Tony Gwynn

"Good judgment comes from experience and a lot of that comes from bad judgment."
--Arthur Bishop (The Mechanic)

Tony Gwynn passed away on Monday. He had mouth cancer--attributed to chewing snuff (as in 'just a pinch between the cheek and gum') during his career. He had just turned 54 in May.

Using batting average as the yardstick, Gwynn was among the best pure hitters of all time, and certainly the best of the past 30 years. His lifetime average was .338 and he led the league in hitting 8 times. He was also a 15 time All Star who earned 5 Gold Gloves in the outfield. Gwynn was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2007.

Gwynn was a mechanic, the consummate technician of hitting a baseball. Studying the craft like few others, he was among the first to routinely view video of himself at the plate and then put what he learned to work.

The most amazing of Gwynn's stats, to me, are his strikeout stats. In 9288 at bats, Gwynn struck out 434 times. That's striking out less than once in every 20 at bats. Spread across his 20 year career, he averaged about 22 K's per year. In his career, he struck out 3 times in a game...once. He said that he hated to strike out--that he would rather bounce feebly to the pitcher rather than whiff.

That attitude is long gone today.

RIP TG.