LOS ANGELES -- Former National League MVP Steve Garvey joined the race Tuesday to succeed the late California Sen. 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 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 commonsense campaign."

In an interview, Garvey said he voted for Trump in the past but had not settled on a pick in the unfolding 2024 presidential contest. He did not answer directly when asked whether he considered himself part of the Trump wing of the GOP.

"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 might be unknown to millions of younger voters. He played his last major league game in 1987 with the Padres after an 18-year major league career.

Garvey, 74, was a 10-time All-Star and appeared in the World Series five times -- four with the Dodgers and one with the Padres. He won the NL MVP in 1974, when he batted .312 with 21 home runs and 111 RBIs while leading the Dodgers to the World Series, where they lost to the Oakland Athletics in five games.

Seven years later, the Dodgers ended a 15-year championship drought by beating the New York Yankees in the 1981 World Series. Garvey batted .417 in the six-game series, finishing with 10 hits in 24 at-bats.

After 14 seasons with the Dodgers, Garvey signed with San Diego before the 1983 season and helped lead the Padres to the first World Series appearance in franchise history the next season.

Garvey has flirted with the possibility of entering politics before, including after his retirement from baseball, when he teased a possible U.S. Senate run but never became a candidate.

As a Republican, Garvey inevitably starts as a long shot in California, where Democrats hold every statewide office and dominate the legislative and congressional delegations. Republicans -- who are outnumbered about 2-to-1 by Democratic voters in the state -- haven't won a statewide race for any office since 2006.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.