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Tony Gwynn was a generational hitter, the kind of player whose skill at the plate was magical to watch.
I spoke to a former big league pitcher who faced him and, while he was in the bullpen warming up, he asked his teammates how to pitch to Gwynn. The response was simple.
“Throw it down the middle and save your bullets because he’s going to get a hit anyway.”
Here is a short list of facts that show the kind of hitter Tony Gwynn was.
Tony Gwynn hit at least .300 for 19-straight years. The only year Gwynn didn’t hit .300 was his rookie season of 1982 when he hit .289. in 54 games.
The only players with more .300 seasons are Ty Cobb and Eddie Collins and the game was very different then.
Five players in history hit .300 for 19 or more seasons and Gwynn is the only one of them to have played after 1937.
Tony faced 885 pitchers over the course of his career. Five of them struck him out more than 5 times and none of them struck him out more than 10 times.
In 20 seasons at the major league level, Tony Gwynn struck out 434 times.
Tony Gwynn hit .371 in 39 World Series plate appearances.
He was 5-for-19 in the 1984 World Series and 8-for-16 in the 1998 World Series.
He hit .338 against pitchers currently in the Hall of Fame.
Tony Gwynn faced the vaunted Braves trio of Smoltz, Glavine, and Maddux 287 times. He struck out a total of 3 times and hit .381 against them.
Gwynn faced Maddux more than any other pitcher in his career. He hit .429 against hin in 103 plate appearances with zero strikeouts.
Tony had 541 plate appearances against Hall of Fame pitchers. He struck out just 26 times and 9 of those were vs. Nolan Ryan.
BTW: He hit .302 off Ryan.
Gwynn played a major league game in 20 cities. He hit .300 or better in 17 of them.
Anaheim (.268), Phoenix (.268), and Seattle (.261).
Tony Gwynn played at least 100 games in 16 seasons. He led the league in hits in 7 of them.
Tony Gwynn had more 4-hit games (45) than he did 2-strikeout (34) games.
In 1988, Tony won the batting title with a .313 batting average, which was 25 points BELOW his career batting average.
The only other player win win a batting title with a mark 25 points below his career average was Ty Cobb in 1908.
Tony had 45 games in which he had at least four hits.
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