Gwynn Could Take It Sitting Down

The Big Stuff, as it pertains to baseball, is being contested elsewhere this weekend. Folks in Atlanta, for example, hardly know the game is being played anywhere but there and San Francisco. San Franciscans, meanwhile, are hoping to spoil the weekend for a baseball team they feel is almost as snobby as they are.

What we have here in San Diego is simply an interesting little struggle for the National League batting title. Part of the story is being written in Atlanta as well, but it’s only a sub-plot there.

This isn’t quite division championship stuff, but there’s something special about being a batting champion. No individual statistical achievement, at least on a yearly basis, sticks more firmly in people’s memories. Not NFL rushing leaders. Not NBA scoring leaders. Not baseball home run champions, except in the most exceptional years.

Tony Gwynn has won four batting titles. That’s Hall of Fame stuff. He could win a fifth and swing that door to Cooperstown a little wider.

Except Mr. Gwynn is the outsider this October weekend. His season is over, ended by knee surgery. His average is .317. That’s the benchmark.

Beat it.

After Friday’s games, Atlanta’s Terry Pendleton was at .318 and Cincinnati’s Hal Morris was at .316. These guys are playing. Pendleton is at home, where bigger things are happening. However, Morris is right here in San Diego.

Both the Dodgers and Tony Gwynn need help from Houston’s pitchers, the Dodgers to win the division and Gwynn to get past that most distant, geographically at least, of his two adversaries.

And Tony Gwynn needs more of the kind of help Jose Melendez and Jeremy Hernandez gave him Friday--they held Morris to 0 for 4.

“I’ve thought about that,” he said with a laugh, “but I’m not going to pester them with that . They have their things to do. They actually talk about it more than I do.”

Andy Benes has thought about it, too. He is scheduled to be the Padres’ starting pitcher Sunday. Should Pendleton have faltered, it might be his task to stop Morris and accomplish the second half of the parlay Gwynn needs.

“It was the same thing two years ago in the last series against the Giants,” Benes said. “Everyone was talking about Tony Gwynn and Will Clark and the batting title. There was so much talk about it I figured I had to get him out.”

Benes pitched Friday night.

“I remember Will’s first time at-bat,” he said. “I made a good pitch on the inside and he hit a flare over Robbie Alomar’s head for a single. It was the worst hit I gave up all day, but I got him the next two times up.”

Benes laughed.

“I couldn’t have done too badly,” Benes said. “It was still a race on Sunday.”

That was an exciting series for Tony Gwynn.

“Before that series started,” he said, “Will came to me in the batting cage and said, ‘I’m playing every day.’ I said, ‘ I’m playing every day, too.’ He said, ‘Let’s one of us win this thing swinging.’ ”

It did, indeed, come down to that final game.

“Head-to-head,” Gwynn said. “They’re going to the playoffs and we’re going home. The focus was on who wins the batting title. I was trailing by a hit, .334 to .333.”

Gwynn got three hits to Clark’s one and took the title, .336 to .333. Nice race.

This one is different. Tony Gwynn is not in there swinging. He is a spectator.

“It’s not in my hands,” he said. “That’s the approach I take. I’m going to sit back and watch. I did what I did for 5 1/2 months. My numbers are posted. If I should win it, great. If I don’t, I hit .317 and did some things well and some things not so well. I just don’t expect both those guys to have a bad series at the same time.”

A lot of things can happen on a weekend such as this. Pendleton, given the significance of that series, has to play. He cannot coast on his numbers. Morris usually sits against left-handed starters, but the Padres are going with three right-handers. He could sit down Sunday if he leads and the Braves’ game is over.

“Don’t let the fact that he’s a good hitter having a heckuva year get lost in the shuffle,” Gwynn said. “You won’t hear any controversy from me if he sits down with the lead.”

Gwynn would not sit on a lead. Period.

That is what makes sitting down hard for him. Period.

And what of a Sunday scenario which finds the game and the season in the final innings and Tony Gwynn in need of one hit for that fifth batting title?

“Everyone’s talking about the mystery appearance,” Gwynn laughed. “Guys in here (the clubhouse) are after me about it. They’re telling me I could limp to first base. Hey, I haven’t even seen live pitching for 3 weeks. I’d love to win another one, no doubt, but my track record says I’ll be there again.”