We heard a few months ago that Steve Garvey was interested in owning the Dodgers if (read: when) they are eventually put up for sale. I sort of laughed that off because, well, it’s Steve Garvey. When he played it was said that he wanted to be the governor of California one day. And then he ends up doing infomercials. That reach for the stars/stay far too close to Earth dynamic seems to describe Garvey pretty well.
But at least one person who is seen as somewhat more serious about things is going in with Garvey: Orel Hershiser, who said yesterday that he was joining Garvey’s little would-be Dodgers investment group.
I guess this is all interesting. But I also can’t help but think it’s a lot of show. That people with real money -- more money than ex ballplayers of Garvey and Hershiser’s vintage have -- are the people who really move deals, and that ex-ballplayers are really there for the P.R. that could possibly make any given ownership group look more attractive and approvable to Major League Baseball.
Unless you really think that someone like Steve Garvey is able to personally wrangle a billion dollars or more to buy the Dodgers and serve as the actual head of the operation -- which I don’t -- I would see both him and Hershiser as team ambassadors than as actual owners, and would expect their personal equity stake in any ownership group to be so low as to border on rounding error.
