of Fame qualifications are discussed: Random, machine-generated equations. His on-base percentage wasn’t good enough. His OPS (whatever that is) doesn’t compare to some of the other guys…

…The reason Steve Garvey isn’t in the Hall of Fame has little to do with baseball. It’s because he couldn’t live up to the “perfect” status we assigned him. The paternity suits — which seem quaint by today’s standards — made him a national punch line. The same writers who created his All-American image now punish him for embracing it. Of course, if he had been using steroids and human growth hormones during his playing career, everyone would have looked the other way. You can be super-human; you just can’t be human.”

— Jimmy Kimmel (on espn.com’s Page 2) (May 1, 2004)

 

Kimmel is nearly my age. He turned 52 on November 13th. He grew up watching baseball as I did. For Kimmel, as it was for me, as kids, Steve Garvey was a legend, a no-doubt Hall of Famer. The difference is that he grew up a Dodger fan and I didn’t. It’s hard to look at the heroes of our youth under the analytical microscopes we have available today. I understand his passion and frustration. But the “nonsensical formulas” actually do make a lot of sense and have to be taken into consideration. Kimmel wrote this 15 years ago. I don’t know if he still feels this way but I am certain there are scores of Dodgers fans who do.

Conclusion

I would be delighted if Steve Garvey made the Hall of Fame. It’s true that he would lower the analytics standard of what a Hall of Famer should be but he wouldn’t lower the standard of accomplishments that we expect from our inductees. If a plaque in Cooperstown means that you were an important part of the history of the game, not for one moment or one season, but for a decade on the diamond, Garvey passes that test. Whoever would be tasked with writing the text on Garvey’s plaque would have no shortage of accolades or accomplishments to cite. If I had an up or down “yes” or “no” vote, I’d vote “yes” for Garvey.

However, there are eight other players (plus Miller) on the Modern Baseball ballot and each committee member can only vote for four men. Is he one of the four best on the current slate? That’s a more difficult question and any of the nine players on the ballot have cases worthy of Cooperstown. Personally, I can’t put Garvey in my top four.

I’m not alone. As previously noted, this is Garvey’s fourth bite at the Veterans/Eras Committee apple and the first three tries didn’t go well.

Is it possible that Steve Garvey will have a breakthrough on the 2020 ballot? I’m dubious. If it happens, however, I will celebrate with all of Dodger Nation for the ultimate honor for one of their favorite sons.

Thanks for reading. Please follow Cooperstown Cred on Twitter @cooperstowncred.

Chris Bodig

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