Former baseball MVP Steve Garvey joined the race Tuesday to succeed the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., giving Republicans a splash of star quality on the ballot in a heavily Democrat state where the GOP has not 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. It also signaled he would lean toward the political center in a party dominated by former President Donald Trump, the leading GOP presidential candidate who could share the ballot with Garvey next year.

“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 was a huge Garvey fan in his Dodger days, and many expected him to run for office after his retirement. A messy divorce apparently cooled his ambition but didn’t eliminate it entirely. It seems unlikely that a Republican will even get out of the jungle primary system California uses to make it into the general election, let alone win the seat, but Garvey’s name recognition gives the GOP at least a little more hope. — Ed]