Tony Gwynn has passed away. RIP

[wilko]

Rest easy sweet prince.

 

http://www.buzzpirates.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/tonygwynn.jpg

[GeorgiaPeach]

I believe he retired for health reasons. Bad back if I remember correctly.

[GeorgiaPeach]

I don't get what KGM meant with Gwynn being built for Jack Murphy? It was a pretty run of the mill park with no advantages I can think of. I thought it was Boggs that used Fenway to his advantage.

[Dick_Pole]

I don't get what KGM meant with Gwynn being built for Jack Murphy? It was a pretty run of the mill park with no advantages I can think of. I thought it was Boggs that used Fenway to his advantage.

 

RIP Mr. Gwynn. Another one that died too young. Interesting when wrestlers die young it's an epidemic, but we have had our fair share of baseball players go before their time too.

 

I wouldn't consider Gwynn's stats to be overly homer-friendly. Virtually identical except for a few more OBP/BA points at home:

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=gwynnto01&year=Career&t=b

[GD]

Kid on my baseball team tonight didn't know who Tony Gwynn was.

 

Got yelled at. A lot. By me. A looooooot.

[TwistedLogic]

Over his twenty-year career, Tony Gwynn had more doubles than strikeouts. In 10232 plate appearances, he only struck out 434 times, while hitting 543 doubles. His slugging percentage was also higher than his total strikeouts, at 459.

 

For comparison's sake, from 2004 to 2006, in 2035 plate appearances, Adam Dunn struck out 557 times.

[GD]

Holy f***.

[Dick_Pole]

I read on twitter that Arencibia is very close to Gwynns career mark in strikeouts (less than z30 away)

 

Gee, that's a shocker of the year...a bad player has done a bad thing almost as many times in a short period of time as a good player has done in a long period of time....

[NorthOf49]

I read on twitter that Arencibia is very close to Gwynns career mark in strikeouts (less than z30 away)

That stat doesn't do Gwynn justice. Any player can look good next to Arencibia.

 

After his 54-game rookie season, Gwynn never hit under .300 for a season. He is proof that hitting .400 is still possible: hit hit .402 in a 162 game sample ending in 1995. That's ridiculous.

 

One of the uniquely great players in baseball history.

[TwistedLogic]

I read on twitter that Arencibia is very close to Gwynns career mark in strikeouts (less than z30 away)

 

Yeah I purposely didn't use Arencibia as a comparison because I thought it would be kind of insulting to Gwynn. Dunn was at least a good player at one point or another. Even then I don't think it's a fair comparison. So here's another:

 

If people think that Gwynn might have just had it easier because of the time during which he played, think again.

 

Babe Ruth (before Gwynn), and Barry Bonds (after Gwynn) are considered the two greatest players of all time, and each had 1330 and 1539 career strikeouts respectively.

 

Like North said above, Tony Gwynn was a special player.

[Dick_Pole]

Something to think about. The 1989 and 1990 Padres probably had one of the best and most overlooked top of the orders a team could have. The trio of Gwynn, Bip Roberts and Jack Clark averaged OBP's around .390 combined and walked more than they struck out over those two years. Thanks to those three that gave our hero Joe Carter plenty of chances to keep his 100+ RBI a season rep intact despite being atrocious in 1990 in all other aspects of his game. They way SDP played ball back then was exactly how every team aspires to play now.

[G-Snarls]

[TheHurl]

 

honestly I thought the whole league could have had a moment of silence (maybe they did but I work 12 hours a day and don't see s*** anymore)

[Dick_Pole]

honestly I thought the whole league could have had a moment of silence (maybe they did but I work 12 hours a day and don't see s*** anymore)

 

I don't know about that. If every team did that for every important player that died, it would get cheesy fast. And what's the cut off for that? HOF player that dies young? How about a HOF player that lives to the ripe old age of 90? Gotta go at some point in time. Did Bob Welch get any honours?

[NorthOf49]

I don't know about that. If every team did that for every important player that died, it would get cheesy fast. And what's the cut off for that? HOF player that dies young? How about a HOF player that lives to the ripe old age of 90? Gotta go at some point in time. Did Bob Welch get any honours?

Hall of Famers, yep. I could get behind that. The game's history is a central theme of baseball. Tony Gwynn is an immensely important figure to baseball as a collective, not just the Padres.

 

You don't have to institutionalize the practice and have MLB mandate that teams recognize players though. That would get cheesy. It has to be done in an organic-seeming way.