Last Updated on December 5, 2023
Steve Garvey is running for US Senate as a Republican in California, but a political insider says that Garvey, who had a long MLB career with the Los Angeles Dodgers and later the San Diego Padres, isn’t running for office to defend the Constitution but to shine a spotlight on himself and wage a PR campaign to win the place in the Baseball Hall of Fame that has long evaded him.
Former California Republican Assembly President Stephen Frank blasted Steve Garvey in a write-up published on Frank’s website, CA Political News and Views, saying that Garvey’s run for the US Senate is actually a campaign for the Baseball Hall of Fame.
“STEVE GARVEY STARTING HIS ACTIVE CAMPAIGN – FOR BASEBALL HALL OF FAME,” the write-up’s headline reads.
“Even [Garvey’s] ‘campaign’ logo looks like an effort to remind the MLB Veterans Committee to vote him into the Hall of Fame,” Frank wrote, also noting that in a campaign email blasted out last month, Garvey neglected to mention anything he’d actually do as a US Senator.
Garvey’s campaign website seems to back up Frank’s assertion that Garvey is truly running for the Baseball Hall of Fame and not the US Senate, and also reflects the lack of campaign substance that Frank mentioned in his write-up.
On the website, the first thing to greet visitors is not a vision for America laid out by a prospective US Senator, or even a basic policy position. Instead, they’re greeted by “Steve’s Story” which is actually just a recounting of Garvey’s baseball career including some of his statistics and accolades.
It reads like a cover letter that Garvey would attach to his résumé, were he to send one out to Hall of Fame voters.
“Garvey played as a first baseman for the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres from 1969 to 1987, was a 10-time All-Star, National League Most Valuable Player in 1974, and National League Championship Series MVP in 1978 and 1984,” the campaign site reads.
At the end of “Steve’s Story,” visitors to the website can click on a link to “learn more” and are directed to an even more detailed recounting of Garvey’s Major League Baseball career – with absolutely no mention of his US Senate campaign or politics in general.
Garvey does at least get around to mentioning his Senate run in the “Steve’s Vision” section of his Senate campaign website, though even then, he links his run back to his baseball career.
If visitors click the “learn more” tab below “Steve’s Vision,” they’re directed to another webpage where Garvey mentions several of his political grievances without actually offering a “vision” to fix them.
In addition to concerns about how genuine his campaign is, Steve Garvey’s checkered personal past has raised major red flags among conservatives, including Stephen Frank, who slammed Garvey as a “DEADBEAT DAD to several children” in his write-up.
His penchant for extramarital affairs, fathering children out of wedlock and then failing to support them, as well as piling up such massive personal debt that he was dragged in and out of courtrooms in multiple states, has earned him coverage from several news publications, including National File.