Longtime Dodger Bolts From the Blue

Seventeen years ago today, Steve Garvey stood before a bank of microphones at San Diego Stadium, where the Padres had just announced their signing of the longtime Dodger first baseman.

Above the rostrum was a sign reading: “From Out of the Blue!”

At Dodger Stadium, Garvey officially began fading into memory.

After several days of heated negotiations, the Dodgers had elected not to top the free agent’s offer from the Padres, $6.6 million for five years. The Dodgers said in the aftermath that they had dropped out at four years for $5 million, terms Garvey disputed.

But Garvey, who at the time wanted to stay in Los Angeles, said the Dodger offer wasn’t close to the Padres’ and was well short of what the Dodgers claimed they had offered.

“I won’t go into it, but I can categorically say no,” he said.

A friend of Garvey’s said later, in commenting on the heated negotiations, that Garvey had told him that Peter O’Malley was “a fragile, insecure man.”

On the day he joined the Padres, Garvey, the day before his 34th birthday, could look back on a highly productive Dodger career. In nine full seasons, he’d had six 200-hit seasons, driven in 100 or more runs five times and had six seasons hitting .300 or better.

In his five Padre seasons he didn’t have a single season to match any of his Dodger years, but he was a key performer in 1984, when he helped lead San Diego to the World Series, where the Padres lost to the Detroit Tigers in five games.

Also on this date: In 1946, Army’s Glenn Davis was named the Associated Press’ male athlete of the year, getting 23 first-place votes to runner-up Joe Louis’ 16. Davis, a 21-year-old from Claremont, was honored not only for his football accomplishments but for his achievements on the Army track and baseball teams as well.