https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/ml...publicans.html

Former baseball MVP Steve Garvey joined the race Tuesday to succeed the late California senator Dianne Feinstein, giving Republicans a splash of star quality on the ballot in a heavily Democratic state where the GOP hasn't won a Senate race in 35 years.

Garvey, 74, launched his campaign with a video lush with baseball imagery that recalled his career as a perennial All-Star who played for the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres.

'I never played for Democrats or Republicans or independents. I played for all of you,' Garvey said in the video, in which he also alluded to problems vexing the state from homelessness to crime. 'It´s going to be a common sense campaign.'

'I'm running the Steve Garvey campaign,' he said. 'We need to bring people together again.'

Garvey´s entrance into a race gives Republicans a recognized name to many Californians, even though he may be unknown to millions of younger voters. He played his last major league game in 1987 after an 18-year major league career, and he was National League MVP in 1974.

Still, he will face the challenges of any first-time candidate: raising millions of dollars for TV advertising and building an organization to turn out voters in a field of candidates that already includes Democratic US Representatives Katie Porter, Adam Schiff and Barbara Lee.

The race could be further complicated if Senator Laphonza Butler, whom Govenor Gavin Newsom recently appointed to the seat following Feinstein's death, chooses to run.