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What: Stan Musial and Tony Gwynn Talk Hitting With the Sporting News

Price: $2.50

Bring two of the best hitters in baseball history together, sit them down for two hours and you’re going to hear a lot about bat speed, hitting zones, dominant hands (top or bottom?), sitting on pitches, reading breaking balls and proximity to home plate while standing in the batter’s box.

But get them talking about other hitters--and the pitchers they love/hate to face--and the interview is instantly transformed from dull textbook transcript to lively gossip column.

The toughest pitchers Stan Musial and Tony Gwynn faced?

Two of them are named Bill Werle and Michael Mimbs.

Werle, a journeyman left-hander with a 29-39 record, had Stan the Man’s number, according to Musial.

“He wasn’t a hard thrower and he came sidearm, you know, but he always had me off stride,” Musial told Sporting News editors John Rawlings and Mark Newman.

Mimbs, meanwhile, vexed Gwynn, who admits, “I don’t even know if he’s still in the big leagues with the Phillies, but he was a guy I went one for 13 off of, and I never just really took good swings off of him because I didn’t see the ball out of his hand.”

And which three players would Musial and Gwynn pay to see?

Musial, playing to the crowd at hand, named Gwynn and Ken Griffey Jr. and was stumped to name just one more.

Gwynn named Mark McGwire, Barry Larkin and Ray Lankford--suggesting that if Gwynn weren’t preoccupied chasing .400 this season, he’d be a great choice to run the Angels.

About that quest for .400: Gwynn says it’s no fun, no fun at all.

“Don’t get me wrong, I would love to do it,” he says while pointing out that “having to talk about it every day gets tiresome. . . . I’m thankful I’m in a position where people still think I can make a run at it but all the fringe stuff that comes with it, they can have it.”