The fifth annual Greater Lansing Business/Sports Luncheon at Eagle Eye featured 10-time All Star Dodger and San Diego Padre great Steve Garvey, who played baseball and football at Michigan State University in the late 1960s. Today, he lives in Utah, where he runs Garvey Communications, and hosts the TV show “Baseball’s Greatest Games.”

Garvey told the crowded room that as a high school senior, he had about 25 offers to play baseball throughout the country, but he really wanted to have the chance to play two sports. One day, his high school baseball called and told him that MSU was interested. So he came up with his mom on a 28-hour bus ride and got in late in the evening. The next morning Danny Litwhiler (then baseball coach), took them ona tour around campus, and then, at Jennison Field House, they “happened” to run in to Duffy Dougherty. Of course, it was all pre-planned. Duffy offered him a chance to try out for the team, and told him that he could guarantee him a date on a Friday day. “We have 20,000 co-eds here,” Duffy said, “One of them is bound to like you.”

The day he was drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers, Garvey said he and his parents waited all day by the phone and finally, about 5:00 p.m. a call came from Guy Welling, the Dodger’s Midwest regional scout, letting Garvey know that the Dodgers had drafted him. The following day, Welling came to their house for contract talks. Garvey had heard that the previous year, some first round picks had received $25,000 contracts, so that’s what he and his father were shooting for. When the first offer came in at $16,000, his dad just shook his head. Quickly, the offer increased to $18,000. But that still wasn’t good enough. Welling asked if he could use the phone, went into the next room and had a real or imagined phone conversation with the Dodger’s G.M. He returned ten minutes later with good news. Their best and final offer was $25,000. But before either father or son could accept it, Mrs. Garvey stepped into the room and told Welling she’d pay her son $25,000 to stay home and finish school.

Hearing this, the Garvey men let out a gasp and watched, slack-jawed, as Mrs. Garvey and Welling went into the next room. A few minutes later they came out and Welling announced they had a deal. Garvey held his breath. Then Welling said, “We’re going to give you $40,000, a new car, and pay for the rest of your education.”

Garvey regaled the fortunate attendees with stories of the good old days, and how some of them relate to business of today. He spoke about the eight and a half seasons (a record he doesn’t think will ever be broken) he and his three fellow infielders played together.

“You can’t get one guy on a team for eight years nowadays, much less four infielders, because the business has changed. Business does change, but the fundamentals of business -- hard work, dedication, commitment to each other... other members of the team, sacrifice and attitude. As time goes on, you realize that your skills, commensurate with the other skills, can together make a winning team; and it happens in business all the time -- putting a good team together at the work place.” He said that the job of a good manager is “letting individuals do what they do best. A manager’s most difficult job is putting a group together that he can give a task to, (and) let them go do it and come back with a successful story.”

His advice for managers continued: “You want someone under you to take your place because you have taught them how to do it right, how to be successful, and when you do that as a manager, then you move up. So the most important thing is not to be selfish, it’s to be selfless. To go out and teach other your skills, get them to work together as a team, go out and be successful, and then the sum of the parts creates a successful whole.”

Kellie Dean, President of Dean Trailways, who sponsored the event, along with Capital City Airport, McLaren Health Plan, WILX TV-10, Greater Lansing Sports Authority, Ingham Regional Medical Center, Shaheen Chevrolet and Willingham & Cote, P.C., said that as a former MSU Spartan who was a few years behind Garvey, he’s always held Garvey in high regard. Dean said that successful athletes-turned-businessmen such as Garvey “have had a very solid development from their sports careers which allowed them to take that into a higher level in the business world,” a level that takes perseverance and a lot of hard work.

Garvey’s recently published book, “My Batboy Days” is about growing up around his idles. The book talks about nine virtues, represented by the nine players and nine innings in a baseball game, and include leadership, faith, dignity, compassion, and the players he knew as a youngster who best expressed each one.

Finally, from Tommy Lasorta and others in the Dodger organization, Garvey learned “what it was like to become a professional baseball player.” And the most important lesson he learned was “to play for the team on the front of the jersey, not the name on the back of the jersey.”