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per ESPN: Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn dies

GoSkins0721

By GoSkins0721
in The Tailgate

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War Paint

War Paint

Posted
Posted

Even still...

The tobacco that your grandpa smoked/chewed for 80+ years wasn't nearly as harmful. That stuff was just tobacco. The crap they sell today is 99% chemicals.

Yeah, I know.  Heck, it's not even just tobacco companies who put chemicals in their products.  The food our grandpa ate wasn't the food we eat these days, which is loaded with chemicals.  Food corporations are doing the same thing with our food that tobacco companies do with tobacco products. 

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JamesMadisonSkins

JamesMadisonSkins

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Yeah, I know.  Heck, it's not even just tobacco companies who put chemicals in their products.  The food our grandpa ate wasn't the food we eat these days, which is loaded with chemicals.  Food corporations are doing the same thing with our food that tobacco companies do with tobacco products. 

Yup.

 

I'd be curious to see a study comparing the effects of regular skoal/tobacco and the new pouches they sell. I know in college, pouches were a lot cleaner and seen as a "healthier" version to outright dipping long cut. But who knows if that was just marketing or what. I know, from personal experience, that it never gave me sores ... whereas long cut always did. 

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G.A.C.O.L.B.

G.A.C.O.L.B.

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Yup.

I'd be curious to see a study comparing the effects of regular skoal/tobacco and the new pouches they sell. I know in college, pouches were a lot cleaner and seen as a "healthier" version to outright dipping long cut. But who knows if that was just marketing or what. I know, from personal experience, that it never gave me sores ... whereas long cut always did.

When was college? Cause as far as I know and remember, pouches only been out about five years now. And I've been dipping more than ten, eve since the Army.

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Redskins Diehard

Redskins Diehard

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I really need to stop dipping.

Yeah man.  I got hooked in the Army. Dipped for about 9 years.  Quit in 2006.  One of toughest things I ever did.  Best of luck to you if you give it a shot.

 

Oh, and Tony Gwynn sure could hit a baseball.  I remember using him on RBI Baseball...If I remember his average was 370.  He'd never hit one out...but could slap it between short and third like nobody else.

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Redskin4ever

Redskin4ever

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Gwynn was one of the players I would stop whatever I was doing to watch him hit. I felt so bad for him during the 98 world series. He put on a show, only to have it wasted by his teammates. I felt honored to be at his Hall of Fame induction. I was obviously there to see Cal, but there could not have been a better person for him to inducted with.

 

As far as the tobacco, I have a feeling I'll be hearing more stories like this from the guys I played baseball with in high school and even guys I play softball with now.

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dchogs

dchogs

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RIP, TG. Glad I stopped dipping 3 years ago. One of the hardest things I've done, but the freedom from addiction (and from the constant worry of cancer) is well worth it.

I'm happy to help anyone wanting to quit dipping/chewing. PM me.

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artmonkforHOF

artmonkforHOF

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Man this news really sucks. I have no proof, but I'd be willing to bet I was Canada's biggest Tony Gwynn fan growing up, I have all his cards and cherished the posters I had that where so hard to get at the time. I got lucky my hero also turned out to be one of the good guys, a nice guy & not just by baseball standards.

He might not be appreciated by the sabermetric crowd since he only took walks on pitches he couldn't hit/reach. But here are 2 stats I read today that blew my mind. Since they have tracked batting average with 2 strikes, Gwynn leads with a .300 average, the next best is .260. He got 4 hits or more 45 times, but only struck out twice or more 34 (3k's only once, vs Welch ironically). That means you had a better chance of seeing Gwynn get 4 hits than strike out twice in a game.

And man am I now just as pissed as i was 20 years ago at the strike. 10 games before the strike, he went 19-40 to raise his average to .394 and was hitting at at .420 clip the month before, he was locked in. No doubt in my mind he would have hit .400 that year.

I really hope the HOF does something classy like leave the first seat of past HOF up on stage at the induction ceremony empty with a Padres hat. He would have been there had his health allowed him.

RIP Tony, you will be missed. He takes the 5.5 hole with him

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SloppyOneXXVI

SloppyOneXXVI

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I knew he was a beast, but some of the stats I've been reading are astounding:

 

 Gwynn hit .338 over a 20-year career. No one else whose career started after World War II has even gotten closer than 10 points of him -- at least no one with 5,000 plate appearances or more.

• He had three different seasons in which he hit .370 or higher. In the 73 years since Ted Williams last hit .400, all the other hitters who passed through the big leagues -- a group that includes Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Stan Musial, Willie Mays, Wade Boggs, yadda, yadda, yadda -- combined to do it only eight times.

• No hitter born after 1900 reached 3,000 hits in fewer games (2,284) or at-bats (8,874) than Gwynn. In the history of baseball, only Ty Cobb and Nap Lajoie got there faster -- and when they played, the gloves were made of the same material as those trains they rode on.

• No 3,000-hit man who was born after 1900 had a higher lifetime batting average than Gwynn (.338). In fact, according to the Elias Sports Bureau's Steve Hirdt, no hitter born since 1918 (i.e., since Ted Williams) has even gotten 2,000 hits and had an average this high.

• What does it mean to have piled up a .338 batting average over a 20-year career, over 9,288 at-bats? It means Tony Gwynn would have had to go 0-for-his-next-1,183 to get his average to fall under .300 (and even then, it would have "plummeted" to a mere .29997). We kid you not.

• He hit .400 or better against eight different Cy Young winners -- Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, Bret Saberhagen, Vida Blue, John Denny, Dennis Eckersley, Mark Davis and Doug Drabek -- and batted at least .300 against seven more.

• And none of these pitchers ever struck him out: Pedro Martinez (35 AB), Hideo Nomo (25 AB), Mike Hampton (33 AB) or, incredibly, Maddux (in 94 AB).

Here is another stat on a 0-2 count he batted .302 next best is .260 all time

Every other hitter with an average of .338 or above started his career before 1940.
• Gwynn had nine five-hit games in his career. Only Pete Rose had more, with 10. Gwynn also had 45 games with at least four hits. That puts him 10th on the all-time list.
• 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 struck out 434 times in his career.  For comparison's sake: Adam Dunn has struck out 486 times since the start of 2012. Mark Reynolds struck out exactly 434 times in 2009 and 2010.
He had 5 seasons where he had more stolen bases than strikeouts. 1984: 33 SB vs 23 K, 1986: 37 SB vs. 35 K, 1987: ****ing 56 SB vs. 35 K, 1989: 40 SB vs 30 K, 1995: 17 SB vs 15 K
 

All absolutely amazing stats.  Sad to hear of his passing.  

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Bubble Screen

Bubble Screen

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Paul Pabst

@PaulPabst

Tony Gwynn struck out just 434 times in 20 seasons. Averaged 22 k's a year.

that doesn't seem humanly possible

He only had ONE game where he struck out 3 times. Crazy.

That '84 Padre team seems bizarrely cursed. Lots of early deaths and misfortune in general.

Ironically, several players from the Chargers' SB team have passed.

RIP to the best hitter ever.

He wasn't the best. But close.

Was that the cause of his cheek cancer?

Supposedly, he had been dipping since the minors.
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JamesMadisonSkins

JamesMadisonSkins

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When was college? Cause as far as I know and remember, pouches only been out about five years now. And I've been dipping more than ten, eve since the Army.

2005-2012 ... I remember them from high school too .. at least towards the end ... but I think they became prominent in the last 5-10 years ... 

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dchogs

dchogs

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2005-2012 ... I remember them from high school too .. at least towards the end ... but I think they became prominent in the last 5-10 years ...

That have had bandits for a while. At least the late 90's if not before. It wasn't the snus pouches, just pouches with regular tobacco in them.

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JamesMadisonSkins

JamesMadisonSkins

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That have had bandits for a while. At least the late 90's if not before. It wasn't the snus pouches, just pouches with regular tobacco in them.

I'm referring to skoal pouches ... those seem to be a newer phenomenon, but it became the go-to in college. I remember being out at a college bar and they had a skoal tent set up to join the brotherhood and get a tin of pouches. That was probably 2008 ... likely the start of the surge for those things.

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G.A.C.O.L.B.

G.A.C.O.L.B.

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It's very, VERY rare for a celeb death to bother me. This one definitely is though. Because I was a fan, because he's the exact same age as my parents and because of the whole dipping thing. Plus I lived in San Diego for a bit. The two all time San Diego sporting gods are Gwynn and Junior Seau. And they've lost both way too early. Sad.

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