RIP Tony Gwynn

[AnotherAlias]

Loved that guy's bat. Sad day.

[gbwitheyes]

The type of player and person that I miss so in the game of baseball today. Tony represented everything good in baseball. The heart. The love of the game. The recognition of the fans and the part they play in a game, in a season, in a career.

[wireman]

I had a tumor of the parotid (salivary) gland in 1992. A needle biopsy was inconclusive, and I was immediately scheduled for surgery at U.Va. Medical Center. My parotid gland and the tumor were removed. There was some facial nerve damage (the nerves run right through the middle of the gland) and I will have modest facial pain and paralysis for the rest of my life. Still, not a bad outcome.

There are a lot of jumbled and somewhat conflicting accounts about Tony Gwynn's medical history, but as nearly as I can make out, he also had a parotid tumor as early as the '90s, which was determined to be benign. Apparently, not much was done.

Then, in 2010 or so, it came up malignant. Surgery was performed, but only part of the tumor was removed. The thinking was that, rather than risk the facial nerve, they would mop up the rest of it with chemotherapy and radiation. Didn't work.

The next surgery, in 2012, involved taking out the rest of the malignancy and facial nerve. Then they transplanted a nerve from his shoulder/neck. By this point, they feared further metastasis, and I think they removed some lymph gland too. But apparently it was too late to stop further spreading.

Everything that was done with Gwynn was medically defensible, but, well, I'm glad I went to U.Va.

BTW, I'm not a tobacco user. Gwynn always thought his tobacco use caused the tumor, and maybe it did, but it would be pretty much impossible to prove.

Gwynn was a great gentleman and the finest "singles hitter" of the last 75 years. His death at such an early age is a crying shame.

[mirrf]

Originally Posted by wireman

Gwynn was a great gentleman and the finest "singles hitter" of the last 75 years. His death at such an early age is a crying shame.

I know you put "singles hitter" in quotation marks, but he wasn't a singles hitter. I believe you meant, non-homer hitting guy. He hit 49 doubles when he was 37 years old and consistently hit over 40 extra base hits each and every year.

The closest person in today's game would be Ichiro, but Gwynn was just plain better in the batter's box.

[wireman]

Originally Posted by mirrf

I know you put "singles hitter" in quotation marks, but he wasn't a singles hitter. I believe you meant, non-homer hitting guy. He hit 49 doubles when he was 37 years old and consistently hit over 40 extra base hits each and every year.

The closest person in today's game would be Ichiro, but Gwynn was just plain better in the batter's box.

Definitely didn't mean it as an insult. You're correct.

[kq76]

Thanks for sharing the tumour info, wireman. I didn't know any of it. I always thought it was weird when I heard someone would have surgery to remove extra whatever just in case, but the older I get the more I get that you just want to be as safe as possible.

[Déjà Bru]

Originally Posted by CONN CHRIS

I had no idea that he was even sick. What an absolute shame.

Originally Posted by Rockfan616

Yeah I heard about this just now on Facebook.....he's gone way too soon at 54 too, damn cancer!!!

Originally Posted by Tram2Whitaker

He had mouth cancer, which can be attributed to tobacco use. He had part of his jaw removed a few years back to get rid of it. Last year, during the post-season, he revealed that it had come back, and was hopeful he could beat it again.

Originally Posted by wireman

BTW, I'm not a tobacco user. Gwynn always thought his tobacco use caused the tumor, and maybe it did, but it would be pretty much impossible to prove.

Originally Posted by kq76

Thanks for sharing the tumour info, wireman. I didn't know any of it. I always thought it was weird when I heard someone would have surgery to remove extra whatever just in case, but the older I get the more I get that you just want to be as safe as possible.

I find myself once again entering a thread like this and seeming to lack the proper sympathy. Believe me, I do. I feel about the same as when I learned Kirby Puckett had passed. Tony Gwynn was one of the greatest ballplayers that I have ever seen play in my decades of watching baseball.

But gosh darn it, wireman, what do you think would cause mouth cancer? Bad luck? Not really. It's been proven over and over again that tobacco products cause cancer and if one is going to walk around all day, day after day, with a wad of tobacco stuffed in one's cheek, they are likely to get cancer.

The point is for folks NOT to start crappy habits (drinking, smoking, drugs, overeating) at a young age. Then they don't need to have parts of their body removed, kq.

So. Each generation thinks it's more savvier than the last. Well prove it, young folks.

To me, one of the dumbest things I witness is a young person indulging in tobacco use. Savvy? Enriching fat-cat tobacco executives (who I bet don't use their own products) to make himself or herself sick and die. Yeah, sure, real savvy.

I don't want to turn this into a debate and have the thread sent to OTD. It belongs here. But even if it is inappropriate to some degree, I will take this opportunity to use Gwynn as a reverse-role model in this aspect, as great a man and ballplayer as he was otherwise.

[kq76]

Originally Posted by Déjà Bru

The point is for folks NOT to start crappy habits (drinking, smoking, drugs, overeating) at a young age. Then they don't need to have parts of their body removed, kq.

*shakes head* ... You don't have to have unhealthy habits to get cancer.

[Déjà Bru]

Originally Posted by kq76

*shakes head* ... You don't have to have unhealthy habits to get cancer.

It surer than hell makes it more likely, kq. I'm not going to argue anymore, though. I probably should not have pontificated like that in this thread but I could not resist. Here's a guy who needed to live another 20 or 30 years, making the lives around him better just by his being here. Now he is gone, in the name of bad choices and business profits.

But enough.

[wireman]

Originally Posted by Déjà Bru

But gosh darn it, wireman, what do you think would cause mouth cancer? Bad luck? Not really.

My medical degree is in the mail (), but I can tell you that it's not fully understood what causes parotid cancer. It's easy to say, "He used tobacco and something bad happened, therefore the tobacco caused it." Gwynn certainly believed that.

That may be the case. But sometimes it really is bad luck or bad genes or something else.

I don't endorse tobacco use in any form. But this has probably gone far enough: Let's just celebrate what a fine athlete and human being Tony Gwynn was.

[Rxtbpz]

Is there any way we could create a profile for him in his prime and put him on the current Padres Roster fo those who wish to do so? Greiving Padres Fan.

[Carlton]

The man I modeled my hitting after...somewhere up there, he, Ty Cobb, Ted Williams and Stan Musial are debating hitting strategies.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Carlton

The man I modeled my hitting after...somewhere up there, he, Ty Cobb, Ted Williams and Stan Musial are debating hitting strategies.

Well, maybe Ted, Stan and Tony, but something tells me Ty is probably hanging with Cap Anson.

[Jason Moyer]

There may be a correlation between tobacco usage and various forms of cancer, but anecdotally it seems weird that of the thousands of baseball players who have abused tobacco in my lifetime, this is the first one I'm aware of to die from this particular kind.

[wireman]

Originally Posted by Jason Moyer

There may be a correlation between tobacco usage and various forms of cancer, but anecdotally it seems weird that of the thousands of baseball players who have abused tobacco in my lifetime, this is the first one I'm aware of to die from this particular kind.

It's an extremely rare form of cancer for anybody.

[Questdog]

I went to the Reds game last Thursday against the Dodgers and there was an 8-10 year old kid there that was the spittin' image of Tony Gwynn. He didn't know who Gwynn was, so maybe now he'll look him up.

Just such a friendly, likable face.

Amongst Gwynn's many accomplishments it should not be forgotten that we was the right fielder on the greatest Strat-O-Matic team that ever existed in an open league, the 1984 Jacksonville Jaguars.....

[Andy]

This is my favorite article I've read on him. I Was Tony Gwynn's Bat Boy

[ThatSeventiesGuy]

Gwynn's trying to have some influence after his death, Yul Brynner-style:

As baseball ponders tobacco issue, Tony Gwynn to get his say