The San Diego Padres occupy the next spot in our lineup of “Talkin’ Baseball” songs. On a personal note, while I root for the Royals today, my older brother pulls for the Padres, and so talk of Tony Gwynn, Fred McGriff, and Gary Sheffield permeate memories of my earliest introduction to Major League Baseball. Backyard baseball meant emulating Gwynn’s swing in an effort to knock the ball over the fence. Ah, nostalgia.
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tough to hit one over the fence in a Gwynn crouch, no? but what do I know…I just looked at baseball reference and was surprised by some of his home run years of 14, 12, and 17 with a career total of 135, but those Gwynn hits all over the field is what will stay with me. He’s the only one of our generation who kept his career average above .330…one of a kind.
That surprises me too. I think we were too young to really appreciate the value of a good batting average, and so it was home runs that stuck out for us.