Many, many years ago I went on my very first baseball "pilgrimmage" to San Diego to watch my beloved Atlanta Braves take on the Padres. It was back when the Pads were playing at Qualcomm stadium. Lizzie and I had seats kind of high up in the stadium and I remember that there were TV screens up there. When the announcer was introducing the Padres, he said something like, "Batting fourth and playing right field, Tony Gwynn," and the stadium just erupted in cheers. I remember turning to Lizzie and saying, "Who the hell is Tony Gwynn?" She looked at me like I was a complete moron, and I think a few people around me wanted to beat me up.
Lizzie might have said, "Tony Gwynn is only the greatest hitter of our time." She would not have been lying. As I watched the somewhat rotund baseball player at the plate, I was skeptical, but damn...the dude could put the ball in play. That was the night that Tony Gwynn entered my baseball radar and he never left it.
A beautiful thing about baseball is that if you succeed (get a hit) four out of ten times, you are a legend. Tony Gwynn hit 33.8% (.338) over his 20 year career. There were seasons when he flirted with .400; I think he hit .390 one season. He was a crazy good hitter.
In a time when players change teams like they change their socks, Tony Gwynn was an exception. He actually took less money to stay in San Diego his entire career, earning him the nickname "Mr. Padre". I admire him for staying with one team.
Tony Gwynn passed away this morning at age 54 of oral cancer caused by his use of chewing tobacco. I was watching The Dan Patrick Show on TV (I was home because the cable guy came over to fix our internet). When Dan said, "Oh no. Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn has passed away," I shook my head and started saying, "No. No. NO!" I checked ESPN and CNN and Google and I couldn't find anything to confirm the news, so I got on Twitter. Twitter always has everything first. And there it was: a tweet from Major League Baseball saying that MLB was mourning the passing of Tony Gwynn. I burst into tears and cried for several minutes. I'm not sure why I took the news so hard. Maybe he was more of a sports hero to me than I even realized.
Baseball is a game of numbers, a treasure of statistics gathered over more than 100 years of the game. To appreciate the greatness of Tony Gwynn and his place in the history of the game, check out this article by Jayson Stark of ESPN. You don't even have to know anything about baseball to appreciate Tony's stats.
RIP Tony Gwynn. You were a good guy and a great ball player.
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