TONY GWYNN : From the East Coast to the Far East, He’s a Hit--Either With or Without His Bat

Call it love among the kumquats. Or sushi bars. Or skyscrapers. Or even trash barrels.

It was that kind of winter for Tony Gwynn, National League batting champion.

When a fellow hits .351 and plays in the World Series, he attracts a bit of attention--all the way from New York to Tokyo with a concentration of affection in San Diego.

The 24-year-old Gwynn, who hits everywhere he goes, seemed to be a hit everywhere he went.

“I know winning the batting title was the reason I had the opportunities I had and I wanted to take advantage of them,” he said. “It might never happen again.”

Look at his averages and try telling the world’s pitchers it will never happen again. He hit .331 in Walla Walla, Wash., and .462 in Amarillo, Tex., in 1981; came back with .328 in Hawaii and .289 with the Padres in 1982; added .342 in Las Vegas and .309 with the Padres in 1983; and everyone seems quite aware of the .351 in 1984.

With Tony Gwynn, the batting average always seems to start with .3--and fill in the blanks. This spring, he has been closer to .500 than .300.

“I’ve never had a major problem hitting the baseball,” he said.

He was sitting in the Padre dugout before another exhibition game in which he had two hits. He played two innings. Yawn. Do a few laps in the outfield and then sign autographs. More autographs.

Just after the season ended, he made an appearance in Fullerton. Scheduled for two hours, he was there closer to five.

It was not much different when he was not making a scheduled appearance.

“People didn’t used to recognize me,” he said. “I could go to the grocery store without any problem. Now I’ll be going through the fruit at the Safeway on Mission Gorge and people pushing shopping carts will be coming up to me for autographs. No major problem.”

Not for Tony Gwynn, Mr. Nice Guy. Sure, hand him a banana and a pen.

Or a bat.

“The wildest thing happened at a baseball card show in New York,” Gwynn said. “A guy came up to me with a bat I broke working out in Long Beach during the winter before my first big league camp.”

That would have been the winter of 1980-81. Gwynn recognized the bat. It had no signature, just the name printed on the barrel.

“I remember breaking it, and I remember putting it in the trash can,” he said, “and here this guy shows up with it at a show all the way in New York. He bought it from some dealer for $8. A broken bat.”

Gwynn has no idea who fetched the bat out of the trash, or even why. However, someone must have had a good eye for assessing future stars.

And now that bat has a signature.

Some other anonymous entrepreneur had the foresight to get a picture of Gwynn and Don Mattingly, the American League batting champion, at the 1984 All-Star Game.

“I talked to Don Mattingly for maybe 30 seconds,” he said, “and I go to a baseball card show and here’s this picture. It looked like we posed for it. I guess it was a big seller.”

Gwynn discovered he could not even leave the country without being recognized. He went to Japan with teammate Alan Wiggins and a couple of the Padre minor leaguers to compete in a track meet, of all things.

Naturally, he ended up on Japanese television doing a talk show with the Japanese batting champion.

“They showed highlights of what I did and what he did,” Gwynn said. “We really had similar styles. We were both line-drive hitters who went the other way a lot. Even our stats were similar. We both batted second and had something like five homers each and 70-some runs batted in. The biggest difference was that he hit .317 and I hit .351.”

Oh yes, and physique. Not much similarity there, either.

“I can’t remember his name,” Gwynn said. “Something like Takagami Yami. But he was tall and skinny, maybe 6-foot 2-inches and 175 pounds. Here I was, 5-11 and 200.”

There was also a difference in the way they went about winning their batting titles.

“He had to fight for his batting title,” Gwynn said. “He went down to the final day and won it with three hits. I was able to cruise.”

Indeed. Gwynn was so far ahead he could almost have gone zero-for-September and still come out on top. Chicago’s Ryne Sandberg was second with a .314 average.

However, Gwynn--and Wiggins--did not fare so well in the track meet.

“We didn’t exactly prepare for it,” Wiggins said. “We did so bad they’ll probably ask us back.”

“Bad?” Gwynn said. “We were terrible. In the 100 meters, Wig was third and I was fifth. In the high jump, Wig was fifth and I was sixth. We were dead last in the 400-meter relay because we dropped the baton.”

The Japanese have a track meet for their baseball stars each off-season, probably patterning it after the “Superstars” competitions in the United States.

“They were talking about putting it on cable television around the world,” Gwynn said, “but I really don’t think I’d want to see it.”

Gwynn was probably more comfortable with speaking engagements, and that type of thing is actually a bit new to him.

“I enjoy baseball camps more than I enjoy speaking,” he said, “but I’ll get used to it. I think it’ll help me in the future.”

He is completely comfortable playing basketball, which happened to be his No. 1 sport during his days at San Diego State. However, there was not much time for basketball in the winter of 1984-85.

“A couple of charity games,” he said, “and that was it.”

In fact, he didn’t even have a chance to get down to the Sports Arena to watch his alma mater enjoy its best season.

“I saw ‘em on TV a couple times,” he said, “but I followed ‘em. I was happy. It gave me a chance to brag a little bit.”

A little bit of that off-season was spent negotiating a new Padre contract. The old one, with one year left, was dumped in a trash can.

“We went in to talk to them, and it turned out they were getting ready to call us,” he said. “Both sides wanted to get something done.”

Gwynn signed through 1989 with the Padres holding an option for 1990 as well. It is what Gwynn called a “flat fee” contract, no incentive clauses and no deferred money.

“I can make incentives with my shoe contract and batting glove contract,” he said. “We thought it was fair for us, and they thought it was fair for them. I’ve played well and they’ve rewarded me. I’ve got security now and it’s a good feeling. This year should be more relaxing. I’m going to go out and play baseball and have fun.”

Gwynn always seems to be having fun. He has one of those sunshine and flowers personalities regardless of whether he has gone 0 for 4 (rarely) or 3 for 4.

He has become such a fixture with the Padres that it can be easily forgotten that he has been in the major leagues only 2 1/2 years--and 1984 was his first full season.

And he has had to overcome broken wrists suffered during the 1982 season and 1982-83 winter ball.

However, those broken wrists have been about all that has stopped him from hitting. When he first came to the Padres in 1982, he put together a 15-game hitting streak. His 25-game hitting streak in 1983 is the Padre club record.

Last year, when he had 213 hits and 69 multiple-hit games, he had 10 hitting streaks of five or more games and three hitting streaks of 12 games. He has not gone more than two games without a hit since July of 1983.

There is also the possibility he will be batting third rather than second. Manager Dick Williams has indicated Al Bumbry will hit second when he is in the lineup.

That would separate Gwynn from leadoff man Wiggins, whose speed unsettled the infield and opened holes Gwynn seemed to uncannily find.

“I honestly think I’m a better No. 2 hitter than No. 3 hitter,” Gwynn said. “I don’t see myself as an RBI man.”

Williams, however, noted that Gwynn drove in 71 runs in 1984, and said his charts indicated Gwynn had the highest “RBI percentage” on the team. In other words, with runners in scoring position, Gwynn did the best job of getting them in.

Regardless, the manager must have some reservations about breaking up the Wiggins-Gwynn parlay at the top of the batting order. Gwynn certainly has reservations.

“When Wig is on first,” he said, “I get better pitches to hit. When he goes, there’s a hole somewhere because someone’s got to cover. If it’s the shortstop, for example, I can hit a routine ground ball that’ll get through for a hit. You can’t believe how huge that hole looks to me when I’m batting.”

It takes incredible bat control, eyesight and reaction to accomplish what Gwynn accomplishes as quickly as it has to be done. He has to recognize peripherally whether Wiggins is on the move, take note of whether the second baseman or shortstop is covering and then pick up the pitcher’s motion.

“You’ve got a split second from the time the pitcher starts his movement,” Gwynn said. “I usually think fast ball and adjust to a breaking pitch. But I don’t figure to see too many breaking pitches if Wig is running.”

Wiggins was on first one day this week with Gwynn at bat, and away he went. The shortstop broke for second, and Gwynn fought a fast ball off his hands and grounded it through the hole into left field for a hit.

“His bat control is amazing,” Williams said. “And he can take a couple of strikes to give Wiggins a chance to run without getting himself in trouble. No one hits like Gwynn with two strikes. He’s just a great hitter.”

Gwynn had left the dugout and headed toward right field, except that he was intercepted by a fan wearing a Chicago Cub hat. Could Mr. Gwynn please autograph this baseball card? Certainly. Anything else need signing? A cereal box perhaps? Or maybe a bat he used in Little League?