Tony :(

[HollywoodLeo]

Gah, this sucks. He's the reason I became a Padres fan. I don't get emotional over the loss of celebrities/sports players, but this is about as close as I get.

Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn dies at age 54 - CBSSports.com

[HafDawg2003]

Pretty rough. RIP.

[Tobywan]

Wow, heartbreaking, what a great player. Shame he wasn't able to beat the cancer, way too young.

[Kingdom]

This was pretty sad to hear.

[Kingdom]

MLB - The late Tony Gwynn's incredible hitting numbers - ESPN

[Providence A's]

Rip.

[HollywoodLeo]

19 incredible stats about Tony Gwynn's Hall of Fame career

• In 2,440 career games, Gwynn had only 34 multi-strikeout games. So, the odds were better that Gwynn would get four hits than striking out twice. Let that sink in.

• Gwynn's 434 career strikeouts are an amazing mark for a player who had 10,232 career plate appearances. Paul Waner is the only member of the 3,000 hit club to do better. He struck out 376 times in 10,766 plate appearances from 1926-1945.

• In 1995, Gwynn struck out only 15 times in 535 at-bats. That's insane. As Aceball Stats points out, 27 current MLB players have already struck out than more than 15 times in June.

• More on Gwynn's lack of strikeouts: He faced some great pitchers, but even the cream of the crop had trouble getting him out. Neither Pedro Martinez nor Greg Maddux ever struck him out. Maddux faced Gwynn 107 times and Gwynn hit .415 off Maddux.

• In two-strike counts, Gwynn hit .302. That's a statistic that's only been measured since 1988, and since then, Gwynn's mark is easily the best. Wade Boggs, next on the list, hit .260 in two-strike counts.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/bo...98604140.shtml

See that 3 K line on Tony's line in the linked box score? The only time in his career that ever happened. Kudos to the late Bob Welch for being the only man on this planet to ever strike Tony Gwynn out 3 times in one game. (Which accounted for about 8.6 percent of his season total that year)

Dominance

[LJMets1989]

323 career ABs against Maddux, Glavine, Pedro and Smoltz. A total of 3 Ks...

[Porter]

The pitcher that allowed Gwynn's last homer pitched in the 7th inning vs the Padres (Biemel) and Chris Young had his first start vs the Pads since leaving them.

[HollywoodLeo]

I didn't realize CY was still pitching.

[Porter]

He's having a solid season in Seattle.

[HollywoodLeo]

Has he lost multiple no hit bids with one or two outs in the 9th yet?

[Porter]

He lost one into the 7th

[Lynch]

I don't think I ever heard an unkind word about Tony. Dude always seem to be an upstanding man as well as a hell of a ballplayer.


Leo, I totally understand about getting emotional (or usually NON emotional over the passing of celebs or athletes)... When I read that Puckett died, a little piece of my youth died with him. I teared up when he came down with glaucoma but really got hit hard when he passed, even with the, uh, 'woman problems' he was having in those last couple of years.


Back to Tony... the sports world lost a hell of an athlete. RIP

[Tobywan]

, even with the, uh, 'woman problems' he was having in those last couple of years.

Did I miss something? I usually hear about all the dirt.



I hope one positive can come out of this and that it serves as a wake up call to stop dipping, my mother had two relatives that lost parts of their jaw due to dipping.