TONY GWYNN : Last Year’s Bat Champion is Struggling at .313 and Trying to Regain the Touch That Wnabled Him to Hit .351

Tony Gwynn, constantly in search of a good day himself, peeked out from under the dugout and wondered out loud about the temperature.

“It’s over 110 degrees,” a San Diego Padre batboy said.

Gwynn then looked over to his designated pitcher, a slightly out-of-shape bullpen catcher named Ron Oglesby, and said, “Let’s go, Ron.” Oglesby walked to the mound, Gwynn to the batting cage.

The only man in the stands, a bald usher, yelled: “Play ball!”

It was 3:48 p.m.

“Where we goin’ today?” asked Oglesby, as he dipped his hand into a bucket of baseballs, grabbing them as one would popcorn.

“Left field,” Gwynn said.

He touched the plate with his bat. It’s routine, superstition. Two check swings came next. That’s routine, too. Then, he wiggled his bat. Oglesby grunted and threw.

Thwap . A line drive to left.

Eight minutes and approximately 35 swings later, Gwynn, the Padre right fielder, said: “Thanks, Ron.” He stepped out of the cage and into the sun, his eyes squinting now.

Deacon Jones, Padre batting coach, watched him, watched him pout. Jones blew his nose in a towel (he had an awful summer cold) and said: “Tony. Just see the ball. Just relax.”

Gwynn, who was thinking about his own awful summer slump, pointed to his head and said: “It’s all here, Deac. It’s all here.”

He then walked in from the heat, alone. His head down.

And no one could really understand the agony that Tony Gwynn knew, the agony of being a .351 hitter and wanting more. Tony Gwynn won the major league batting crown last year, a year in which his teammates swore he carried a “magic wand.”

“Last year we were disappointed when he made an out,” Deacon Jones said, saying it, moreover, with a straight face.

And now, the year after .351, Tony Gwynn is hitting .311, a number that his locker room neighbor Steve Garvey would like to borrow, but a number that Gwynn would be pleased to do without. Last year, he’d come out early in the heat every day to take extra batting practice from Oglesby or Jones. It gave him peace of mind to know he’d worked his hardest, to know he was ready.

During the .351 year, he’d watched video tapes of each at-bat, analyzing his inside-out, left-handed swing. He did it just in case, just in case things went wrong. But nothing ever really did.

Until now. For some reason, and it’s probably because he’s trying too hard to hit .351 again, Gwynn is thinking too much. Last year, he knew how he’d be pitched every day. Teams would always give him balls to the outside part of the plate, and he’d simply go with the pitch, slapping it to left field. Occasionally, they’d throw inside, too, but Gwynn, who has 20/10 vision, would be quick enough to react, and only then would he pull the ball.

“I hit the ball well all year long last year,” he said. “That’ll be the year that years from now, I’ll be comparing things with. Everything I hit, I hit in the hole. It was an unbelievable year. I never imagined in my wildest dreams that I’d hit .351.”

Yet, at the end of last year, he did something terribly, terribly wrong. He asked himself what would happen if he hit only .331 in 1985? He thought: Would that be bad? Will the fans think I’d had a bad year?

After a marvelous spring training, he began this season going 3 for 27. The Giants pitched him inside and wouldn’t throw him fastballs. The Braves pitched him away, but he’d already started anticipating inside pitches. The team came home and opponents kept pitching him inside. He brought his average up, but he was guessing. Instead of hitting the ball where it was pitched, he anticipated too much.

And opponents continued to play with his mind. The Dodgers positioned their left fielder practically down the line against Gwynn. The center fielder was in left center, the right fielder in right center.

The third baseman was on the infield grass and the shortstop and second baseman were normal. The first baseman was on the outfield grass, about seven steps off the first base bag.

“They’ve got to be pitching me away,” Gwynn would say to himself.

Then, they’d pitch him in.

He went to the tapes. He purchased a new video recorder. It cost $600, but it’s one of just a few things he wanted to buy when he signed a new contract this winter.

“It’s the best ever for a baseball player,” Gwynn said. “It has three different stop actions. One is slow motion. One is slower than slow. And one is frame by frame. I figure it could put a couple of years on my career. And, besides, it goes with the movie camera I bought for my son.”

If he has a bad game, he watches his at-bats that night. If not, he waits until morning. His wife, Alicia, who is 7 1/2 months pregnant, stays at home and tapes all the games. He’s about to install a satellite so he can tape any televised game in America.

What does he do with these tapes? We take you to the Gwynn Control Room. He’s watching his first at-bat against Dodger pitcher Bob Welch the other night. The leadoff hitter is Tim Flannery, and since Gwynn bats second, he fast forwards it through Flannery.

He stops when it’s him who’s approaching the plate.

The sound is on.

And here comes Tony Gwynn. He’s hitting .316. Respectable numbers.

Welch throws his first pitch. Gwynn slows it down to the frame-by-frame speed. He fouls it off to the left.

“I pulled off just a tad,” Gwynn said. “My front hip opened too quickly.”

Welch throws his next pitch. It’s a ball.

Welch throws the next pitch.

Thwap. It’s a double to right.

“Perfect,” Gwynn said. “I stepped to the ball, and my hands and hips were right there. That’s what I’m looking for.”

And same with the San Diego fans. On call-in shows, people constantly ask what’s wrong with Tony Gwynn, ask why he’s not hitting .351. Here are the three most common fan theories:

--The drug problem of Alan Wiggins: Wiggins, last year’s leadoff man, stole 70 bases, which meant Gwynn saw many fastballs, infielders were always moving around and pitchers became slightly hyper. Without Wiggins, Gwynn is seeing different pitches.

Still, Gwynn says that is not a problem, that Wiggins’ replacements, Jerry Royster and Flannery, keep getting on base just as Wiggins did.

--His bat: Some fans are certain he hits better with a black bat. But Gwynn says this theory is ridiculous. All that matters to him is that the bat is 32 1/2 inches long and weighs 31 ounces (“To me, it seems easier to hit with a shorter bat. With a short bat, I can wait, wait, wait and react better. There’s not as much to bring around.”).

--His uniform: The Padres went to pinstripes this season. Some fans say that Gwynn hit better because of the old yellow and brown uniforms.

“Everyone’s saying: ‘Why isn’t he hitting .351?’ ” Gwynn said and then answered the question. “One, there aren’t many guys who hit .351. Two, it’s me . . . Maybe it’s because I’m putting pressure on myself to be like last year. I told myself at the beginning: ‘Just put the bat on the ball.’ But I started out 3 for 27 and said: ‘Maybe, you’re not that good.’ I struggled at the beginning and I went haywire. I had to go back to school and start again.”

And so he’s still out there every day, out in the mid-day sun taking extra hitting. He touches the plate with his bat. He does his two check swings. He wiggles. He swings and swings, sometimes for eight minutes, sometimes for 15 to 20 minutes, depending on his mood and batting average.

Ben Hines, the Dodgers’ hitting coach, spied Gwynn one day. He shook his head.

“A younger guy doesn’t know when he goes in and out of a groove,” he said of Gwynn, who is 25 years old. “I noticed Gwynn was the first guy on the field. This guy has a great stroke. He just doesn’t know it.”

Alicia Gwynn, Tony’s wife, knows it. In many ways, she is his batting coach, having been taught by Tony how to hit. When they were younger, they would play sock ball, which is basically the same as baseball, only the ball is made of a sock and is wrapped with rubber bands.

And Alicia would pitch to him, standing close to him (about halfway between him and the pitcher’s mound) and throwing what she called a “sucker’s pitch.”

“I think it’s really called a sinker,” she said.

She used to get him out, but once in a while he’d hit her pitch, and the saying was that if you could hit a sock ball, you could definitely hit a baseball. To this day, Alicia is a baseball expert. She aggravates her friends when she stays home each night, taping Tony’s swings and misses. When he’s on the road, he’ll call her after each game, but he won’t mention the game.

Alicia speaks up: “Couldn’t get around, huh?”

Tony: “Yeah, what was I doing?”

Alicia: “You’re pulling your head up too fast.”

Tony: “Oh.”

And it’s not only Alicia. Tony, who is obsessed with hitting, has taught his in-laws about baseball, too, and Alicia’s brother called her up the other day after Tony had taken a called third strike. He was angered.

“Tony always said: ‘If there’s two strikes on you, always swing at anything close,’ ” Alicia said. “I was mad, too, when he struck out.”

If Tony wants to look further for an explanation of what he’s doing wrong, he might want to consult his two-year-old son, Anthony II. During each Padre game, little Anthony suits up in his Padre uniform and goes sliding around the room. When daddy’s up, he gets into his Gwynn stance: Touch the plate with the bat, take two check swings and then wiggle.

And little Anthony emulates it perfectly. He announces the game, too, imitating veteran announcer Jerry Coleman when daddy gets a hit. “Oh doctor!” Anthony screams.

The Gwynns have moved into a huge new house north of San Diego, which is a direct result of last year’s .351 average. That number has really changed his life. It’s amazing.

First, he renegotiated a new contract last winter, which puts him in San Diego until 1990. Actually, 1990 is his option year, and if the Padres pick up that option, he’ll make $1 million.

Presumably, he could have made even more if he had not chosen to renegotiate. His original contract would have ended after this season, and had he gone to arbitration, he might have been in the $750,000 to $900,000 range. But Gwynn, who grew up in a lower middle class environment in Long Beach, wanted long-range security, and would say later: “If I can’t live off what I do now, something’s wrong.”

He had just a few things he wanted to do with his money, a lot of which was given to him up front. First, he bought his wife a Mercedes, for he says it’s his obligation to spoil her. He bought himself a Ford Bronco truck, the license plates saying “TGWYNN,” but he admits the vanity plates were a mistake, considering he’s so much more recognized after hitting .351 and values privacy.

“What a dope I was,” he said about purchasing those plates.

Also, he bought the house, and they moved in just last weekend. He is not clear on the total number of rooms, but does know there are five bedrooms. He realized on Monday that he must use the in-house intercom system if he plans on talking to his wife in the kitchen while he’s in his bedroom. It’s too far away for him to scream.

“I don’t even know how it works yet,” he said of the intercom.

Also, he bought that Beta video cassette recorder, the one with the three different speeds.

“Other than that, I’m pretty much the same Tony Gwynn,” he said. “I still come to the park in jeans. I’m not not any different than anyone else. We’re a normal family. We don’t spend it just because we have more money now.”

But he hits just .309, and so maybe he isn’t the same Tony Gwynn.

“Sooner or later, I’ll hit the ball good again, and when I do, I’ll feel better about myself again,” he said.

He constantly is looking for ways to get going again. He looks back to last year’s tapes, last year period.

Before last season, he had come into spring training in his best shape as a pro, although not many 25-year-old baseball players ever get really out of shape. But Gwynn did. He had been a skinny kid in high school, but the summer after he graduated, he had visited his grandparents in Gallatin, Tenn., where his father, Charles, said: “People aren’t like people in California.”

“When they fix dinner, if you don’t eat, they think there’s something wrong with you,” Charles said. “And they cook a lot. Country ham, biscuits, jelly, fried chicken, potato salad, sweet potatoes, pie, ice cream.”

Said Gwynn: “I ate everything. I gained 60 pounds. I came back and the San Diego State basketball coach said: ‘Boy, you filled out.’ ”

In his later years at San Diego State, during which he was a superb point guard, the new coach there, Smokey Gaines, was his constant critic on fat. Gaines would say publicly that he was “shaped like a basketball” and was his “portly point guard.”

But before last season, Gwynn changed his diet, forgoing Big Macs for vegetables (“I never ate them before, but now I tolerate them”). Also, he rarely ate red meat. He came into camp slimmer, but still a little hefty.

“Alicia doesn’t think I’m fat,” he said. “I don’t think I’m fat. Just because I have what they call love handles and a little gut?

“I came into camp and everyone said I was slim and trim. This is right before last year. I was about 195 pounds. And some reporter from Baltimore came up and said ‘I’m looking for Tony Gwynn.’ I said, ‘I am Tony Gwynn.’ He said ‘When I heard about you, I thought your were 6-3, 235 (he’s 5-foot-11).’

“That’s the public perception of me. I guess I don’t have an athletic body. But I feel proud doing what I do the way I am. I’m living proof that a normal person who looks like he’s had a few beers can be a success.”

He was so successful last season that he joined the Garvey Marketing Group, Steve Garvey’s company that markets athletes. Garvey got him a speaking engagement over in Japan, and Gwynn ended up doing a show with the Japanese batting champ. They were supposed to interview each other. The Japanese player asked, “How does somebody your size move so well?”

Gwynn, surprised and thinking that someone from home had told the Japanese player what to ask, almost lost his cool, but managed a sane answer.

“Well, I didn’t want to start World War III,” he would say later.

For now, he has asked Garvey to restrict his engagements to baseball card shows and functions where he can go one-on-one with people. Gwynn has a marvelous personality, but he is uncomfortable speaking in front of crowds.

He was honored in the city of Long Beach last winter in front of family and friends, and he was petrified. His voice cracked, and he said to the crowd: “It’s strange. I can hit a baseball, but I can’t speak in front of 200 people.”

And now, in his own mind, he can’t even hit a baseball.

Sometimes it’s a fault to be a perfectionist.

“If he goes 2 for 4, he’ll say, ‘I should’ve gone 4 for 4,” Alicia said. “He wants to be perfect. If someone gives him credit, he’ll say ‘I could’ve done better.’ Even if he gets a ball to slide through the infield, and everybody gets those, he’ll say, ‘Cheap hit.’

“He can’t relax. That’s his problem. I think he’s thinking too much instead of just seeing it and hitting it.”

Said Deacon Jones: “Tony’s a worrier. We tell him, ‘You’re trying to anticipate too much.’ He’s trying to outthink pitchers.”

Why? Remember, he has a video tape on every pitcher in the National League. Frame by frame.

And so, it was time last weekend to take his problem to Pete Rose, who will soon have more hits than anyone. Rose has been enamored with Gwynn from the beginning. Gwynn got his first major league base hit against the Phillies, a double, and Rose, who was backing up second and saw the news on the scoreboard, said: “First hit?”

Said Gwynn: “Yeah, first game, too.”

Replied Rose: “You trying to catch me after one night?”

Last year, Rose and Gwynn took their picture together, and Rose said, “Between us, we should get 7,000 hits.”

So, Pete, what’s wrong with Gwynn?

Just as that question was posed to Rose inside the Cincinnati Red clubhouse, an ABC Monday Night Baseball commercial flashed onto the television. Rose was shown hitting.

“Now that guy can hit,” Rose said.

But what about Gwynn?

“Best young hitter in the league,” Rose said. “That video stuff? I used to do that stuff, too. He’ll learn he won’t have to. There are pitchers out there who’ll get you out. They make millions because they’re good. It’s not the end of the world.

“Extra hitting? I didn’t take extra hitting when I was going good. But I’d hit right after a game when I thought I was in a slump. I’d hit for 45 minutes. That’s the best time. You’re still lathered up and thinking about it.”

The words were passed along to Gwynn, who said he will stick to doing his extra hitting before the game, in the oppressive heat.

He will touch home plate with his bat. He will check swing twice. He will wiggle.

Thwap .

And he’ll wonder what’s wrong.