Oct. 20, 1998, at Jack Murphy Stadium. World Series Game 3. Bottom of the eighth inning, one out, runner on second.
The first and only showdown between Tony Gwynn and Mariano Rivera.
Gwynn went the other way, shooting a single to left field to advance his teammate Quilvio Veras to third.
“That was him,” a smiling Rivera, who didn’t remember the encounter, said Monday of his fellow icon.
Gwynn died Monday morning at Pomerado Hospital in Poway, Calif., surrounded by his family. The former outfielder was only 54 years old, as cancer (in his right cheek) finally got the better of him to conclude a lengthy battle. He underwent his first procedure to treat the disease in August 2010.
The Southern California native, born in Los Angeles and a San Diego State product, personified baseball’s best attributes. His loyalty tethered him to the small-market Padres for all 20 of his seasons in the big leagues, and a statue bearing his likeness stands outside Petco Park. His open-mindedness and work ethic led him to become the first high-profile hitter who diligently studied video of past at-bats and incorporated that into his pregame preparation. And his friendly and outgoing nature made him a natural spokesman and salesman for his product.
He joined his fellow one-organization guy Cal Ripken Jr., of the Orioles, to gain induction into the Hall of Fame in 2007, as both men blew past the required 75 percent threshold in their first year of eligibility — both finished with more than 95 percent of the Baseball Writers Association of America vote — and a record crowd of about 75,000 went to Cooperstown to celebrate.
Here in New York, we enjoyed only glimpses of Gwynn before the days of the TV Extra Innings package and Internet highlights. His Padres twice made the World Series and were steamrolled by two of the game’s best-ever teams, the 1984 Tigers and 1998 Yankees. There were two annual visits to Shea Stadium for the bulk of his career, which lasted from 1982 to 2001, but the San Diego club often didn’t command our attention. In Gwynn’s 20 seasons, the Padres finished over .500 eight times, below .500 10 times and twice split the difference at 81-81.
But we read of his exploits from afar, and in the early years of fantasy baseball, he served as one of the best bets. He finished with 3,141 hits and an outstanding slash line of .338/.388/.459.
For a young ballplayer like the Yankees’ Shane Spencer, who went to high school in the San Diego area, Gwynn represented “bragging rights.”
“When you’d go to play minor league ball, everyone would claim their area was good,” Spencer, now the hitting coach of the independent Somerset Patriots, said Monday in a telephone interview. “If you were from San Diego, you had Tony Gwynn. Nobody could beat you. Every day, you’d look in the box score, and he’d have two hits.”
In Spencer’s rookie year, 1998, his Yankees faced his idol in the Fall Classic. It’s easy to forget, given that the Yankees won in a sweep, just how well Gwynn performed in that series at age 38. In his Yankee Stadium debut in Game 1, he slammed a two-run, fifth-inning home run against David Wells (another San Diego product) to give the Padres a 4-2 lead that eventually was wiped out. Gwynn went 8-for-16 in the four games and recorded a .500/.529/.688 slash line.
Rivera, in Manhattan Monday for the Harlem RBI dinner, lamented he never got to know Gwynn well. Yet the Yankees’ retired closer knew well enough what Gwynn represented to speak passionately about him.
“I’m telling you, the man was special,” Rivera said. “Being in one organization for so long, he was one of the great leaders. I had tremendous respect for him, the way he went about his business.
“Too bad that this happened. Baseball lost another good one.”
Gwynn’s son Tony Gwynn Jr. of the Phillies, a major-league outfielder for eight years, went on the bereavement list to mourn his father’s passing.
Gwynn tweeted: “Today I lost my Dad, my best friend and my mentor. I’m gonna miss u so much pops. I’m gonna do everything in my power to continue to make U proud!”