The blocky graphic popped up along the bottom of ABC’s telecast as Steve Garvey loosened his upper body and wiggled into position.
Hitless in 8 career at bats vs. Smith
The most stirring, unforgettable moments demand enormous stakes and unlikely odds. As the perfectly timed statistic from Game 4 of the 1984 National League Championship Series matter-of-factly detailed, the situation dripped both.
Tie game. Ninth inning. A loss would cause the Padres’ edge-of-seat season to wimper into the darkness crouching over Jack Murphy Stadium. A historic trip to the World Series, so tantalizingly close, gone.
Garvey, known to the bulk of the country as a tried-and-blue Los Angeles Dodger, was about to transition to the twilight of his career. He’d hit just eight home runs during the season – his lowest total in more than a decade.
The wind.
The pitch.
History …
When Garvey’s meaty forearms punched Lee Smith’s 1-0 fastball over the 370-foot sign in right-center, it resuscitated championship dreams and cemented the top spot on the Union-Tribune’s list of “The 52 Most Memorable Moments in San Diego Sports History.”
The U-T counted down the scintillating snapshots that shaped San Diego fandom each Sunday in 2016, from Kellen Winslow’s victory-soaked exhaustion in Miami to the Torrey-taming heart of Tiger Woods.
One swing, though, claimed No. 1.
“People will tell me where they were when I hit the home run,” Garvey said. “On a boat in Mission Bay, at the airport or wherever. I always say we’re in memory business. That’s what this game does – creates memories.”
Garvey played 14 of his 19 seasons with the Dodgers, including eight of 10 when he was named an All-Star. More than three-quarters of his career hits, RBIs and home runs came wrapped in a rival uniform from a rival city.
The two-run, opposite-field home run on Oct. 6, 1984, however, enshrined him as a forever-and-always Padre in San Diego.
As Cubs right fielder Henry Cotto draped himself over the top of the wall in vain chase, Garvey thrust his right arm into the air. The clenched fist punctuated the 7-5 win, forced a deciding Game 5 and provided the jet fuel that propelled a team to baseball’s biggest stage.
In the quiet hallway leading to the Padres dugout at Petco Park, three portraits hang: Trevor Hoffman’s 500th save, Tony Gwynn’s 3,000th hit – and Garvey, arm skyward, as a city roared.
Former Dodgers teammate Davey Lopes pinch hit for the Cubs in Game 4.
“That’s why his number is retired, basically,” Lopes, a first-base coach for the Washington Nationals, told the Union-Tribune. “He rose to the occasion. If anybody re a home run for the Padres, that one has to come up first.
“You say Steve Garvey and people think Dodgers. That meant so much for that organization, though.”
Garvey saves Padres’ ‘Tomorrow’
San Diego, in 1984 as it remains now, desperately craved a winner. It hadn’t happened in the NFL, where Air Coryell flirted with scaling the mountaintop. It hadn’t happened in the NBA with the stymied, short-lived Clippers.
And it hadn’t happened for the Padres, a 1969 arrival that had never climbed higher that fourth in the NL West, finished last eight times and topped .500 just once in its first 15 seasons.
In the summer of 1984, the jagged pieces began to fit. Third-year star Tony Gwynn won the NL batting title. The team acquired proven closer Goose Gossage.
The sturdy cog to complement it all was Garvey, a dependable winner who still owns the record for consecutive games played in the National League at 1,207. The longest active streak in baseball now, according to the Elias Sports Bureau? It’s Royals shortstop Alcides Escobar – at 171 games.
Garvey provided steadiness, along with skill.
Nationals manager Dusty Baker ed seeing his future Dodgers teammate face-to-face for the first time during a minor-league game in the late-1960s in Albuquerque. Baker watched intently – during and after the game.
“I played against Steve Garvey in Double-A when he was coming out of college,” Baker said during a series this season at Petco Park. “Man, this guy hit (20) home runs in half a season out of college. I said, ‘Who is this guy?’
“Then I saw him after the game and he helped an old lady across the street. I’m not lying.”
In clubhouses that included plenty of fast-living, prank-pulling teammates, the tag as a by-the-book professional created some mixed reviews.
“He did the same thing when he was a star,” Baker continued. “He was one of the best teammates I ever had when I got traded to the Dodgers. He wasn’t that popular with some of them, but he was popular with me.”
Garvey sheepishly recalled the moment in Albuquerque.
“Yeah, pretty great parents,” he said of his influences. “They taught me, if you can help other people and can make a difference in life, you should do it. God gave us free will and choice. What we choose to do with it is our gift to him.”
To this day, Garvey continues to consider a higher force – religiously and cinematically.
“ the movie ‘Bruce Almighty?’ ” he said. “God shows himself as a beggar on a street. Well, I can’t a beggar now, because every time I see one, I think, ‘That could be God.’ I’ve got to put some change in here at least.
“My kids laugh and think I’m corny on that. I’m like, ‘Hey, I’m doing this just in case,’ and we laugh about it. But I’ve been blessed. If someone needs help, I try to help.”
The Padres and Garvey found themselves equally blessed as Smith stood rigid in the stretch, preparing to uncork a fastball that darted high and outside – just beyond the strike zone.
The truth of it: Smith made a helluva pitch.
The forever of it: Garvey planted an even better swing on it.
“It was a damn good pitch,” Smith, a roving pitching coach in the Giants organization, said to the U-T. “Unfortunately, it was thrown to a very good hitter.”
The call of announcer and former Cy Young winner Don Drysdale sealed San Diego’s moment.
Deep right field, way back … Cotto going back to the WAAALLL …
It’s GONE! HOME RUN GARVEY!
… And there will be tomorrow!
Swing sparks thrills, therapy
For Garvey, that famous tomorrow continues to visit his todays.
“I went through O’Hare Airport a couple days after the Cubs won the world championship,” he said. “It was a sea of Cubs jerseys and of hats. No less than six or eight people said something like ‘Hey, Garv – we forgive you now!’
“They’d say, ‘You were cheering for us, right? I said (told with a diplomatic laugh), ‘Absolutely.’ ”
The story triggered another.
About a decade ago, Garvey attended a memorabilia show in suburban Chicago with legends like Bob Feller and Bob Gibson. Garvey’s autograph line dwindled down to two people when he noticed a hulking man quietly waiting his turn.
“I said, ‘Hi, can I help you?’ ” Garvey said. “He’s like, ‘I just want you to know I finally got over you a few years ago.’ I’m like, ‘You finally got over me?’ Gibson’s going, ‘Did that guy say he finally got over you?’ I’m like, yeah.
“Then he said, ‘I had to go to therapy a few years to get some perspective.’ I said, ‘You’re kidding me. You went to therapy?’ He’s like, I followed your career and I really like you now. I’m like, ‘Well, good.’ I said, ‘Can I sign something for you?’ He said, ‘No, I just wanted to say tell you that.’ ”
The swing still resonates.
“Most people think of me as a Dodger, but those five years in San Diego were pretty special to me,” Garvey said. “For a franchise that hadn’t really won before, we created this magical season. To be a part of that turnaround was great.”
Still, Garvey re uncertainty about the ball’s destination in vivid detail.
“I hit it pretty high. If I hit more of a line drive, it would have been out much sooner and I would have known,” he said. “But because of the height, you don’t know if something would hold it up. As it’s going up, it almost freezes like ‘The Natural’ when it takes forever to hit the light.
“Then when Cotto jumped up on the wall, if a ball is clearly out a guy’s not going to waste his time doing that. So I saw him climbing the wall and thought, ‘Oh Lord, the greatest catch in postseason history.’ ”
There was no catch. Only lung-induced chaos.
Garvey finished 4-for-5 with 5 RBIs and, one game later, was named the no-brainer MVP of the series after hitting .400.
“I’ve seen Lee from time to time – fine gentleman, should be in the Hall of Fame,” Garvey said. “I always say, ‘Hey, you hit my bat. It wasn’t me.’ He laughs and says, ‘Garv, that was a good pitch.’ And it was.”
But oh, what a sweet swing.
[email protected]; Twitter: @Bryce_A_Miller
