Lights, Camera, Action . . . : No Greasy Ads or Hair for Garvey These Days

PHOENIX —  “Happy Wednesday,” said Steve Garvey as he walked in amid the lights, the cameras and the action.

He was there to tape a television commercial, and everyone sitting there in chairs with their names on the back seemed pleased to see him.

It had been a hassle to get there, since the Padres were scheduled to play an exhibition game that day. However, Garvey had an excused absence from Steve Boros, his manager.

This being television, Garvey was ordered to a dressing room instead of a locker room. He needed makeup and a woman was sent in to do the job. A man followed her inside.

“Stevie, boy, we have to decide what side of your face to profile,” he said. “I tell you, the closeup view we had of you the other day was dynamite, man.”

“Well,” said Garvey, “I’m only as good as you are.”

Ah, but Steve Garvey’s good at this, and he knows it. In his 16th major league season, he is not only a first baseman and an all-star, but also the star of many a commercial and television show.

For him, ESPN is a godsend. This winter, they televised the Steve Garvey Celebrity Tennis Tournament and the Steve Garvey Marlin Fishing Tournament.

“We’ve had varying degrees of success with celebrity stuff in the past,” said ESPN’s programming director, Loren Matthews. “Being the total sports network, his name on any show enhances it.”

It would also seem to be the case with products. Garvey’s commercial image, and choice of products to endorse, has changed since it all began in 1970, his rookie year, when he did a Vitalis commercial the day before opening day. Rookies are bit players, not stars.

“It was with Pete Rose and Maury Wills,” Garvey said. “I had won the starting job (with the Dodgers), and Cincinnati was opening the season in L.A. They had Rose and Wills and they needed a rookie. So, anyway, in the commercial, they had me do a head-first slide into second, and my helmet falls off as Rose makes the tag. (Umpire) Harry Wendelstedt says I’m safe, but Rose says: ‘Harry! Look, there’s grease on my glove!’ So Harry calls me out.

“Well, I come back to the dugout, and Wills says: ‘Kid, if you’re gonna make it in the big leagues, you’ve got to use the greaseless groomer.’ I nod. I mean, it wasn’t even a speaking part. Fortunately, the texture of my commercials have grown.”

This took a while, however. Some of Garvey’s early highlights include:

Men’s underwear--Garvey was one of the originals, back before Jim Palmer cornered the market with Jockey.

“Oh yeah,” Garvey said. “They had Palmer and myself, and I think Charlie Waters (of the Dallas Cowboys).”

TV shows--Long before there was this notion that he’d run for political office, Garvey was a judge on The $1.98 Beauty Contest and The Gong Show.

“And I gonged some people,” he said. “The worst was a 90-year-old Hawaiian dancer, and I did it purely out of compassion. Everyone felt so bad for her, I felt it was best to preserve her dignity. She was making a fool of herself.”

Soft drinks--He was involved with Pepsi-Cola before they became the new generation of soft drinks.

TV dinners--Apparently, Garvey was a kid with an appetite.

“I really ate them as a kid,” he said. “TV dinners were a big part of our weekly diet.”

Geritol--Garvey says you’re never too young.

“My grandparents took Geritol,” he said, “and when they had a campaign to get the whole family involved, I was all for it.”

Cologne--This was a memorable one.

“They filmed the (Aqua Velva) commercial at the stadium in Fort Lauderdale at night, and they wanted me to hit a baseball,” Garvey said. “Well, I hadn’t hit in three months., but the producer wanted me to hit a line drive up the middle because the camera was right there behind a plexiglass frame. I said: ‘Are you kidding? I haven’t hit in three months.’ Plus, a pitching machine was hurling balls 85 m.p.h. at me.

“I got to the plate, and the second pitch knocked me down, and I said: ‘I don’t know if I can do this.’ But the next one . . . Boom! I hit the plexiglass. The guy was amazed, and asked me if I could do that again. I said no.”

Anyway, the point is that those were days when Garvey was just getting started.

“A lot of those things,” Garvey said, “you do when you’re young, and you probably wouldn’t do those now because they’re short-term ones.”

On-the-field success would cause an evolution in the off-the-field Garvey.

“That’s the key,” he said. “Corporations want someone with high visibility.”

His high came in 1974, when he was National League most valuable player and also the all-star game MVP. Garvey played in a World Series that year, and two more in 1977 and 1978. This was when the money came rolling in. The Gong Show called again, and Garvey gonged it. He didn’t need it anymore.

“It’s all directly proportional to your success,” he said. “Unless you get into the all-star game and the World Series, you don’t get exposure. Look at Dale Murphy. He’s won awards, but he hasn’t been in the high focus events. People all over the world watch the World Series.”

Yes, but Davey Lopes and Bill Russell and Ron Cey and Don Sutton weren’t on the tube after their World Series appearances. What was the deal? The standard line was that Garvey promoted himself to grab the lights, cameras and action. Critics said it was all too calculated.

“I know there is (jealousy),” Garvey said this week. “It’s crossed my path in the past. But I’ve never gone out and convinced a company to use me out of the blue. They’ve always come to me.”

And big bucks come, too. Garvey’s Padre salary this season is $1.25 million, but he will make approximately $650,000 in extra-curricular commercial money.

“Very few people can do that,” he said.

Steve Ross, the vice-president of professional services at the Garvey Marketing Group in La Jolla, explains: “What Steve Garvey understood probably better than any athlete is that public relations is so important . . . The way to become valuable to a company is to be adoring to the public . . . But the thing is, it isn’t calculated. He doesn’t kiss babies to get a contract with Coca Cola. It just isn’t calculated. That’s him.

“But there are athletes who admittedly are calculated to take advantage. The Fridge (William Perry) . . . He was just a third team nose tackle for a while, but he’s a cult hero off the field. He and Jim McMahon would be termed as ‘short term, hot products.’ The same with Spud Webb. All of America pulls for the underdog. But Steve Garvey is day in, day out . . . When all is said and done, he’ll be valuable beyond his playing days.”

Here are his latest :

IRAs--This is an ESPN production in which he presents a “different” image. He says people think he’s a conservative guy, but he points out that he’s wearing wild argyle socks, so it can’t be true. Then, he starts talking about getting an IRA that will allow you, too, to get a little bit crazy. Just to show you what he means by being crazy, he pours extra chocolate syrup in his milk.

Clothing--OK, so he was not so wild and crazy. That certainly is not what MacGregor wants.

It wants the prototypical Steve Garvey.

“It is a quality and dependable product that hits Middle America,” Ross said. “If he has political aspirations, this would help him get visibility.”

So Garvey is trimming his commercial spots down to dependable, financially-oriented products. On this Wednesday here, he was filming an ad for the San Diego Chevrolet dealers, and they wanted him because he exemplified the image they hope to project--dependable, durable, perfect.

And, yes, he drives a Chevy.

“I won it after I was MVP of the 1984 playoffs,” he said. “It’s an Astrovan. It’s the Yuppie station wagon of the 80s.”

He himself might just be the Yuppie of the 80s.

“Stevie, boy! We need you on the set!” they screamed into his dressing room.

He came running.