The memory is still vivid to the Sons of Tony Gwynn, the young men who played for Gwynn when he was head baseball coach at his alma mater, San Diego State University. The ones who were there at the end.
The players still talk about one particular batting practice at SDSU in early 2013, about 2 1/2 years after Gwynn first was diagnosed with salivary gland cancer. At the time, he had been retired for nearly 12 years. But what he showed that day — the transcendent skill, even with his health failing — his players will never forget.
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Nearly five years after Gwynn’s death on June 16, 2014, his legacy endures through his family, through Nationals right-hander Stephen Strasburg, the first overall pick out of San Diego State in the 2009 draft, through the players on his final teams who are playing professionally.
One of those players, third baseman Ty France, made his major-league debut with Gwynn’s former team, the Padres, on April 26 in Washington. France’s first at-bat came as a pinch-hitter, and he singled — naturally — through Gwynn’s preferred 5.5 hole between shortstop and third base.
Gwynn would have loved that moment, loved seeing France, 24, defy the odds as a 34th-round pick — the 1,017th selection in the 2015 draft — to fulfill his major-league dream. But at the San Diego State practice France and teammates recall that in ‘13, Gwynn was not in the best of spirits.
Right-hander Bubba Derby remembers the players sometimes noticed a change in Gwynn — a different mood, a loss of energy — when he was undergoing chemotherapy. But Derby, now at Triple-A with the Brewers, also recalls the San Diego State hitters trying to pull everything in batting practice, adopting sort of an anti-Tony Gwynn approach.
Gwynn, sitting on a stool next to the batting cage, normally did not say much to his hitters. But eventually, he decided he had seen enough.
At age 52, he put on batting gloves, picked up a bat and began taking swings off assistant head coach Mark Martinez, who later would replace him as head coach.
“Watch,” Gwynn said.
Outfielder Greg Allen was part of the group Gwynn had ordered out of the cage. Then a sophomore, Allen figured it had been a long time since Gwynn had taken swings off a tee, much less against live pitching. But as Gwynn began, he told the hitters, “Look, it’s not that hard.”
Allen, who is now at Triple-A with the Indians, recalls Gwynn proceeding to flick balls left and right. France says Gwynn was calling his shots — 5.5 hole, whack; up the middle, whack; pull-side double, whack. Derby — before telling Martinez on the mound, “look out, Mark” and drilling a ball up the middle with his final swing.
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Derby, standing maybe 60 feet behind shortstop in left-center field, had a slightly different recollection.
“He was just peppering line drives as easy as it could look for anybody to do — line drive after line drive, over my head,” Derby says. “A couple of them almost hit me.
“I’m standing there in awe of what I’m seeing. You have this man straight out of chemo. He could barely walk. He was overweight. And he just gets in the box and starts peppering line drives. I’m not talking flares. I’m talking squared-up line drives to left-center.”
Martinez, too, recalls Gwynn kept hitting balls through and over the 5.5 hole as easily as if he were pressing a button on an elevator.
“I’m sick and I can do this!” Gwynn shouted.
France and the other San Diego State hitters could not believe their eyes.
“That’s not fair,” France thought. “You’re Tony Gwynn!”
Freshmen baseball players at San Diego State would arrive thinking, Wow, Tony Gwynn is my coach. Gwynn punctured his own aura almost immediately, telling his players not to view him that way.
“He was so good at making himself more like a father figure and a coach rather than, ‘I’m Tony Gwynn.’” Derby says. “He never acted like that.”
Gwynn, with his wife, Alicia, raised a son of his own, former major-league outfielder Tony Gwynn Jr., as well as a daughter, R&B singer Anisha Nicole. His infectious personality made him beloved throughout the sport. But his college hitters did not always grasp his instruction.
“You get there, and the first practice he was like, ‘Get in position, take your best swing, that’s how you hit.’” France says. “I’m like, ‘What? OK, I’m going to try that.’ And I did it. But it just wasn’t clicking for me. I didn’t really understand what he was talking about.
“I tried that for all of fall. I was like, ‘Coach Gwynn, I just don’t get it. I don’t know what you’re saying. Hitting is not that easy. I don’t know what else to do.’ He sat me down and said, ‘This is really all hitting is. If you get your foot down, get in good position to swing and take your best swing on a good pitch, you’re going to hit the ball hard.’ That whole fall, I was completely overthinking things.”
France started his freshman season slowly, but Gwynn relaxed him by saying, “We’re not going to take you out of the lineup. Go out there and have fun.” Gwynn connected not just with the team members, but also their families. And even while he was ill, he still could dazzle his players with his knowledge and instincts.
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One day during France’s freshman year, he stood next to Gwynn in the dugout. Gwynn, staring out at the opposing pitcher, began calling out pitches — Fastball. Curveball — based solely on the way the pitcher’s hands would break. France was dumbfounded, unable to decipher what Gwynn was seeing.
Gwynn also would tell his hitters stories about his career — stories so captivating, pitchers occasionally would stop to listen. Allen marveled at the detail with which Gwynn recalled showdowns with pitchers such as Greg Maddux and Curt Schilling that had taken place at least a decade earlier.
For the San Diego State players, though, Gwynn’s illness was also part of their experience, making their time with him bittersweet. Gwynn underwent surgeries for cancer in his right cheek in August 2010 and February 2012, and his condition worsened as the ‘14 season progressed. He was undergoing chemotherapy. Airline flights caused him problems. His wife, Alicia, would drive him to select road games, before he took a leave of absence on April 24.
“The fact he would come straight from chemo every day and walk through the clubhouse . . .” Derby says. “There were days when you’d ask him, ‘Hey coach, how are you feeling today?’ He would be honest. He’d say, ‘Not so good today.’ Or, ‘I’m surviving.’ It was more the fact he was there. He wasn’t just there and quiet. He was there and he was present.”
But Gwynn also was weak from the chemo — so weak, France recalls, that he would frequently fall. Before a game in late March at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, the hitters were just starting their meeting in the outfield when Gwynn fell in the dugout. He picked himself up but required assistance to walk to the outfield. He then apologized to the hitters, saying he was not feeling well and needed to go back to the hotel and rest.
“I love you guys,” Gwynn said. “Go out there and win this for me.”
San Diego State fulfilled his wish, but the players delayed their usual custom of singing the school fight song after a victory. They instead went back to their hotel, flocked to Gwynn’s room and sang the song for their ailing coach.
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“To see that glow in his eyes, how proud he was of us, that was a very big and special moment for the team,” France says.
Less than three months later, Gwynn was gone.
France’s cousin George Snyder, who pitched at San Diego State in 2008 and ’09, and mother, Diane, awakened him at around 8 o’clock on the morning of June 16, 2014.
They wanted to know if the news was true. France had no idea what they were talking about.
“Turn on the TV, any channel,” Diane told Ty.
France, who had just completed his sophomore year, quickly learned of Gwynn’s passing. Martinez, the assistant head coach, called him and asked him to come to the field, where reporters had gathered. France, who is from West Covina, Calif., east of Los Angeles, had remained in San Diego that summer to rehabilitate from labrum surgery.
“It didn’t really hit me at first,” France says. “It all happened so fast, I couldn’t really process it. But once I left the field that day, I was in shock. I couldn’t believe it was real.”
Neither could Allen, who was a year ahead of France at San Diego State and days earlier had been selected by the Indians in the sixth round of the 2014 draft. Allen was home in Chula Vista, Calif., the second-largest city in the San Diego-metropolitan area, preparing to depart for rookie ball in Mahoning Valley, Ohio. His mother, Kim, awakened him with the news of Gwynn’s passing.
Allen, too, was stunned.
Earlier in the season, Gwynn seemed to be doing well, and Allen saw his coach’s vibrancy returning. Even later, after Gwynn’s condition worsened, Allen says the players never thought their coach’s health had reached a critical state. They just assumed Gwynn would fight through any downturn, just as he had before.
Allen considered postponing his minor-league debut with the Indians, wanting to stay in San Diego to attend Gwynn’s memorial service. But he wound up leaving for Mahoning Valley as scheduled and watched the ceremony from Petco Park via the Internet at his host family’s home.
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He was thousands of miles from San Diego, alone.
“I remember sitting in my room with my computer on, crying,” Allen says.
The San Diego State baseball program continued. Martinez took over as head coach. France returned for his junior year and produced another big offensive season, ending his collegiate career with a .337 batting average and .905 OPS.
France recalls his agent at the time, John Boggs, initially telling him he might be selected between the third and eighth rounds of the 2015 draft. But France fell precipitously, perhaps because teams were concerned with his past shoulder injury, even though he did not miss a game in three years at San Diego State.
Hundreds of players came off the board. Boggs learned that the Dodgers might select France between rounds 25 and 40. Finally — France recalls it was around round 30 or 31 — Boggs said the Padres had entered the picture.
“That’s what I was hoping for,” France recalls. “That’s the first thing I thought of — Coach Gwynn, how special it would be to be a Padre, considering he was Mr. Padre.”
Still, he was a 34th-round pick. The vast majority of 34th-round picks do not reach the majors. But France wasn’t your typical 34th-rounder.
He kept hitting, breaking out for good in 2018 by leading the Padres’ system with 236 total bases and tying for the lead with 22 homers between Double-A and Triple-A. The Padres protected him on their 40-man roster last November to avoid losing him in the Rule 5 draft, but after they signed free agent Manny Machado to play third base, France’s future in the organization looked dim. His other position is first, where Eric Hosmer also is under a long-term contract.
Undaunted, France began his Triple-A season by hitting an insane .423 with nine homers and a 1.385 OPS in his first 92 plate appearances. The Padres promoted him after infielder Jose Pirela strained his left oblique, and playing time opened at third when shortstop Fernando Tatis strained his left hamstring, requiring Machado to move to short.
On April 24, the day the Padres summoned him to Petco for the last game of a homestand, France kept thinking about Gwynn.
“I look at my locker and my jersey is hanging in there. The only thing I wish I could change is for one game to wear No. 19,” France says. “Just to see that on a jersey and honor him, that would have just been an absolute dream come true. Walking out to Petco, seeing his statue in the outfield, I couldn’t even believe it was real.”
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Derby, his old San Diego State teammate, was ecstatic.
“I’m going to be honest. In the world of minor-league baseball, you see guys get called up, and it’s one of those things where you get jealous. It’s a human emotion. You can’t help it,” Derby says. “But with Ty, just knowing him for so long, knowing what kind of person he is and how hard he worked from when he was drafted, I was overwhelmed with joy.”
Through 18 plate appearances, France is batting .250 with a .708 OPS, seven strikeouts and one walk. Blocked by Machado and Hosmer, the best thing for him ultimately might be a trade, but no matter. He already has an indelible Padres memory.
Never mind that France is a right-handed hitter, and Gwynn batted left-handed. France will always cherish his first hit through the 5.5 hole in D.C., that flashback to his old coach, old No. 19.
“As I’m jogging down the line, that was all I could think about,” France says. “That crazy whirlwind of emotion, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.”
(Top photo: Lenny Ignelzi / Associated Press)