Padres’ Gwynn Can Dig Deeper to Bury the Past

Feeling more like the proverbial postman than a writer, I drove through a Tuesday resplendent with rain and snow and sleet and wind and blowing sand to get to this oasis where the games of summer begin.

This was weather for a Buffalo Bill playoff game, not spring training. This was Maureen (What? Me Worry About What Drought?) O’Connor weather. This was weather so chilly that the Arizona inspectors did not even confiscate my sweaters at the border check station.

However, I finally found sunshine.

Indoors.

This was at a locker in the Padres’ clubhouse. Mind you, this locker came with its own version of the surgeon general’s warning.

“Please no more Jack Clark questions,” the sign said, “and I don’t care what he’s said. Thank you.”

It was not signed, but the label on the locker said “Gwynn 19.”

And Tony Gwynn was sitting there, driven inside with everyone else by a wind that threatened to relocate Yuma somewhere in the vicinity of Gila Bend.

OK, Tony, I can read the sign. Last year is an old story. You-Know-Who is on the other side of the continent, and I haven’t heard from him since I said he thought Florsheim was a toothpaste.

The calendar, defying the elements, tells us that this is the spring of another year.

“I’m excited,” Gwynn said.

Hello, Tony.

“I’m excited about this year,” he said. “I really am. Nobody expects us to do well. Everyone expects us to come in fourth or fifth or sixth. You look at Cincinnati and the Dodgers and Giants and you ask what we have in here.”

He taps his chest.

“All of us have to dig deeper,” he said, “to prove people wrong.”

The Padres know what it is like to be the favorites. They have been cast in that role for the last two years, but they were as miscast as Billy Crystal doing Shakespeare. They were laughs instead.

Tony Gwynn likes being involved with a team he thinks can achieve beyond its expectations. He thinks the chemistry is there for this team. He likes the talent.

Most importantly, he likes the feeling.

Quickly, we arrive at a crossroads.

“For me personally, it’s going to be nice to go out and play again and do the things I’ve always done,” he said. “Last year was one of those years. Things happened. It wasn’t a whole lot of fun.”

I stole a glance at the sign above his head. I wasn’t going to ask any questions about You-Know-Who. And Tony Gwynn was not going to mention any names.

Simply stated, last year is there. It was like a bad meal. It certainly does not make you not want to eat again.

Tony Gwynn, who spent the last 19 games of that bad year on the disabled list with a fractured finger, is ready to play again and feast again and win again.

“The whole reason to play,” he said, “is to win. When people talk about Tony Gwynn, I want them to say he played hard and he played to win . . . not that he won four batting titles or won four Gold Gloves.”

That was the way Gwynn had been perceived until those clubhouse voices, You-Know-Who and Co., suggested he was motivated by individual statistics. And what had to nettle Gwynn in retrospect was that, in the midst of the team crashing around him, he batted a meager, by his standards alone, .309.

“Last year,” he said, “people expressed doubts that I could still play at the level I played at. They questioned me and they questioned my character. In my mind, I’m still the player I was. Other people may not feel that way and it’s up to me to convince them.”

Excuse me, I intervened, you are talking a rather isolated pocket of “other people.” I have not encountered anyone elsewhere you thinks Tony Gwynn, all of 30 years old, is ready for a convalescent home.

“Realistically,” he said, “not everyone is a Tony Gwynn fan. I’m afraid the things that were said cast me in a different light. People may see a different perception. It bothers me that a lot of people might think those things were true. The only way to convince them is to do the job.”

This detour through the darkness of 1990 was Tony Gwynn’s way of underscoring the brightness of 1991. He genuinely seemed excited. If this team is to achieve, Gwynn has to achieve. He has to be the frolicking Tony Gwynn who enjoys a victory more than a multi-hit game, but he understands, as does anyone with any sense, that those multi-hit games certainly contribute to victories.

“I put a lot of pressure on myself,” he said, “because I believe I can play at the level I was accustomed to playing at two or three years ago. My forte has been consistency. If I go out and play 150 or 160 games, I’ll throw the numbers out there and let you analyze them.”

Let him play 160 games and he will throw numbers out there that will stop the rain, quiet the wind and settle the blowing sand. Those numbers will make his team a better team.

Numbers such as Tony Gwynn can put on the board might even make him wonder what You-Know-Who has to say then.