Most every baseball fan has one player that defines the game for him or her. It may be a player who excelled at the position the fan played, or maybe possessed a skill the fan wished to emulate - a pitcher with a wicked curve, a shortstop with a great glove, an outfielder with a canon for an arm, or a hitter that was nearly impossible to strike out.
Those last guys, the pure hitters, were the ones I admired, and the one pure hitter I admired most was Tony Gwynn, the right-fielder for the San Diego Padres who came to be known as "Mr. Padre."
Being reared in San Diego I naturally became a fan of the largely woeful Padres baseball team when I was a wee lad. The Padres were flat out awful then, with the only players of note, guys like Dave Winfield and Ozzie Smith, around only long enough to garner attention from larger market clubs, who would then sign them away with fat contracts that Padres ownership could not or would not match.
However, in the third round of the 1981 MLB draft, the Padres took hometown hero, Tony Gwynn, who, though initially signed to play basketball at SDSU (he was a highly skilled point guard, and was drafted by the Clippers, but turned them down to play baseball), had become quite an able baseball player after joining the Aztec ball team in his second year of college.
Tony Gwynn wasted little time getting to the big show, spending just a year in the minors before making his debut for the Padres on July 19th, 1982.
His breakout year came in 1984, which was also the year the Padres went to their first World Series. I morphed from casual baseball fan to dyed in the wool aficionado that year, opening the paper every morning to the box scores and checking how Tony did before I read any other news.
From 1984 on that ritual became one of the ways I would maintain a connection with the city of my birth. Whether I was living in New Mexico or Alaska, every morning during the baseball season I would check Tony Gwynn's stat line first thing.
Tony Gwynn exemplified to me the best example of working tirelessly to achieve a goal. He didn't possess the ideal build for a ballplayer (barely 5'11", and weighing over 200 lbs), but he made the best of what he had. He studied videotape of his swing for hours, looking to improve even after winning multiple batting titles (He finished his career with 8 batting titles, tied with Honus Wagner for most all-time).
Tony Gwynn was determined to be the best he could be at what he did, and that to me is an admirable character trait.
He was also loyal to the people and city of San Diego, remaining a Padre when he could have easily earned bigger paychecks in larger markets.
He gave every baseball fan in San Diego a lot to cheer for over his twenty-year career, bringing his A game to the field day in and day out.
And for that Mr. Gwynn, I say thank you - life well lived.
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