Remembering Gwynn's 3,000th hit 25 years later

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MLB.com reporter Shaun O'Neill fills in for this edition of the Beat Report.

Tony Gwynn’s career numbers are simultaneously awe-inspiring and insufficient.

They inspire awe because they provide tangible evidence of Gwynn’s dedication to his craft year after year after year after year after year … to Year 20. Yet the statistics still somehow feel insufficient to fully capture his greatness -- how he left even the best pitchers unable to cope with his mind and his magic wand in the batter’s box, how he could anticipate the pitcher-batter duel like no other, how he could put his 30 1/2-ounce “pea shooter” bat on a pitcher’s best offering thrown in the intended spot.

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“The pitcher has the ball,” Gwynn once said, looking back at his career. “He knows what he wants to do. He knows how he’s going to attack guys. But when I went to the plate, I flipped the script. I made it so I was dictating the action.”

Indeed, he did. That bat might as well have been a conductor’s baton. Gwynn at the plate was a two-decade symphony.

That symphony reached a crescendo on Aug. 6, 1999, when Gwynn recorded his 3,000th career hit. Round number milestones are a monument to baseball greatness. The most casual fan can appreciate the achievement of 3,000 hits, even if they don’t have a full grasp of Gwynn’s unique path to that number.

The 25th anniversary of Gwynn’s membership in the 3,000-hit club is Tuesday.

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When Gwynn launched a broken-bat single off Dan Smith into short right-center field in Montreal’s Olympic Stadium to reach the milestone, he was joined on the field by his family -- including his mother, Vendella, who was celebrating her birthday. (Gwynn notched career hit No. 2,000 on his mom’s birthday six years earlier.)

Wife Alicia and daughter Anisha got their hugs. Heck, so did the first-base ump. Kerwin Danley, Gwynn’s former college teammate at San Diego State University, happened to be working that spot that night. Tony Gwynn Jr., however, was back home in the San Diego suburb of Poway.

“In his chair,” Gwynn Jr. recalled this week, “his little recliner in the living room.”

The story of why Tony Jr. wasn’t in Montreal speaks volumes about the Gwynn family ethic, about doing things the right way.

Tony Jr. was 16, between his junior and senior years at Poway High School, where he played basketball and baseball. Basketball was his passion, but baseball was catching up as he got more serious about the sport. He often traveled with the Padres during the summer months, but in 1999, he was practically joined at the hip with his dad.

Tony Jr. had been selected to the Area Code Games, his first major summer showcase event. And his dad, who had a hands-off approach to his children’s athletic endeavors, took note. It was time to hit the cage in earnest.

“From the moment summer began, the plan was I was going to go everywhere with him,” Tony Jr. said. “We were going to just work on it, work on my swing and things of that nature to help me get ready.”

So in the first week of August 1999, Tony Jr. was in St. Louis with his dad and the rest of the family as No. 3,000 loomed. Tony Sr. entered a four-game series with the Cardinals six hits shy of the milestone. Meanwhile, Mark McGwire was closing in on 500 homers. Busch Stadium was electric with anticipation of both milestones coming in the same game.

Alas, Tony Sr. went 5-for-17 in the series, and McGwire got the spotlight. On to Montreal. Except for Tony Jr., who flew back to San Diego before he had to drive to Long Beach, Calif., for the Area Code Games the day after his father ultimately got the big hit.

“He didn't really say, ‘You have to go back [to Southern California],’” Tony Jr. said. “But I also was wise enough to know, ‘OK, I had coaches who wanted me here. If I don't show up, what does that say?’ So I don't know that it was ever really a question.”

Tony Jr. honored the prior commitment, and his dad didn’t have to say a word. He’d already taught the values that helped sway the decision. But what if the teenager went the other way and wanted to be in Montreal?

“He probably would have said, ‘Nah, you need to go back,’” Tony Jr. said, laughing. “But that’s how my dad was. He wanted me to make the decision on my own.”

It was a first step towards an eight-year Major League career for Tony Jr. -- and now a second career as a Padres broadcaster. It has been 10 years since Tony Sr. passed away, but he still is guiding good decisions through the values he and Alicia instilled. For one, Tony Jr. has avoided being a helicopter parent when it comes to his own kids’ sports careers, allowing them to make their own choices and develop at their own paces.

With the anniversary of hit No. 3,000 coming up, Tony Jr. can’t help but reflect on the enormity of the number.

“It really does put in perspective how great of a hitter he was,” he said.