Saturday, May 15, 1999

Gwynn: Hard to envision 4,000

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BY JOHN ERARDI
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Tony Gwynn singled Friday for his 2,971st hit. (Craig Ruttle photo) | ZOOM |

        It was almost a very short interview. Which, for Tony Gwynn, would have been yet another record, because if there's one thing this guy can do better than hit, it's talk.

        And that's saying something, given that he has 2,971 hits after collecting one in Friday night's 7-3 San Diego Padres defeat of the Reds.

        “Hey, Tony, wanna talk about 4,000 hits?”

        “No,” Gwynn said.

        Gulp. There went the entire premise. Pete Rose's hometown ... ballpark on Pete Rose Way ... Pete Rose the only living member of the 4,000 hit club (Ty Cobb died in 1961).

        How could Gwynn not want to talk about 4,000?

       

        It brought to mind an anecdote.

        In spring training 1985, George Brett was asked by a writer to talk about 3,000. At the time, he was already more than half-way there — even though he was only 31 years old.

        “Hey, George, wanna talk about 3,000?”

        “No.”

        Gulp.

        “Well, how about 4,000?”

        “Yeah, I'll talk about 4,000,” said Brett, smiling. “Four thousand is a different bleepin' dimension.”

        Gwynn laughed Friday in the Padres clubhouse when the Brett anecdote was related to him.

        “Yeah, 4,000 is a different dimension,” Gwynn said.

        And maybe that's why Brett was willing to talk about 4,000,

        but not about 3,000; he knew he had a shot at 3,000, so why jinx it? Four-thousand? Can't jinx that. No way I'll get there.

        But Gwynn? Gwynn's a guy who could get to 4,000.

        He turned 39 last week, but it's a robust 39: After Friday night's Padres win over the Reds, he already had 43 hits in only 32 games this season ... last year, he hit .321 ... the year before, .372 (220 hits).

        If he gets 220 hits again this season, he'll still need four more 200-hit seasons to reach 4,000 — which would mean he'd have to still be very productive at 43.

        It's not likely, but it's possible.

        “I remember when Pete was 40 years old,” Gwynn said, “he kept talking about "catching Ty Cobb, catching Ty Cobb,' and people said, "C'mon, you're 40! You can't catch Ty Cobb.' Sometimes that's the kind of motivation you need to keep going.”

        Gwynn was more than willing to talk about Rose. And, in many ways, that's as good as talking about 4,000, because until Rose did it, everybody thought Ty Cobb's 4,191 was untouchable. Once a guy touches 4,000, who says another guy can't?

        It is interesting how the careers of the great hitters have intertwined. On the day Stan Musial retired in 1963, he got two hits to bring his total to 3,630; at the time, it was the closest anybody had gotten to 4,000 since Cobb two generations earlier.

        One of Musial's two hits was to the left of a rookie Reds second baseman named Rose; the other to his right.

        “Pete got three hits that day,” Musial told The Enquirer in 1985. “He was gaining on me right from the start.”

        Guess who was playing first base for the Phillies that night in 1982 when Gwynn got his first hit? Yep.

        That night, Gwynn hit a double into left-center field off Sid Monge. Rose was trailing the play. When the words flashed on the scoreboard, “First major-league hit for Tony Gwynn,” Rose congratulated him.

        “Don't try to catch me in one night,” Rose told him.

        Rose was 41 years old. That year, he had 172 hits in 634 at-bats, bringing his lifetime hit total to 3,869.

        “I'm standing on second base,” Gwynn recalled last week in The Sporting News, “and I'm watching (Rose) trot back to first. I started thinking how great it would be to get 3,000 hits like Pete Rose.”

        Gwynn also remembers watching the hit king take early batting practice early one day with Phillies third baseman Mike Schmidt. The two were working on hitting the ball the opposite way. Other days, Rose worked on pulling the ball.

        “All he did was react to the ball,” Gwynn said. “Later, when I finally got a grasp on handling the ball inside, I reflected back on what I had seen Pete doing.”

        Gywnn regrets Rose is on the outside of baseball looking in.

        But what if Gwynn were to get to 4,256 hits ... or even, 4,000? Could baseball keep Rose off the field?

        “If anybody gets to that point, hell yeah they'd want him on the field,” Gwynn said. “No question about it.”

       

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