Tony Gwynn laughed when he described himself as a Punch and Judy batter, but he has proved that singles hitters can reach baseball’s shrine, the Hall of Fame.
“It hasn’t sunk in yet, probably not until I get to Cooperstown,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve been working on my speech.”
A perfectionist, the intense Padre great spent hours in front of a TV screen studying his batting stance and swing, smoothing out whatever flaws there may have been.
“My teammates thought I was out of my mind,” the likable Gwynn said, prior to his talk on Jan. 23 before a sold-out luncheon audience at the San Diego Hall of Champions.
“No one else on the team did this,” said the man who played 20 seasons for the Padres. “Now other teams have hired a video guy. Maybe I should have put a patent on it.”
He said he doesn’t apply the technique in coaching his San Diego State baseball players because “I don’t want to overwhelm them.
“Sure, I was a Punch and Judy hitter. Look at the stats: all those singles I hit. I didn’t start hitting home runs until later in my career.” He had 2,318 singles of his 3,141 hits.
Gwynn, who has also been a baseball television analyst, spoke about steroids, blank Hall of Fame ballots, love of coaching, managers Bruce Bochy and Bud Black and a distant look into the future as a baseball manager.
Someone posed the question whether he’d like to be a manager someday. He didn’t rule it out, only saying he had a lot to learn while coaching the Aztecs.
“Right now I’d say no. I’m not saying I haven’t thought about it, because I have,” Gwynn said. “At the college level I can make mistakes. At the professional level, I don’t think I’m ready.
“It’s hard to talk to my team about teamwork when here I am being honored for what I did individually. [That’s] kinda giving a mixed message. But my individual performance was about winning ballgames.
“I truly love coaching. [It’s] more fun than playing, actually. I’ve got 29 new guys, but we need to win some games,” alluding to a disappointing season last year.
He mentioned pitching nemesis Randy Johnson as being one of the toughest he faced.
“At 6-11. he had great release points and angles. I’m not saying he got the best of me, but in about 12 or 13 at bats against him, he probably struck me out six or seven times.”
He said he was sorry to see Bruce Bochy leave the Padres.
“He managed to get the most out of that club,” Gwynn said. “I’ve seen a lot of people come and go here. The list is endless.
“Bud Black is going to do fine, because he’s exactly like Bochy. He has a good sense of humor and he knows how to deal with people.”
In regard to steroids, he said several years ago baseball didn’t know how to deal with the problem, but now it has rules.
Still, he feels players should be judged on what they did on the field, referring to suspected players such as Mark McGwire and the blank ballot protest by one sportswriter.
“It’s not right to turn in a blank ballot as a protest to all players because of the steroid issue,” he said.
He credits another Hall of Famer in making an adjustment in his career.
“I thought I had established myself until I had a conversation with Ted Williams, and it changed my career,” Gwynn said.
“He drops a phrase on you about your craft and said major-league hitters must hit the ball inside: ‘If you hit the ball out of the ballpark they won’t pitch inside to you.’
“Then, I began to hit the ball out of the ball park, and they didn’t pitch inside to me anymore.”