A Tribute to Mr. Padre

This past week, the baseball world lost a legend. Tony Gwynn, a lifetime San Diego Padre, had one of the purest lefty swings of all time, compiling 3,141 hits in his 20 year career. Gwynn had been the San Diego State University head baseball coach before passing away due to cancer at the heartbreakingly young age of 54. 

A couple weeks ago, I wrote a post about how we are living in the Hall of Fame Era, meaning that we are living in such an amazing era of baseball that we are honored to see some of the greatest players to ever set foot on a diamond. Gwynn, in my mind, kicked off that era. Inducted into the Hall of Fame with Cal Ripken, Jr. in 2007, he was the first class of many to embody not only incredible talent but also sportsmanship, and something still new, technology into the game. 

Gwynn at the 2007 Induction Ceremony in Cooperstown. He was back last year in 2013 - I was probably no more than 15 feet away from him.

If you go to Tony Gwynn's Baseball Reference page, you'll see his nicknames are Mr. Padre (what everyone knows him by) and Captain Video, because he was one of the first players to use video technology to tweak his swing. His wife would sit up in the bleachers with of those massive old school Sony camcorders and film all of his at-bats. After the game, he would sit alone in the clubhouse and watch his swing. What worked, what didn't work, what the pitcher did, his reactions to different pitches, etc. That probably explains why his career high in hits for a season came when he was 37 years old. With technology these days, an entire archive of pitching sequences are available within seconds. A hitter can see his mistakes and his successes side by side for day games, night games, rainy days, sunny days, home or away. Gwynn didn't have that privilege, he manually edited and had to find his own splits. Eventually, the sport would have realized how useful technology can be for improving and training young hitters, but Gwynn expedited the process and set the gold standard for body control through video training. 

Because of his dedication to video training, he is easily one of the most consistent hitters of all time, not just in terms of average (career .338 is T-18th best ever) but also hit location. Gwynn was famous for taking nearly any pitch and lightly serving it out to left field between the shortstop and third basemen. After doing this probably 1500-2000 times in his career, the 5.5 hole was born. On a baseball scorecard where each position is given a number, the shortstop is 6 and the third basemen is 5. For scoring purposes a groundout from short to first looks like 6-3 to show that the shortstop threw it to the first basemen for the put out. So, since Gwynn hit so many right between the two infielders, it became the norm to hit it through the 5.5 hole. On the day of his passing, the Tigers and Mariners' groundskeepers raked a "TG 5.5" and number 19 (respectively) at the part of the dirt where so many of his hits fell. 

Above: Tigers' head groundskeeper Heather Nabozny put this special dirt between short and third the night of his passing against the Royals.
Below: The Mariners honored Gwynn by placing his jersey number 19 at the same spot. 

This 5.5 phenomenon became so popular that Gwynn even had "5.5" on the tongue of his spikes so when he would look down while at the plate, he would be reminded to let the ball travel and push it back to left field. He only hit 135 home runs in his career, which shows how dedicated he was to a good swing rather than a powerful one.

Gwynn was such an amazing hitter. While writing this, I just sat and stared at his hitting consistency and overall ability. These are my favorite highlights:

• His worst year in terms of average was his rookie year, when he hit .289 in 54 games. After that, he never hit below .309. He hit .350 or higher 7 times.
• He compiled more than 200 hits 5 times in his career, led the league 7 times (NL twice, MLB 5 times). His career high of 220 hits in a season came in 1997 - at age 37. 
• Gwynn never struck out in 129 career at-bats against Pedro Martinez and Greg Maddux.
• His career average of .338 is the highest of anyone who's career began after WWII (minimum 5,000 AB).
• He had 7 full seasons where he struck out fewer than 20 times. 
• He had 7 seasons where he had more triples than homers.
• He hit .400 off of eight different Cy Young Winners. 

Jayson Stark has more amazing stats in his article on the late but great Tony Gwynn here.

I said in a post a few months ago that Jeter was the best player without an MVP. Gwynn never won an MVP either, and I think he just overstepped Jeter for being the best without an MVP. At least Jeter has rings, Gwynn only got one pennant in his time in San Diego.

It is a sad, sad day for the baseball world. Tony Gwynn was a classy guy who played the game at a higher level than most we've seen in this generation. It's hard to believe he's gone only at the age of 54. I wish I had been born a few years earlier so I could have really appreciated and understood how pure his hitting really was. 

Rest in peace, Mr. Padre.