Despite his blustery ways Lasorda was not dumb. He was well aware of his job duties. Among the most important, of course, was his responsibility for putting the best Dodger lineup possible out on the field each day. And as June turned to the midseason month of July, and thoughts around the league increasingly turned to the looming stretch run toward the playoffs, Lasorda had some deep concerns about his lineup, particularly when it came to the crucial position of center field. After the incident at the Astrodome on May 31, the resulting day-to-day status for the regular center fielder, Rick Monday, forced Lasorda to weigh his options, and he realized he had no choice but to recall Minor League prospect Glenn Burke to the team.6 On June 3 Burke had made his first start of the season for the Dodgers, grounding out twice before walking once in the game. Monday felt well enough to appear as a pinch hitter in the tenth inning of the eleven-inning loss, but not well enough to avoid striking out against Rollie Fingers. On June 4 Monday started the game, but his back stiffened up again, and he had to give way to Burke in the first inning. Burke promptly proceeded to go three for four and knock in two runs in a 9–4 win over the Padres. Over the next two weeks, between June 4 and June 19, Monday played sporadically, batted just .214, and had just two RBIs. Burke fared little better at the plate over this period, hitting just .194, though he did cover far more territory than Monday in the field. Monday briefly broke from his funk on June 20, smashing three hits, including two home runs, but the worst news was yet to come. On June 22 team doctor Frank Jobe announced that Monday’s sporadic back spasms were due to an unnatural spinal curvature. Although Monday had always had the curvature and had not been bothered by it, Jobe placed Monday on a special exercise and weight-reduction program to help deal with the issue. “We’re hoping it will be only another couple of days,” said Dr. Jobe, but Monday would remain ineffective through much of the summer.7 He sat out completely between July 13 and August 5 and appeared only in spots afterward. By the end of August, with just over a month left in the season, Monday’s average had fallen to .246, and he had collected only twelve HRs and forty-one RBIs (compared to twenty-four and ninety-eight for Cey and twenty-eight and ninety-four for Garvey, the team’s two most productive hitters). The performance was a far cry from what the team had expected from its All-American hero of a center fielder.
Although Monday’s disappointing production was an obvious concern for Lasorda, this was not his only worry. As was usual for baseball teams over a long season, various players spent time on the bench in 1977 to nurse injuries and ailments. Dave Lopes missed ten days with a bruised hand. Bill Russell sat out with a severely twisted ankle. Lee Lacy missed nearly a month with a wrist problem, a result of the June fight against the Cubs. Reggie Smith sat out with a sore knee, Steve Yeager with a twisted ankle, and so on.
Fortunately for Lasorda, however, the team’s pitchers were healthy and, in most cases, far exceeding the manager’s expectations. Tommy John has fallen into the workmanlike professional routine he was known for, showing no open signs of dissent as he compiled a 9-4 record. Don Sutton, too, had been excellent. On July 13 Sutton was picked as one of the eight pitchers named to represent the National League in the All-Star Game. His 10-3 win-loss record, eighty strikeouts against just forty-two walks, and 2.47 ERA were enough for rival manager Sparky Anderson to extend the invitation, the fourth of Sutton’s career.8 Three other Dodgers would join Sutton at the All-Star Game. Ron Cey was chosen by fans as the starting third baseman, and Steve Garvey was chosen at first base. Garvey, of course, was well known. And Cey, who had been on fire early, had raised his own stock in the minds of many fans. Additionally, Reggie Smith was chosen by Sparky Anderson as a backup outfielder. Reggie Smith had displayed plenty of firepower for the Dodgers thus far, with a .440 on-base percentage, a slugging percentage of .595 (as of July 14), and seventeen home runs. He had also done much to once and for all cement his reputation around the league.
The book on Reggie Smith had long been that he was a troublemaking player with a hair-trigger temper and a saucer-size chip on his shoulder. Incidents this season against the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals—in which Smith had charged pitchers after getting hit by them—had been chalked up to that reputation. Yet, at the same time, on Lasorda’s Dodgers he had shown a different side. “I don’t know where he got that reputation,” said Lasorda of his right fielder. “The only thing I know is when I became manager I told him I needed him and he put his arm around me and told me he would never let me down. Believe me, there have been times when his leg was bothering him and he went out and played anyway. When he said he wouldn’t let me down, he meant it. I don’t care what anybody else says about Reggie Smith. I think he’s one of the nicest guys I ever met.” Even Sparky Anderson pointed to Smith as a key to the team’s success. “Lopes and Smith are the whole difference,” he said. As for his past reputation as a player on the Boston Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals, Smith shrugged. “I had a temper and at times it would get out of control. [But] maybe subconsciously I was rebelling. I was determined to be myself,” and not the ballplayer that everyone said he should be.9
If Lasorda was pleased to see Smith become comfortable in his skin, he likely was ecstatic to see that Sutton had remained professionally sharp and focused as the season wore on. On July 18 Sutton was named, for the first time in his career, the National League All-Star team’s starting pitcher. As a result a local sports columnist noted that the ordinarily irascible and outspoken pitcher seemed happier than ever. “All my childhood I dreamed of the day when I could pitch in Yankee Stadium,” Sutton said after hearing the news. “I played many an imaginary game in Yankee Stadium. . . . To finally pitch in Yankee Stadium will be an incredible experience for me. I don’t know how I’ll handle it.” Still, despite the warm feelings, the old Sutton had not completely faded. Asked if Walter Alston’s replacement, Tom Lasorda, was responsible for the Dodgers’ success so far in 1977, Sutton’s answer was blunt: “I don’t think so. Tommy’s got the kind of club where all he has to do is make out the lineup.”10 The comment wounded Lasorda, and while Sutton smoothed things over by apologizing to Lasorda and saying that he had just been kidding and was embarrassed how the quote came across, the resurgence of Sutton’s defiance was worrisome. After all, Dodger fans wondered, could a lack of team cohesion be the cause of another second-half collapse?
Adding to Lasorda’s anxiety over the Dodgers’ situation was an additional concern about the team’s pitching that surfaced of late. While the Dodgers’ starting rotation—Tommy John (9-4, 3.48 ERA thus far on the season), Doug Rau (10-1, 3.86), Bert Hooton (8-3, 2.66), and Rick Rhoden (10-5, 3.97)—was one of the best in the league and a key to the Dodgers’ stability in keeping atop the NL West,11 the state of the team’s reliever corps was a different story. On July 16, after a rough week for the Dodgers’ closer, Charlie Hough, letters had poured into the sports pages of the local papers. The key issue, it seemed, was the growing perception that Hough had a tendency to give up hits and walks in key situations. For instance, on July 10 the Dodgers played a doubleheader against the Padres. In the first game in the afternoon, with the team leading 5–4 after six innings, Hough entered the game in the top of the seventh. After giving up a walk and a double before escaping his first inning, Hough gave up the tying run in the top of the eighth and two more runs in top of the ninth to earn a 7–5 loss.12 The loss was Hough’s eighth of the season (against four wins), and things were no better when Hough entered the nightcap with one out in the ninth and the game tied 4–4. The first batter who faced Hough, George Hendrick, singled to right, knocking in the go-ahead run from second base. Although Hough would not get credit for the loss, as the runner belonged to starter Rick Rhoden, the failure of Hough to hold this game after his loss in the earlier game incensed many team followers. “Shame on the Dodgers for not providing Lasorda with relief pitchers!” wrote one fan later in the week. “No one except Garman has done any winning.” Another fan called Hough a “cracked rhinestone,” wond
ering how long Lasorda would continue to allow him to let games get away. Yet another fan suggested that, with Hough, the Dodgers’ chance of winning the pennant was becoming “slim and impossible.”13
Despite the furor Lasorda remained committed to his knuckleballer. Although Hough was not one of the newly emerging breed of power-throwing, lights-out closers, he had still amassed nineteen saves for the Dodgers by the time of the Padres doubleheader, and his ERA was a respectable 2.74. Still, with Hough’s recent ineffectiveness as the All-Star break approached, the Dodger manager was worried about the bullpen. When reliever Mike Garman came down with a strained groin during the same week of Hough’s undoing, the team was suddenly desperate. On June 19 the Dodgers announced they were calling up young left-hander Lance Rautzhan from their AAA team in Albuquerque. A sign of how desperate the team was could be seen in the fact that Rautzhan’s record in the Minors was a mediocre 4-4 with a 4.96 ERA in twenty-eight appearances. Attempts to justify the call-up by pointing out Rautzhan’s 3-1 record and four saves in his most recent appearances only further highlighted the team’s nervousness.
The fan furor over the Dodgers’ mediocre relief pitching, even in the midst of a highly successful season, was baffling to Lasorda. “Charlie . . . has done a tremendous job for us,” he said, “and that’s one of the reasons we’re where we are. He’s a fine young man. . . . I just can’t figure it out. I guess if the fans pay their money, they’re entitled to boo.”14 On the other hand, Lasorda might have added, sports fans love to cheer a winner—a fact that helped explain the abiding popularity, across Los Angeles, of Steve Garvey. Out of all the Dodgers who contributed to the team’s success in 1977—players like Don Sutton and Ron Cey and Tommy John and Reggie Smith—Steve Garvey exhibited, in the minds of local fans, the characteristics of a clear and honest winner.
As if to quantify the matter, on July 12 it was revealed that, at the close of the fan balloting for the All-Star Game, Garvey not only was the top vote getter in both leagues, but was also the first player at any position ever to receive more than four million votes.15 So what was it that fans liked about Steve Garvey? Well, for one, there was the way he handled the bat. Garvey was a hitter’s hitter, always well prepared, often able to come through when it most mattered. “Garvey is the best hitter I have ever seen,” Reggie Jackson said after his Oakland A’s had faced the Dodgers in the 1974 World Series. “Steve Garvey is a right-handed Lou Gehrig,” said veteran Yankees scout Clyde Kluttz in 1975. “Garvey with a bat in his hand is a candidate for the Hall of Fame,” said another scout.16 And in fact, despite Cey’s monster month of April, by the All-Star break Garvey had uncomplainingly and steadily passed Cey, at least when it came to two measurable statistics—Garvey had twenty-two home runs to Cey’s eighteen, and he had eighty RBIs to Cey’s seventy-six. The fact was that Garvey was such a good, pure hitter that his success was almost taken for granted. His consistent production, in fact, was such a given that for years his nickname, in certain circles, was “Mr. Consistency.”
Interestingly, Garvey’s emergence as a star very nearly never happened. Although Garvey had always shown promise at the plate, he had never proved he could play in the field. Brought up originally as a third baseman, Garvey could not overcome a bum arm, the result of an injury from his years playing college football at Michigan State University. (The same scout who suggested his bat might take him to the Hall of Fame also said, “Garvey with a ball in his hands is a candidate for the post office.”)17 While trying to break in as a Dodger regular at third base in 1971 and 1972, for example, Garvey made forty-two errors in 133 starts at the position. By 1973 rumors circulated widely that the Dodgers were ready to trade him. Confused and frustrated, Garvey walked into the office of Dodger general manager Al Campanis and insisted on knowing what the Dodgers planned for him. Campanis told Garvey that he was still considered an integral part of the team, and there would be no trade. Then, according to Garvey, everything changed. On June 23, 1973, the team played a doubleheader against the Cincinnati Reds. Bill Buckner, the Dodgers’ regular first baseman, had been struggling of late, his batting average having dropped forty points from the year before, so Dodger manager Walt Alston made a snap decision, penciling in Steve Garvey’s name on the lineup card at first base. Garvey, who had played but once or twice at the position, said nothing; he was not going to give up a chance to play because of a niggling detail like experience. And here, at last, he began to thrive, batting .304 during a half season of first base duty. The next season, in 1974, Garvey played so well that he was a surprise choice, as a write-in candidate (because his name was not on the ballot), to start the All-Star Game. He then went on to astonish nearly everyone by being named the All-Star Game’s MVP, leading the Dodgers to the World Series, and then winning the National League MVP Award and the first of four Gold Glove Awards.
In 1974, 1975, and 1976 Garvey batted .312 or better and accumulated two hundred hits. In this Garvey credited his ability to go with pitch locations and send solid line drives all over the ballpark. He was, as he put it, a contact hitter, and his swing essentially lacked a major weakness. Adding to his appeal among fans was Garvey’s distinctive batting and playing style. Garvey’s forearms were large and burly,18 and his upper body and legs were in solid condition, the result of a disciplined and focused exercise regiment. As he stepped into the box Garvey was a focused matador, his movements smooth and deliberate, an act of complete concentration. Garvey’s practice swings were just short and smooth chops, a little like a matador waving his cape at a bull. But the most distinctive aspect of his swing was how the first baseman held his head throughout his at bats. His eyes were always pointed slightly downward at the plate, his head still and focused and oriented to the strike zone like a compass needle pointing to the Dog Star. Garvey credited the stillness of his stance with much of his ability to be a good contact hitter. And he would keep this poise even after he had uncorked his most violent, slashing swing. This was not the violent, upward-angled swing of a Babe Ruth or Reggie Jackson. Garvey’s approach was compact and whiplike. He used his hips, torso, and arms like a hydraulic engine. And while Garvey did not have tons of natural home run power, his bat was never lacking in pop.
Adding to Garvey’s appeal was his personal story—a good, old-fashioned, all-American rags-to-riches Dodger Blue sort of tale. Raised in Tampa, Florida, where his father was a bus driver who often drove charter buses during spring training for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Garvey grew up dreaming he’d one day play for the team he knew as a kid. He even was an occasional Dodgers batboy in spring training, a fact that no screenwriter could have written with a straight face. “I was an only child,” said Garvey in 1975, “which wasn’t too bad. I always had balls available for me because we had 11 grapefruit trees in the yard. In the spring I’d take the little hard grapefruits that had fallen off and I’d hit them with a broomstick. I’d be the whole Dodger lineup: Charlie Neal, Gilliam, Campanella, Snider, Hodges.”19
While at Michigan State University, where he played football and baseball, Garvey was selected by the Dodgers in the first round of the 1968 draft. He then dropped out of school, signed a contract to play in Ogden for the Dodgers’ rookie team, and never looked back. Ten years later, all across Los Angeles, kids worshipped Garvey. And parents approved of their kids’ worship of Garvey because he, by all accounts, was a Good Guy. While the 1970s was an age of the antihero, replete with imperfect figures—like Randle Patrick McMurphy, Travis Bickle, and Alex de Large (not to mention Pete Rose, Dave Kingman, Dave “the Cobra” Parker, among others)—who marched to their own drummer, fought against authority, and refused to live up to anyone’s expectations but their own, Steve Garvey was a rare public exception to this rule. In public Garvey appeared clean-cut to a fault—his hair, in an era known for wild styles and poor hygiene, was always carefully coiffed, his face neatly shaved. Garvey was accessible, seemingly honest and earnest. He never swore, spat, or rubbed his crotch in public. He never drank, smoke, chewe
d, spat, or swore, and he always had a kind word for a kid or a gentle old lady. To Dodger fans Garvey was a somewhat brawnier version of Luke Skywalker.20 He was a younger, shorter, more modern version of John Wayne. He was a more athletic and burly Richard Cunningham.
For people like Tom Fallon, conventional law-and-order guys who simply wanted their towns and streets to be, above all else, safe places to raise their families, Garvey was a breath of fresh air. Even more remarkably, to hardworking small business owners like Tom Fallon, Garvey was a delight because he seemed to somehow “get” that he owed something to the team, and to his fans, for his endless good fortune in being able to play this sport. He was widely involved in the community and in good charitable works. And, perhaps most important in 1977, he never got himself into contract disputes. He seemed grateful, even, for the money he earned to play on a team he seemed to love. “They come along so rarely,” wrote Chicago Sun-Times columnist Tom Fitzpatrick in 1975. “First, there was Frank Merriwell. Then along came Jack Armstrong. Now Steve Garvey.”
With Garvey’s shining star eclipsing his various teammates’, it was almost inevitable that resentment would build. With his looks and clean-cut persona Garvey was even courted by Hollywood. “If you want to quit playing ball today,” they reportedly told him, “we’ll get a series for you.” Still, according to a later account written by wife Cyndy, Garvey’s popularity was no accident. An agent had first approached Garvey during his appearance in the 1974 All-Star Game. “Your husband,” the agent told both of them at dinner a few weeks later, “is the quintessential all-American boy. He’s everybody’s sweetheart. And I can show you how to capitalize on that. . . . You’re very hot right now. And your contract year is coming up. I’ll negotiate for you with Campanis. I’ll work out some tax shelters. Handle your investments. Line up endorsements.” The agent went on, explaining how to get Steve more and better press coverage, set him up for lucrative commercials and television work, and arrange speaking engagements and high-profile charity work. “That’s the image we want.”21
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