By
Ryan Finley
Memories of a lifelong hero
I've been told that sensible people don't wear baseball jerseys to work. Sensible people don't travel 400 miles to see a baseball game. And, most certainly, sensible people don't get choked up when an athlete retires.
Too bad.
When San Diego Padres outfielder Tony Gwynn announced last Thursday that he would be retiring from baseball after this season, I sat down and cried a little.
They weren't bitter tears or sad tears - they were more like the kind you get when you hear a touching song or become suddenly overwhelmed by an uncontrollable sensation. I finally realized why I had gotten so emotional.
It wasn't that Gwynn - who had become old and betrayed by his own body in the past five years - was leaving the game he loves. It was that I was getting old, too.
When this season ends - for the first time in my life - I won't have a favorite player anymore. And, frankly, I don't think Ryan Klesko or Phil Nevin have a chance in hell of filling the void.
You see, when Gwynn first donned the then-brown and yellow colors of the Padres, my hometown team, I was still in diapers.
Since the moment I first started following my hometown Padres, I have been a die-hard Gwynn fan. I first went to a ballgame when I was two weeks old. I would fall asleep in classes in grade school because I had spent the previous night fighting off sleep in an attempt to listen to the final few innings of a Padre game on the radio.
When I was in little league, I fashioned my swing after Gwynn's, though I had considerably less success.
When I was in junior high, I would sit in the outfield bleachers of San
Diego's Qualcomm Stadium and keep the scorebook while my friends snuck off for cigarettes.
Even in high school, my dad, brothers, friends and I would make a beeline for the park right after school let out at 2 o'clock, hoping to arrive in our seats before Gwynn stepped to the plate in the bottom of the first inning.
It didn't stop there. In my first month of college, I would make last-minute trips back home to attend a playoff game or two. I even bought a Gwynn jersey after a lucky night at Desert Diamond Casino.
In fact, by the time the Wildcat hits the newsstands today, I will be somewhere between Gila Bend and Yuma en route to San Diego for a mid-week series against the Rockies hoping against all hope that Tony might come in and pinch-hit.
Why? Well, in sports, people become diehard fans because they can relate with something or someone in the sport of their choice. Even here at Arizona, students follow the basketball team because - in most cases - they know one of the players. That's what sports are all about.
As for me, I liked Tony Gwynn because I could identify with him. Who couldn't? He - maybe more than anyone in the major leagues today - is the personification of the people's champion. He isn't particularly strong, fast or healthy. He, admittedly, is old, fat and slow.
But despite the fact that he's 5-foot-10 and 235+ pounds, Gwynn can still knock the living hell out of a baseball. Furthermore, the way he plays is so blue-collar and common that you can't help but root for the average guy when he stacks up against Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire. In an age of creatine-bloated superstars, it somehow seemed right to root for the guy who got big the old-fashioned way - eating.
And unlike Bonds, McGwire and just about every other player in baseball today, Gwynn stayed with the same team throughout his entire career. The people of San Diego have rewarded his undying loyalty with a commitment unlike most fans have for their superstars. In an era where a player's ego is directly related to his paycheck - not his statistics - Gwynn stayed a Padre when San Diego could only offer him much less than his market worth.
In the end, Gwynn will be remembered as the best in the league when it came to hitting singles, perhaps the most ordinary feat in baseball. He didn't hit many tape-measure home runs, but he figured out what he did best and capitalized on it. If only the rest of us could do the same.
Baseball great Ted Williams once said that the toughest thing in the world is hitting a round ball with a round bat, squarely. He was wrong.
The toughest thing in the world is going to be finding the next Tony Gwynn.
He, after all, made hitting a round ball with a round bat look so easy and made being a hero look even easier.
