Sports – Other

Cyndy Garvey

Bill Thompson
Photo by Cal Montney, LA Times

Major League baseball fans will remember Steve Garvey, the charismatic All-Star first baseman for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1970s and 1980s.

On the field, Garvey was a superstar.

In his personal life, however, not so much, according to his ex-wife Cyndy Garvey.

There’s was a messy and public divorce in the late 1970s.

And, according to Cyndy, she took much of the blame from loyal Dodgers fan who couldn’t believe allegations accusing Steve of cheating and abuse.

Steve and Cyndy Garvey with their daughter, 1975. Photo: LA Times

She put it all in her 1989 book The Secret Life of Cyndy Garvey.

And that’s when I met her. So here now, from 1989, Cyndy Garvey.

Cyndy Garvey celebrated her 74th birthday this month.

More than 30 years after his retirement from baseball, Steve Garvey has not yet won election to the baseball Hall of Fame.

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Ron Luciano

Bill Thompson

They say baseball is a funny game. No, really, it’s a funny game full of funny characters.

In the 1980s, one of the best chroniclers of those characters was former Major League umpire Ron Luciano.

Luciano umpired in the American League from 1969 to 1979. And along the way, he collected hundreds of stories about some of the most colorful characters in Major League Baseball, past and present.

I met Ron Luciano in 1989, as we talked about his book Remembrance of Swings Past.

So here now, from 1989, Ron Luciano.

Ron Luciano died in 1995. He was 57 years old.