Background

Tony Gwynn was born on May 9, 1960, in Los Angeles, California, United States. He was the second of three sons of Charles A. Gwynn, a warehouse manager, and Vandella Douglas Gwynn, a postal worker, and grew up in Long Beach, California. His brothers Charles Gwynn, Jr. and Chris Gwynn played professional baseball as well.

Education

Tony Gwynn graduated in 1977 from Polytechnic High School in Long Beach and entered San Diego State University on a basketball scholarship. He starred as a point guard in basketball and set the Aztecs' career assist record. He also hit over .400 in baseball during his junior and senior seasons and became the first Western Athletic Conference athlete to make all-conference in both sports. In June 1981, though Gwynn had not graduated from San Diego State, the San Diego Clippers of the National Basketball Association selected him in the tenth round of its amateur draft, and the San Diego Padres baseball club drafted him in the third round.

Career

Gwynn's professional baseball career began in 1981 at Walla Walla, Washington, where he led the Northwest League with a .331 batting average. Gwynn finished 1981 with Amarillo, Texas, of the Texas League and began 1982 with Hawaii of the Pacific Coast League. He spent parts of 1982 and 1983 with the San Diego Padres, quickly blossoming into a National League star. The 5-foot, 11-inch, 200-pound Gwynn, batting and throwing left-handed, led the senior circuit with a .351 batting average and 213 hits in 1984. He batted .368 to help San Diego defeat the Chicago Cubs in the 1984 National League Championship Series but only hit .263 against the Detroit Tigers in the World Series, as the Padres lost, 4 games to 1.

Gwynn continually ranked among National League batting leaders. In 1986 he paced the senior circuit with 218 hits and 107 runs scored. His .370 batting average led the major leagues in 1987, while his 218 hits topped the National League. Gwynn repeated as National League batting champion with a .313 mark in 1988 and with .336 in 1989, when he led the senior circuit with 203 hits. After batting .309 with 177 hits in 1990, he in 1991 ranked third with a .317 batting average and again hit .317 in 1992. Gwynn won four Gold Glove awards for defensive excellence in 1986, 1987, 1989, and 1990.

In 1993 Gwynn's superb .358 batting average trailed only Andres Galarraga in the National League. On August 4 Gwynn collected six hits in a game against the San Francisco Giants. In the strike-shortened 1994 season, Gwynn set a club record batting a National League best and a career-high .394 with 165 hits and 64 runs batted in (RBI). His batting average marked the highest in the senior circuit since Bill Terry hit .401 in 1930 and the best in the major leagues since Ted Williams attained .406 in 1941. Gwynn won another National League batting title in 1995 with a major league best at .368, becoming the first player to hit over .350 in three consecutive seasons since Joe Medwick in the 1930s. He shared the National League lead with 197 hits.

Gwynn batted .353 in 1996 to become only the seventh major leaguer to win three straight hitting crowns and joined Ty Cobb as the only players to compile two separate streaks of three consecutive batting titles. He hit .308 against the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Division Series after playing 1,648 regular-season games between the two postseason appearances. Gwynn in 1997 enjoyed the most spectacular season of his illustrious career, winning his eighth batting title with a major league best .372 to tie Honus Wagner for the most National League batting crowns in a career to that date. Cobb earned twelve in the American League. The only major leaguer to win four batting titles in two separate decades, Gwynn joined Wagner, Rod Carew, and Wade Boggs with four consecutive batting titles. He also established career highs with 17 home runs and 119 RBI, shattered club records with 220 hits and 49 doubles, posted personal bests with 68 extra-base hits and 324 total bases, and paced the National League with 67 multi-hit games.

Gwynn helped San Diego post its best record in franchise history in 1998 with a .321 batting average, 16 home runs, and 69 RBI, and he hit a team best .500 with 8 hits, a home run, and 3 RBI in the World Series sweep by the New York Yankees. In 1999 he batted .338 and on August 6 became the twenty-second major leaguer to reach the 3,000-hit pinnacle with a first-inning single off Dan Smith of the Montreal Expos. Gwynn hit .323 in limited 2000 action, surpassing .300 for the eighteenth consecutive season to break Wagner's National League record. In 2001 Gwynn became the seventeenth major leaguer to play at least twenty major league seasons and spend his entire career with one team. Gwynn announced he would retire at the conclusion of the 2001 season.

After his playing career, Tony became the baseball head coach at SDSU for 12 seasons. In September 2001, he signed a three-year contract with San Diego State to be a volunteer coach for 2002 and with a salary of $100,000 from 2003.

Tony Gwynn was also a broadcaster, a game and studio analyst for ESPN, an expert analyst for Yahoo! Sports, and a color analyst for Padres games on Channel 4 and later Fox Sports San Diego.

Achievements

• 

  Tony Gwynn was known as one of the most prolific hitters in baseball history, and he did not achieve this status by accident. Using an unusually small bat, he led the Padres in career batting average (.338), runs scored (1,383), hits (3,141), doubles (543), triples (85), RBI (1,138), stolen bases (319), walks (790), and games played (2,440). He stood second in on-base percentage (.388) and ranked third in home runs (135) and slugging percentage (.459). Besides pacing all active players in batting average and hits, Gwynn ranked second in doubles, fourth in total bases, and fifth in runs. Gwynn led the National League a record 7 times in singles and shared the record with Pete Rose for pacing the senior circuit 7 times in hits. In 9,288 career at bats, he struck out only 434 times.
  
  Gwynn was named to the National League All-Star team fifteen times and started eleven times. He made the Sporting News Silver Slugger team seven times (1984, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1994, 1995, 1997) and the Sporting News All-Star team five times (1984, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1994). He earned Padres Most Valuable Player honors seven times (1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1994, 1995, 1997), won Rawlings Gold Glove awards five times (1986, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1991), and garnered National League Player of the Month accolades five times. In 1995 he won the Branch Rickey Award for outstanding community service and the inaugural Chairman's Award for best exemplifying the community spirit of the family of the Padres owner John Moore. In 1999 Gwynn received the Roberto Clemente Man of the Year award for best-combining sportsmanship and community involvement with excellence on the field and was inducted into the World Sports Humanitarian Hall of Fame.
  
  On January 9, 2007, Gwynn was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Art of Hitting

    (The author, eight-time National League batting champion, ...)

    1998
  • Tony Gwynn's Total Baseball Player

    (The book discusses choosing a bat, the swing, hitting, bu...)

    1992
  • Tony!

    (Pictorial biography of the San Diego Padres all-time grea...)

    1986

Views

In 1995, Gwynn and his wife founded the Tony and Alicia Gwynn Foundation. The organization aims to help disadvantaged youth through sports, mentoring and other programs. He was also known to host kids at his home for multi-day camps.

Quotations: "Either you have the ability to hit or not. But I also think you have to work at it."

"I'm a chemistry guy. I believe you've got to play together to have a chance to win."

"I try to keep it real simple. I try not to add a lot of frosting on what I'm doing. Just take the swing and don't muscle the swing, because if you get in the hitting position and you take the swing, I generate a lot more bat speed, and that works for me."

"It's about getting in position and taking a swing. I don't care if you're taking steroids or not; if you don't do those two things, it's not going to matter anyway."

"I was a contact hitter my whole career but I learned how to handle the ball inside. And Ted Williams played a big part in that. He gave me the advice on how to handle inside pitches."

"Knowing the strike zone is very important, but I think the first thing is knowing yourself, knowing what things you do well."

"Nobody talked about my defense or that I used to steal bases, too."

"Remember these two things: play hard and have fun."

"Sometimes technique works better than a whole lot of other things."

"Steroids do not guarantee you're going to have success. I think a lot of people think that they will, but they don't."

"What drives me is trying to be perfect."

"When you sign your name on the dotted line, it's more than just playing baseball. You have a responsibility to make good decisions and show people how things are supposed to be done."

Personality

Gwynn always had a smile on his face and he had a little cackle, great belly laugh. He'd be telling a joke or laughing.

Gwynn's artistic batting stroke and jovial personality helped countless San Diegans fall in love with baseball.

Gwynn was friendly and accessible to both the media and fans. He was hard-working and renowned for his work ethic and devotion to extra batting practice.

Physical Characteristics: Tony Gwynn was 5 ft 11 inches (180 cm) tall and weighed 185 lb (83 kg).

Tony Gwynn had three procedures to remove noncancerous growths from his parotid gland. In 2010, he was diagnosed with cancer of a salivary gland. Gwynn had his lymph nodes and tumors from the gland removed. Because of the operation, his face was partially paralyzed on the right side. After eight weeks of chemotherapy and radiation treatments, Tony was declared cancer-free. Later, Gwynn had additional surgery to remove more cancerous growth and address nerve damage.

In 2009 Tony Gwynn had an adjustable gastric banding surgery in an attempt to lose weight. The next year, his weight problem led to a slipped disc in his back that affected a nerve down his leg. He had the damaged disc removed to cure the pain while walking.

Gwynn died because of cancer complications.

Quotes from others about the person

• Keith Olbermann: "What you hoped Tony Gwynn was like, he was like."
  
  Joe Girardi: "When I think of Tony Gwynn, I think of it from a catcher's perspective, how difficult it was to get him out. You look at zones where guys hit the ball, breaking pitches they hit, and there were no cold zones. I mean, the joke used to be, 'Throw it right down the middle, because that's the only pitch he didn't know what to do with.' If you throw outside, he'd hit to left. If you throw it inside, he'd hit it to right. He sprayed the ball all over the place and played a great right field. But he was a gentleman, too. He always had a smile on his face when he played the game. He was a real student of the game. He was a guy who everyone tried to learn from, in a sense, because he was such a good player. You wanted to know his thoughts about the game and hitting. It's sad that we lost him. I think he had a lot to offer."

Interests

• Sport & Clubs

  baseball

• Athletes

  Willie Davis

Connections

Tony Gwynn was married to Alicia Gwynn. The couple had two children - R&B singer Anisha Nicole and baseball player Tony Gwynn Jr.

Father:

Charles A. Gwynn

(August 26, 1932 - November 27, 1993)

Mother:

Vandella Douglas Gwynn

(1935 - 2018)

Spouse:

Alicia Gwynn

Alicia Gwynn is a philanthropist, entrepreneur, and recording artist.

Daughter:

Anisha Nicole Gwynn

(born August 8, 1985)

Anisha Nicole Gwynn is an R&B, hip hop, and pop singer.

Son:

Tony Gwynn Jr.

(born October 4, 1982)

Tony Gwynn Jr. is an American former professional baseball outfielder. Gwynn played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Milwaukee Brewers, San Diego Padres, Los Angeles Dodgers, and the Philadelphia Phillies.

Brother:

Charles Gwynn, Jr.

Brother:

Chris Gwynn

(born October 13, 1964)

Chris Gwynn is a former Major League Baseball outfielder.

Friend:

Ted Williams

References

• Tony Gwynn: He Left His Heart in San Diego Completed with the help of the San Diego Union-Tribune and their expansive archive of Tony Gwynn photos, this book is as beautifully packaged and written. Tony Gwynn had a Hall of Fame career with the San Diego Padres, went on to coach San Diego State baseball squad, and was probably the most popular citizen to call San Diego home. The book is packed with wonderful stories from Tony Gwynn's friends, teammates, and colleagues celebrating an amazing life.
  2014
• Tony Gwynn: Mr. Padre An easy to read children's book chronicling the exciting career of Tony Gwynn. When San Diego earned a trip to the 1998 World Series, outfielder Tony Gwynn was perhaps the happiest Padre. Gwynn has been one of baseball's best hitters since arriving in the Majors and has had many opportunities to play in other cities for more money. Barry Bloom explains why Gwynn has remained loyal to San Diego, and how that loyalty has paid off through Hall of Fame numbers and the support and love of Padres fans.
  1999