Chris Gwynn Poses Interesting Choice for Dodger Brass

Every spring training camp has an interesting kid, and you don’t need a program to find him. He steps into the batting cage and a scout or a coach will lean over to you and whisper, “Now here’s an interesting kid.”

Chris Gwynn is that kid for the Dodgers this spring. Take Monday’s game against the Atlanta Braves, for instance.

First inning, trying to protect a baserunner on a hit and run, Gwynn gets into an 0-and-2 hole against pitcher Pete Smith, but winds up doubling off the top of the center-field fence, a millimeter away from a homer.

Third inning, Gwynn finds himself 0-and-2 again. Fouls off two pitches. Takes a ball. Hits a curveball over the right-field fence, a flat rainbow. Two innings later, he fights out of another 0-and-2 count and winds up with another double.

That made Chris a neat 17-for-34 for the spring. Great swing, great attitude, great blood lines, very nice progress in two seasons of triple A, but can Chris Gwynn crack the big club?

Who knows? He is in the mysterious world of major league baseball. His manager is an all-world talker, but Tom Lasorda hasn’t dropped a clue to Gwynn regarding his immediate fate.

“It’s real vague around here,” Gwynn said before Tuesday’s game, in which he got a pinch-hit to drive his average up to .514. “Nobody says anything to you. You kind of have to get a feel for it yourself. I really don’t have any idea (if he has a shot at making the opening-day roster).”

It could be a battle between Gwynn and Franklin Stubbs. Stubbs is 28, a .222 hitter with home run power, who strikes out once every four at-bats. Gwynn, 24, more of a doubles-type hitter, hit .299 at Albuquerque last season, and against minor league pitching he strikes out about once every 10 at-bats.

The old problem--do you go with proven mediocrity or with intriguing potential?

What helps makes Chris Gwynn such an interesting kid is his gene pool, which is both curse and blessing. He is the younger brother of Tony Gwynn, one of the game’s great hitters, and Chris patiently endures the comparisons.

They are both stocky--Chris is 6-foot-2 and 200 pounds--left-handed hitters with nearly identical hitting styles and philosophies. As expressed by Tony, that philosophy is: “See the ball, hit it hard.”

“You try not to make it more complicated than it is,” Chris says. “You hit the ball where it’s pitched. We won’t hit a lot of home runs, but we both go to the opposite field well.”

They are both line-drive spray hitters, although the philosophy and style is nothing Chris deliberately copied from Tony.

“I’ve never really tried to pattern myself after him,” Chris says. “Everybody else does that for me.”

Yet the similarities are marked.

“It might be in the genes,” Chris says, and that’s one factor that will keep Lasorda and Fred Claire up late at night this week and next, deciding what to do with the kid.

Baseball sibling gene evaluation can be tricky. The Aaron brothers, Henry and Tommie, divided up their baseball genes unequally, Hank getting about 95% of the pot. Jose Canseco is a superstar but his twin brother is a struggling minor leaguer.

Then there are more equitable distributions, like the three Alous, the three DiMaggios--Vince and Dom were no stiffs--and the two pitching Perrys.

The point is this: Can the Dodgers afford to let Chris Gwynn slip away to another team, or waste away in the minors, when he just might be the second coming of Tony Gwynn?

Chris would rather make the club on his own merit, by doing things like hitting .514 in spring training, but if the family name gives him a slight edge in the final analysis, he’ll take it.

Besides, if working in Tony’s shadow really bothered Chris, he could have stayed with his No. 1 sport, basketball. He was the sixth man on Long Beach Poly’s Southern Section championship team in 1981, and had many more offers to play college basketball than baseball.

He took a baseball scholarship to San Diego State. The basketball coach invited him to play, but Chris declined.

“I decided to concentrate on baseball,” Gwynn says. “I don’t know why.”

His third and last season at San Diego State, Chris set a National Collegiate Athletic Assn. record for hits in a season, 137. Then he signed with the Dodgers and has developed steadily in four minor league seasons.

The question now is, will the Dodgers keep him around as a pinch-hitter and reserve outfielder, or send him back to play full time at Albuquerque?

Lasorda isn’t saying, because he and Claire probably haven’t decided yet. Maybe it’s better not to say anything to the kid now, not raise his hopes or discourage him.

Chris reads the lineup card every day, and goes to work.

“I try to have a good attitude, an open mind,” he says, and there’s something else the Gwynn brothers have in common. Tony has a reputation for being one of baseball’s nicest, most upbeat people. He and Chris talk frequently by phone, and Tony tells Chris to be patient.

“The mental approach to the game is very important,” Chris says. “The situation I’m in, it could drive you crazy.

“I’ve had a good enough spring, if they do send me back, I could hold my head up.”

But could Lasorda and Claire?