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Like his illegitimate kids?
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If he is somehow elected in the future by a Veterans Committee with new rules, he'll be the prototypical mediocre HOF VC pick.
None of your "fans" would show up should you somehow connive your way in anyway -- the NAMBLA national convention and Hitler days in Argentina are always the same weekend as the HoF inductions.
I drink your tears, Steve Garvey... yum... I DRINK YOUR TEARS.
If Steve Garvey ever makes it into the Hall of Fame, I am done with baseball. Done.
My, God, Garvey's web site is completely serious about this, aren't they?
When Garvey was playing, I think most thought he would make the HoF someday. The zipper issue has killed his shot at a political career.
That depends. How much money do you have? Steve Garvey will be WHATEVER you want him to be, big fella,
The downfall of Garvey has preserved my faith in a benevolent god, I suppose there are people that might find that a good thing.
As a ballplayer, Gil Hodges was Steve Garvey before Steve Garvey. After his playing days were over, Hodges went on to manage a WS winner. Hodges never lost his All-American boy and all-around nice guy image, and even with the sympathy votes engendered by his untimely death, never got as high as 65% in the balloting. Although Garvey was frequently talked about as a potential future HOFer during his playing days, I don't think he ever really stood a chance. The off-field stuff almost certainly suppressed his totals, but I doubt that they can account for 30% of the electorate refusing to vote for someone they thought was otherwise qualified.
all players (not in the Hall)
.290+ average
250+ HR
2500+ Hits
1250+ RBI
in other words, a list designed to group Garvey with players all better than him by MSM standards (let alone real standards)
Cnt Player RBI BA HR H PA From To Ages
+----+-----------------+----+-----+---+----+-----+----+----+-----+
1 Barry Bonds 1996 .298 762 2935 12606 1986 2007 21-42
2 Gary Sheffield 1600 .294 487 2570 10413 1988 2008 19-39
3 Dave Parker 1493 .290 339 2712 10184 1973 1991 22-40
4 Steve Garvey 1308 .294 272 2599 9466 1969 1987 20-38
hmmmmm
replace .290 average with .445 slugging (Garvey was .446)
Cnt Player RBI SLG HR H PA From To Ages
+----+-----------------+----+-----+---+----+-----+----+----+-----+
1 Barry Bonds 1996 .607 762 2935 12606 1986 2007 21-42
2 Rafael Palmeiro 1835 .515 569 3020 12046 1986 2005 21-40
3 Ken Griffey 1750 .548 606 2641 10572 1989 2008 19-38
4 Harold Baines 1628 .465 384 2866 11092 1980 2001 21-42
5 Gary Sheffield 1600 .518 487 2570 10413 1988 2008 19-39
6 Andre Dawson 1591 .482 438 2774 10769 1976 1996 21-41
7 Dave Parker 1493 .471 339 2712 10184 1973 1991 22-40
8 Luis Gonzalez 1427 .479 352 2568 10427 1990 2008 22-40
9 Steve Garvey 1308 .446 272 2599 9466 1969 1987 20-38
all better than Garvey, and a few not getting in
How about slugging over .445, OBP over .328 (in place of the 2500 hit requirement)
Cnt Player RBI SLG HR OBP PA From To Ages
+----+-----------------+----+-----+---+-----+-----+----+----+-----+
1 Barry Bonds 1996 .607 762 .444 12606 1986 2007 21-42
2 Rafael Palmeiro 1835 .515 569 .371 12046 1986 2005 21-40
3 Ken Griffey 1750 .548 606 .373 10572 1989 2008 19-38
4 Frank Thomas 1701 .558 520 .420 9965 1990 2008 22-40
5 Sammy Sosa 1667 .534 609 .344 9896 1989 2007 20-38
6 Manny Ramirez 1666 .590 509 .409 8755 1993 2008 21-36
7 Harold Baines 1628 .465 384 .356 11092 1980 2001 21-42
8 Gary Sheffield 1600 .518 487 .395 10413 1988 2008 19-39
9 Alex Rodriguez 1564 .579 539 .389 8829 1994 2008 18-32
10 Fred McGriff 1550 .509 493 .377 10174 1986 2004 22-40
11 Jeff Bagwell 1529 .540 449 .408 9431 1991 2005 23-37
12 Jeff Kent 1502 .501 375 .355 9398 1992 2008 24-40
13 Dave Parker 1493 .471 339 .339 10184 1973 1991 22-40
14 Jim Thome 1454 .562 526 .408 8798 1991 2008 20-37
15 Jim Rice 1451 .502 382 .352 9058 1974 1989 21-36
16 Carlos Delgado 1433 .545 450 .384 8280 1993 2008 21-36
17 Luis Gonzalez 1427 .479 352 .367 10427 1990 2008 22-40
18 Andres Galarraga 1425 .499 399 .347 8916 1985 2004 24-43
19 Mark McGwire 1414 .588 583 .394 7660 1986 2001 22-37
20 Jose Canseco 1407 .515 462 .353 8129 1985 2001 20-36
21 Juan Gonzalez 1404 .561 434 .343 7155 1989 2005 19-35
22 Dwight Evans 1384 .470 385 .370 10569 1972 1991 20-39
23 Chili Davis 1372 .451 350 .360 9996 1981 1999 21-39
24 Chipper Jones 1354 .548 404 .406 8523 1993 2008 21-36
25 Mike Piazza 1335 .545 427 .377 7745 1992 2007 23-38
+----+-----------------+----+-----+---+-----+-----+----+----+-----+
Cnt Player RBI SLG HR OBP PA From To Ages
+----+-----------------+----+-----+---+-----+-----+----+----+-----+
26 Ron Santo 1331 .464 342 .362 9396 1960 1974 20-34
27 Larry Walker 1311 .565 383 .400 8030 1989 2005 22-38
28 Steve Garvey 1308 .446 272 .329 9466 1969 1987 20-38
29 Moises Alou 1287 .516 332 .369 7913 1990 2008 23-41
30 Del Ennis 1284 .472 288 .340 7940 1946 1959 21-34
31 Bob Johnson 1283 .506 288 .393 8047 1933 1945 27-39
32 Gil Hodges 1274 .487 370 .359 8104 1943 1963 19-39
33 Tino Martinez 1271 .471 339 .344 8044 1990 2005 22-37
34 Paul O'Neill 1269 .470 281 .363 8329 1985 2001 22-38
35 Dale Murphy 1266 .469 398 .346 9040 1976 1993 20-37
36 Edgar Martinez 1261 .515 309 .418 8672 1987 2004 24-41
37 Bernie Williams 1257 .477 287 .381 9053 1991 2006 22-37
again almost everyone is better than Garvey
Tino is roughly comparable I guess, Ennis, maybe Chili Davis...
Understatement.
Since the HoF adopted the five-year waiting period before eligibility in the mid-1950s, only two men have scored higher than Garvey and not won induction via the BBWAA election - Andre Dawson, who will go in the next 2-3 years, and Lee Smith. With Smith, it's a sign of how the HoF is still trying to figure out how to handle relief pitchers. Also, at least Smith has maintained his support. Heck, he might go in yet.
Garvey didn't just miss, his supported CRATERED. He lost half his support. There's only one parallel to him, and it's an instructive one - Maury Willis. Like Garvey, he also got around 40% before his support cratered.
What happened - a combinaiton of off-field embarressments and re-evaluation of on-field accomplishments happened. Willis got nailed for drugs, made a fool of himself as managers - and he did it right when Rickey Henderson started stealing 100 bases a year, with Raines nipping at his heels, and Vince Coleman following them both up. Made Wills's game look less impressive right at the moment people didn't want to hear about good things about the man.
Mr. Good Two Shoes got caught committing the one sin the public doesn't tolerate - hypocrisy. And he did it in the worst possible way - Mr. Morally Beter Than You was boffing women left and right. Meanwhile, the rise of OBP silentlyhappened in the background.
So, here's a question: would Garvey have a shot at the HoF absent the off-field issues?
I think he'd have a very good shot. At the very least, he'd be near the top of the VC's toteboard.
Garvey, Jackson and Rose were the media-driven, overhyped stars of that period, and Garvey's hypercoiffed Mr.Clean image was something many of the writers got into, as it reassured some of them in the post-Vietnam Era. Garvey/media/fans was a self-reflexive love-hate dialectical thing, a bit like coverage of Derek Jeter is now.
Garvey, like Rose and to an extent Jackson, almost always went out of his way to cooperate with the press, so many of the stories at the time were "Hey, he's not a phony--he is really like this, gosh darn it." And he played in LA, and had great Triple Crown stats and a great fielding percentage. And playing here in SD, he hit a huge homer in postseason against the 1984 Cubs.
Nabbit summarizes the post-career Garvey well in #23--and now, as this thread shows, Garvey is seen as a joke--a Grade-D celebrity, a clown, a punchline--hawking crap on informericals and doing cheesy speeches.
Oh, that's far from the worst possible way. Just replace "women" with any number of alternatives and it would be worse.
He was good, BUT he was widely perceived as elite, the MSM absolutely loved him. He was seen as the franchise player on a great team (1970s Dodgers) (He wasn't, but he was seen as the Man at the time)
The same way Morneau won- he had the best looking AVG-HR-RBI line among players on contending teams.
1: Because many members of the MSM are baffled by the failure to elect him
2: Because he STILL has a fanbase
3: Because Primates LOVE to bash him
WRT to the 1974 MVP voting- the voting constitutes a war crime
Garvey a 1B, won with a 130 OPS+ (.312-21-111)
Number 2 was Lou Brock a LF with an OPS+ of 110 (but that was the year he stole 118)
#4 Johnny Bench a great defensive catcher had a 143 OPS+ (.280-33-129) ordinarily I think he would have won if not for the fact that the voters were tired of voting for him
# 5 was Garvey's teammate, Jimmy Wynn a good defnsivce CF with an OPS+ of 151 (.271-32-108) Garvey wasn't HALF as good as Wynn that year- not even effing close
# 6 was Mike Schmidt with an OPS+ of 158, .282-36-116
#7 was Al lLiver and even HE was better than Garvey that year- CF/1B OPS+ 135
#8 was Joe Morgan, a 2b with a 159 OPS+
Richie Zisk had a better year than Garvey
Reggie Smith was better...
What's really strange is that Garvey did not win because all these better players split the vote amongst themselves (like the 1999 AL vote)- rather only Garvey and Brock seriously contended for the "honor"...
Morneau's election wasn't near;y as bad as Garvey's
1: Because many members of the MSM are baffled by the failure to elect him
That's about 1% of it.
2: Because he STILL has a fanbase
That brings it up to about 3%.
3: Because Primates LOVE to bash him
And that accounts for the remaining 97%.
On merit, he's not a HOFer. All that other crap he did is entirely superfluous.
That too, I live in the east coast, I read just about everything about baseball that I could get my hands on- but it wasn't until the mid eighties that I first read his teammtes (virtually all of them) absolutely despised and detested Garvey and did so from day one.
I still don't know what to make of some Baseball writers who after creating Garvey the "idol", were in such a hurry to tear him down- many claime dto have felt "betrayed" by Garvey...
Really? when they wrote that "Hey, he's not a phony--he is really like this, gosh darn it." - had Garvey really snowed them and now they were humiliated? (or really betrayed?
Or did they know what Garvey was all along (a phony) and were just PO'd because now they looked foolish after everyone else found out?
The difference with the Rose backlash is that I really believe a lot of Rose's supporters really believed him, and felt betrayed when he finally confessed. (Hell he hoodwinked Bill James, James' "analysis" of the Dowd Report was and remains the absolute worst piece of analytical writing/thinking he's ever done on ANYTHING
Oh, that's far from the worst possible way. Just replace "women" with any number of alternatives and it would be worse.
Ok, I'll give it a try:
Mr. Morally Better Than You was boffing donkeys left and right.
It's kind of silly to compare the raw stats of Garvey, who played in two pitchers' parks in the 1970s and early 1980s, to people like Tino Martinez and Andres Galarraga.
Garvey actually was a good player for a while. Decent hr power considering the home park. Not many walks, but good average, good defense at first (especially at handling poor throws) and he stayed in the lineup. Without a doubt overrated, but certainly good enough to make major contributions to a championship caliber team.
And as others have said, despised by his teammates. He and Don Sutton got into a major brawl in the lockerroom once.
um, no. saw him at some oldtimers day at dodger stadium this year, his puffy howdy doody face looks like its made of some weird shiny substance and his hair looks like its been laquered or something.
Like I said, at least he still has his looks.
You should have seen him throw. He had an arm like a leg.
I disagree. James' point was that Dowd had been hired to write a report summarizing the situation as a whole, not a prosecutor's brief. James presented evidence and arguments that would have exonerated Rose, not because James necessarily believed Rose was innocent, but because that evidence and those arguments existed, and Dowd had not presented them.
(Just off the top of my head, Bill's junk stat to rank the best young players that had Tom Gorzelanny over Sabathia and Webb might be a low point...)
Garvey was a lot like Jim Rice. You have to know the media context in which these guys played. The majors had just gone through a great crop of outfielders, a couple of generations starting with DiMaggio and going through Aaron and his generation. That run had just ended and the current crop of outfielders and first basemen - sluggers - was weak for whatever reason. Also in the 1970s a lot of people still placed a lot of emphasis on hitting .300 and not striking out. Articles about Johnny Bench, who did just about everything, would mention that he had never hit .300. Same with Mike Schmidt.
Even though Garvey and Rice weren't the allaround players that DiMaggio or Aaron had been, and their stats weren't as good anyway, they hit .300 a lot and with enough power to be dangerous. They fit the profile people were looking for and were among the best of a weak crop.
Batting Average was king in the 70s. In the mainstream media, people cared about the triple crown stats. Batting .300 was a big deal. 200 hits was a very big deal. On defense, people looked at fielding percentage, not range.
Garvey was a perennial .300 hitter with 20/100 power who had excellent fielding percentages and was viewed as a guy who could really pick it at first. The year he fell below .300, 1977, was the year Lasorda publicly requested that he try to hit for better power. So Garvey "took one for the team", had the best power numbers of his career, dropped to a lowly .297 average and under 200 hits and the Dodgers went to the World Series. It added to the public perception of him as a winner who did what it took to get the job done.
So normal people thought he was a great ballplayer -- it's as simple as that. That's why he went to 10 All-Star games. He had the numbers that mattered then, and in addition (check out BBref) he was clutch. Look at his total career postseason line: .357 BA, 12 homers in 330 AB (remember this was the 70s -- that's pretty good.) When he hit that homer for the Padres in 1984, people in LA said, "yep, that's the Steve Garvey we know." If you were an LA fan you wanted him at the plate when the game was on the line.
It was clear at the time that Garvey set 200 hits/.300 BA as his personal goals because he thought those were what mattered. That's why he's confused now -- because perceptions have changed, and he still sees himself as being one of the best of his time because at the time he played he excelled at what he thought mattered. He probably thought he was better than Bench, because Bench had nowhere near 200 hits and couldn't sniff .300. If he played nowadays, he would probably try for a .400 OBP/.500 SLG -- whether he could actually do it is unclear.
I was just reading the Garvey entry in my newly-purchased "Bill James Historical Abstract", and that's essentially what it said. Garvey would bunt a prescribed number of times per month, and slap the ball the other way a prescribed number of teims per month. James says that this made Garvey basically slump-proof.
I firmly believe that if he hadn't had feet of clay personally, he'd be in by now. His absence from the Hall has nothing to do with his on-field performance.
Along the lines of JPWF's lists above, here's a list with Garvey in the middle of a range of 1000 PA and 20 points of OPS+. As you can see, even many of the better hitters than Garvey on the list are HOVG types at best: Bernie Williams is top of the list in OPS+; Downing, Murphy, Al Oliver, and Mark Grace are above Garvey. Joe Judge and Mickey Vernon are very close, and excellent comps from the past. All terrific players, but the HOFers on the list tend to be catchers or middle infielders (Fisk, Carter, Sandberg) or among the more marginal characters in the Hall (Enos Slaughter). George Sisler is distantly comparable to Garvey, but was (a) a better hitter and (b) wrote the book on first-base defense, while Garvey only skimmed a few chapters of it.
Garvey hit .393/.433/.821 with seven RBI in ten All-Star Games. Loved that All-Star Game.
You should still hate him. His teammates did. His holier than thou persona wasn't just in the "I'm gonna be a Senator some day" world of media relations.
...and we should also point out - despite the Seig Heiling, Jonas Brothers lusting jag's claims to the contrary in this article - his own friggin' website prominently plugs him for Cooperstown.
I do love that he has a website, complete with contact info to get in touch with him, though...
It always me to send him daily messages like this:
For some of us, it has never stopped being Saturday, October 6, 1984.
I've forgiven all of the other Padres from that team... Gwynn, Nettles, Wiggins (RIP), Templeton... but not Garvey. The fact that he's so easy to dislike as a human being makes it all the more easier.
Gotcha. Cubs fan. Makes perfect sense now.
For some of us, it has never stopped being Saturday, October 6, 1984.
Sounds like you think it would have been better if Garvey had pulled a Chick Gandil rather than hit that home run.
Of course. If Garvey had convinced the rest of the Padres to throw the series, the Cubs would have won.
Or Jim Frey and Billy Connors pitcher monitoring lessons and bullpen usage lessons.
I didn't say Tino was better- in fact I pointed him out as an exception to the general observation that most everyone on the list was clearly better than Garvey.
My other point was that the BBWAA seems to care most about traditional raw stats- and Garvey doesn't have a good case even by those "standards"
You obviously didn't read everything James wrote on the topic, he clearly believed Rose was innocent, he even called him "baseball's wronged man"
Reading and writing legal briefs is a large part of what I do for a living, even viewed as a defense brief, Jame's arguments and "defenses" were absolutely terrible (in large part because Rose was guilty and its really hard to write a good defense of a hopeless case)
Too bad Le Monde hadn't picked up the stories about multiple mistresses, we might be talking about French Premier Steve Garvey today.
You forgave Show?
For 1984?
Sort of...
But then he went Dawson headhunting while on probation.
Goose Gossage sort of falls into that category, too -- though, for being absolutely putrid in '88 during his brief stint as a Cub.
"Over time Show's mental health and drug abuse seemed to worsen. At one point he was arrested by the police in downtown San Diego while yelling that someone was trying to kill him. Once inside the police car he kicked out the window and fled on foot until caught. Show additionally showed up at the Oakland A's training camp with bandaged hands after police had pursued him on another occasion after reports were made of him acting oddly inside an adult bookstore.
After he was out of baseball, Show's faith deserted him, as he fell victim to drug abuse. He died in a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in Dulzura, California, of a heart attack after taking a speedball."
Geez...
Show, Garvey, Alan Wiggins...
The 1984 Padres were sort of the 1986 Mets before the 1986 Mets were...ummm... the 1986 Mets.
Was Show one of the John Birchers on the '84 Pads? I seem to recall they had several of them. I think Dravecky was, right?
Show, Thurmond, Dravecky and Storm Davis.
Made me laugh!
So he might have been a Bircher too.
also, at the time, there was a lot of feeling garvey would eventually be in the hall. not inner circle, but that he wouldn't have to buy a ticket.
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