On Tony Gwynn's birthday, we look back at a talk with the Hall of Famer

Editor's note: This story originally ran in 2016. The Union-Tribune brings it back today on what would have been Tony Gwynn's 64th birthday.

There was a most welcome interruption during spring cleaning of the garage a few weeks ago.

I opened one box gathering dust in a corner and found a copy of Tony Gwynn’s book “Total Baseball Player: Winning Techniques for Hitting, Fielding and Baserunning.” Tucked inside the book was a five-page transcript from an interview I did with Tony in the Padres dugout 21 years ago. It was dated July 19, 1995, which just happened to be the 13th anniversary of his major league debut.

Going back through that interview brought back some wonderful memories of a conversation that took place before batting practice at then San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium on a warm summer day in the Padres dugout.

I never did get back to the garage.

The idea for the interview then was to put into perspective what Gwynn was in the midst of accomplishing. He was quoted on an almost daily basis, but the Hall of Fame path he was on had not really been considered.

At the time of the interview, he was in the middle of a five-year stretch in which he batted .358, .394, .368, .353 and .372 and collected the last four of his eight NL batting titles. The 1994 strike the previous season had cost him the opportunity to go after .400. That week he had just become the active leader in career batting average, edging past Wade Boggs at .33444 to Boggs’ .34437. Gwynn (.338 lifetime) would finished well ahead of Boggs (.328) by careers’ end. They remain the two highest career batting averages over the past 50 years. Tony ranks 16th all-time.

Gwynn had just passed 2,300 career hits earlier that week. He was still well short of 3,000, but he could see it on the horizon. Today seems like a good occasion to share what he had to say during that conversation 29 years ago:

Now that you’ve played for more than a decade, have you given much thought to the numbers you’re putting up and your place in baseball history?

“I think a lot of guys focus on the numbers from year to year but they don’t recognize the significance they could have if they play a long time. You have the chance to achieve some of the numbers these other guys have.

“From my standpoint, I don’t look at them, but I think about them a lot. As a kid growing up, I remember seeing Roberto Clemente get his 3,000th hit, seeing Lou Brock get his. In my case, that always seemed unreachable. But as you start playing, you ask yourself if that’s a number you could shoot at. For me, it’s a big part of why you keep going out there and trying to achieve something.

“I think most guys in this game don’t think about the numbers as much. They think about establishing themselves, making a nice salary and being looked upon as a good player.

“I think you have to play the game for awhile before the history part of it really comes into play. I think the fans look at it as something where they can compare player to player. I remember as a kid looking at Pete Rose and seeing what he was able to accomplish and compare it to what other guys did. And asking yourself if you could do what Pete Rose is doing. And the only thing you have to go by is the numbers. His are ungodly.

“I was like most young guys, I came up and wanted to establish myself in the big leagues. I wanted to be successful, but I had no clue what was going to be my forte. I always knew I could swing the bat, but I never knew I could swing it at the level I’m swinging it. I thought I could hit .300, especially after I started playing. When you come up to the big leagues, you think that everything’s so much better. Curveballs are better. Fastballs are better. Then you realize it’s just like any other league. They throw it over the plate and you hit it. It only took me about a month to realize it isn’t that much better. These are the best, but it isn’t like it’s unhittable.

Do a lot of guys say, OK, I’ve made it, now I can relax?

“Oh, yeah, sure, lots of guys do. When I first came up, the object was to be the best player that you could be. That meant you had to put your time in, you had to work on things. You drove yourself to be the best that you could be. Now, I don’t think that’s the case. Because if that was the case you would see more guys working harder to try to improve than you do (see). You would be surprised.

“Every time we go into a city on the road, I get the newspaper and I go through the averages and I look, and I’m usually at the park pretty early and I’m looking to see who’s working on what. And there’s nobody there. There’s usually six or seven guys on every club who, if the team schedules early hitting, they’re there. It’s that drive to be the best you could be.

“I think I developed (the drive) because I was a workaholic as far as this game is concerned. I’ve tried to do everything I can to get better. You kind of develop it because you have to understand yourself and what you’re trying to do. Especially on the offensive end. It’s easy to get into a rut in this game. And when you get into a rut where you’re not getting hits, or hitting the ball as hard as you’d like to, the first thing that goes is your confidence.

“I had to develop an ability to know what I was trying to do when I got up there, so that when things went wrong I still had the confidence to know I could be successful. That’s probably one of the hardest things to acquire in this game because when you’re going bad it just seems like every ball you hit is right at somebody, you’re striking out a lot and just not doing what you want to do and the confidence goes. I went through that earlier this year.”

Really? Your batting average never dropped below .300.

I’ve been playing 13 years and I wasn’t hitting the ball the way I wanted to and you start to ask yourself, ‘Am I starting to lose it?’ Your confidence goes and when you go up to that plate with no confidence, you’re done. ... I got down to about .302 or something.”

.306, actually. Boo-hoo. ...

“That’s exactly the response you get, ‘Oh, you’re down to .302, I really bleed for you. I’m hitting .245 and you’re hitting .302 and you’re bitching. But that’s the kind of drive that is going to enable you to be the best you can be.

“Overanalyzing is always going to be a problem with me because I do so much. I’ve got video. I’ve got extrawork. I’ve got all kinds of stuff to do. That’s one of the problems that I have. But I go through stages where I feel I’m overdoing it, so I just back off for a day or two. Other than those times, this is what I do. This is how I’ve been successful. I take a lot of crap from guys. ‘You go 4-for-4 and you’re in the video room checking out every swing.’ Checking out pitchers and how they’re calling and setting up. But that’s how I do what I do. I don’t worry about what other people do. When you get to this level and you’re having success and you’re out here for extra hitting and people ask why the hell you’re out here taking extra swings, I don’t worry about what other people think. I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do and you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. The reason I’m hitting .360 and you’re hitting .260 might be because what I’m doing is the right thing for me to do.”

Are you surprised Wade Boggs has dropped like he has while your career average has risen?

“It’s going to be harder to maintain .352 than it is to maintain .328. I’ve come up six points in the last eight or nine years and he’s come down 18 points. I’ve been pretty much the same player, although the last three years have been ungodly for me. He was just like on fire for five or six years in a row. Then when he hit below .300, everybody said he’s done. His career is over. And yet he’s still hitting .300 every year.

“In my case, I just had three solid years where I hit .358, .394 and .360 this year ... I’ve been able to improve. I wish I knew why. I think the working out I’ve been doing, the weights and trying to keep my legs strong has helped me.

“Early in my career, I was content to hit the ball to left field. The last three or four years, I’ve really tried to open it up. I’ve really tried to be aggressive on the ball inside. Now I’m hitting the ball from line to line much better than I did early in my career. And when you can use the whole field, they can’t pitch to you. They’ve got to play you straight up and from my standpoint, it’s been easier to hit that way.

“For years, I thought the way I was doing it was the way I was supposed to do it. Basiclly, I got the idea from Ted Williams’ book, “The Science of Hitting.” I read that book four or five times a year. His theory on pulling the ball is good because my whole thing had been hitting the ball to left field. The last three years I’ve been hitting the ball to left field, but if they come inside you’ve got to keep them honest and just let it go. I’m a bat control type of hitter and when they come inside I could just inside out it to left field. After reading Ted’s book, the question was, ‘Do you think hitting home runs would bring your average down?’ For years, I thought, ‘Yeah.’ My thing was hitting the ball to left field and now I’m concentrating on the ball in. But reading Ted’s book I got the idea that you don’t have to give up hitting the ball to left, you just have to be aggressive on the ball inside. And by aggressive I mean just swinging. Just letting it go. Don’t try to guide the bat or anything. Just put your natural swing on there and don’t worry about where it goes. And the last three years for me have been ungodly.

“I couldn’t have imagined that I would be able to do that beccause I thought the natural progression was that you would get to a level where you reached your peak and then it would be hard to maintain it. And it’s still going up. That’s been surprising to me. But after awhile it’s not surprising because you’ve made an adjustment and now it’s about being able to maintain it.

“To be able to go up there and still hit the ball at the level I’m hitting it is really surprising. But then again I’ve worked hard at it and it’s something I know is going to work. So I’ve become a better hitter.”

How long did you think your career would last?

“After the first nine years of my career I thought I’m doing all right, I’ll probably play until I’m 34 or 35. Then think about giving it up. Now I’m 35 and saying, ‘Well, I’ll play to about 37 or 38.’ Then think about giving it up. But if I keep improving, who knows?

But what if you’re closing on 3,000 hits?

“Early in my career, that was like the magic number. For guys who were hitters like me, the only time you were going to get recognition was to get to 3,000 hits. If you got to 3,000, then you were going to get the kind of respect these guys got. My dad was really big on it. He said, ‘If you want to do it, you could do it.’ So, I thought about it. I probably could do it. And then after he passed away I realized that what was important was that when I played, I was pretty darn good. Getting there is important because I know a lot of people would like to see me do it. I know my dad would have loved to see me do it. My dad is still my driving force to want to get there. But, if I don’t get there, I don’t think there’s many people who could say that I wasn’t very consistent. And in my time, in my era, in my league, one of the best. To me, that’s what’s important, getting respect. I think I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve gained a lot of respect for being able to do what I’ve done for such a long time. It hasn’t hit me yet. It’s within reach. If I could get to 200 hits this year, that would put me at 2,400. Then 600 hits is reasonable for the next three and a half or four years. This game’s a crazy thing. You don’t know how long you’re going to be able to keep it and how long it’s going to be before it goes.

How much of being a successful hitter is natural ability?

“There’s a certain bit of it that’s natural. The thing that separates the good hitters from the average hitters is the ability to use their heads. A lot of hitting is mental. There’s a mental approach to going up there and hitting. The guy who has a strong mind is the guy who will not allow the pitcher to intimidate him. He will not allow the pitcher to dictate the action. Really, the pitcher has the ball, so he’s going to dictate the action. But there are certain hitters in this league that they’re going to dictate the action whether the pitcher’s got the ball or not. There’s like a handful of them, but those guys have the presence about them that when they get to the plate the pitcher’s saying to himself, ‘Oh, here comes Bonds again.’ Mentally, when you step up there, whether you hit the guy well or not, you’ve got to have the look of being the baddest guy on earth. You show no fear whatsoever and you try to show no emtion. Those guys are strong mentally, so mentally they can win the battle.

“It’s like at the All-Star Game. Randy Johnson’s pitching and everybody’s talking about him being the intimidating left-handed pitcher who’s not a lot of fun for left-handed hitters to hit against. That’s all true. But when you get up there in the box you’ve got to act like you don’t care who’s on the hill. I’m going up there to hit. Those are the hitters who stand out. They automatically have respect. There’s only a few pitchers in major league baseball who when they step out on the hill, they command respect. When you get a matchup of a hitter who commands respect with a pitcher who commands respect, now all of the sudden you’ve got a serious matchup going on. Not a lot of people have the ability to recognize that.

(In 1995,) there are 17 active career .300 hitters ( Note: There were 13 active .300 hitters in 2016. There are three players with at least 2,000 plate appearances — the Padres' Luis Arraez (.325), the Astros' Jose Altuve (.308) and the Dodgers' Freddie Freeman (.301) — with career .300 averages in 2024). How many more guys could be on the list if they worked at it?

“Tons. A ton.”

So why aren’t there more?

“Because they’re making plenty of money. The fact that they’re a .300 hitter isn’t going to put any more money in their pocket.

“It’s not just money. It takes a lot of time and patience and work ethic to do what you have to do. Guys tried to be the best that they could be (in the past) to try to get a raise. But in today’s game, in the last five years in arbitration if you hit .288 and had decent numbers, you had a chance to get a nice raise, anyway.

“How many guys are at .290? And you ask yousrself, ‘How many of these guys could push themselves over the .300 mark and go well beyond. There are a load of guys, I guarantee it, who could push themselves over the .300 mark and go well beyond.

“There are a load of guys, I guarantee it, who could push it to the next level. You don’t see Bonds. Albert Belle, (Kenny) Lofton, (Barry) Larkin. There’s a lot of guys who will eventually be on this list, but I think it takes a little time to acquire that mental toughness to say, ‘Screw it, I’m going to do what I need to do.’

“Just go out there everyday and not worry so much about the numbers, just be consistent with your stroke every day and it’s going to add up at the end. It doesn’t matter whether you hit .345 or .313. If you’re consistent, the numbers are going to add up. I don’t put a number out there that I’m trying to get to. I just try to be consistent every day and the numbers are going to add up at the end of the year.

“You can’t let that be the only thing that drives you. Winning is what’s driving me this year, and that’s why I think I’m having a decent year. We’ve got a chance to win. It’s hard to go out there and just focus on your hits. When you’re winning, it’s a lot more fun.”

This story originally appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune .