Senate candidate Steve Garvey tours the Skid Row area of Los Angeles on Jan. 11. The former Dodgers star is the only Republican with a recognizable name on the March ballot.
Steve Garvey, now the leading Republican candidate for California’s U.S. Senate seat, started his career on the left.
The left side of the infield, that is. When the Los Angeles Dodgers first called up Garvey to the majors in 1969, he played third base.
But Garvey on the left was a defensive disaster. He had a powerful arm, but it was dangerously inaccurate. He threw so many balls over the first baseman’s head and into the stands that fans began bringing gloves to defend themselves.
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In 1973, the Dodgers moved Garvey to first base, where he only had to catch the ball (first basemen rarely throw). With his defensive liabilities hidden, he could focus on his excellent hitting. He’s stayed on the right side ever since.
In baseball, as in politics, success is often a matter of positioning. You may fail in one spot, but flourish in another where your weaknesses are less apparent.
That’s also the strategic thinking behind Garvey’s campaign for Senate. At 75, the former first baseman is a first-time political candidate for a powerful office. He has little record of public service and a post-baseball record with some errors.
But he’s in the right position. He’s the only Republican with a recognizable name running for U.S. Senate in the March election. He also is lucky to be running in California’s peculiar top-two election system — which makes our state’s politics more like baseball.
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Baseball, like politics, is often described as a team sport. But in reality, baseball is about individual battles (pitcher versus hitter) and competition between teammates for positions and playing time.
California’s top-two system makes politics more like this — it sets up clashes between individual politicians who are on the same team, usually the dominant Democratic Party. Currently, three Democratic members of the House of Representatives — Adam Schiff, Katie Porter and Barbara Lee — are fighting each other for the U.S. Senate seat, and dividing up votes.
Garvey is using that dynamic to his advantage. With his consolidated GOP support, he is very likely to be one of the top two candidates who advance to the November election against one of the three Democrats.
Garvey, who voted twice for Donald Trump, would be a heavy underdog in November against any Democrat. But simply getting Garvey to November would be a huge victory for the Republican Party in California and nationally. In previous elections, when two Democrats advanced in the U.S. Senate races, the GOP saw drops in turnout among its voters, hurting Republican candidates for U.S. House seats. But with the well-known Garvey on the ballot, more Republicans would show up, boosting the Republican congressional candidates in close races that could determine control of the chamber.
Garvey’s ability to draw votes may depend on how well he can hide his weaknesses. He has kept an unusually low profile so far. But that may change when Garvey and the three Democrats debate for the first time on Monday.
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The debate could bring up embarrassing moments from Garvey’s past. In the late 1980s, Garvey, after retiring from the San Diego Padres, went through a public divorce. His first wife, Cindy, wrote a tell-all book and two different ex-lovers revealed Garvey had fathered children out of wedlock. The scandal inspired a famous bumper sticker on disappointed fans’ cars: “Steve Garvey is Not My Padre.”
Since then, Garvey’s notices have not been much better. Early in the 2000s, the Federal Trade Commission pursued penalties against him for “flagrantly false and deceptive claims on behalf of a weight-loss program in infomercials.” In 2006, the Los Angeles Times reported that Garvey and his second wife, Candace, were living extravagantly while dodging debts — bouncing checks (including at a grocery store) and failing to pay bills to his pediatrician, nanny and church. One attorney to whom he owed money told the Times: “Once a Dodger, always a dodger.”
At the time, Garvey acknowledged financial problems but blasted his creditors for attacking him in the press.
Memories of those reports have faded. As a candidate, Garvey hasn’t really explained these problems or how he overcame them. His website portrays him merely as a successful businessman and philanthropist.
He hasn’t said much to the press about much of anything else. He’s done few public events and offered little detail on his policies or what he might do for California in the Senate. He declined to sit for an endorsement interview with the Chronicle editorial board.
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Garvey’s campaign visuals and videos are mostly about his baseball career. They emphasize the days when he helped lead Dodgers and Padres to the World Series. His interactions with voters, too, are often about his glory days at first base.
After all these years, he’s still hiding his weaknesses over on the right side of the field.
Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square. He is also founder of the planetary publication Democracy Local.
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