Ken Rosenthal had a story about Gwynn and some of his SDSU players a few weeks ago. Relevant section:
Quote:
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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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.
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.
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Thats awesome