Gwynn was dedicated to his craft and faithful to his city

When Tony Gwynn interviewed for the baseball coaching job at San Diego State, he brought a baseball card instead of a resume.

It wasn’t arrogance, the Aztecs would learn, but a point of pride.

The front of the card featured Gwynn with a bat, but it was the back that provided a more revealing picture of the man.

It listed his rise to 3,141 hits and, nearly as amazing, his 20 consecutive seasons with the San Diego Padres, numbers that helped define Gwynn as someone dedicated to perfecting his craft and faithful to his team and city.

That was the point Gwynn sought to make when applying for the job at his alma mater, where he coached for 12 seasons until his death Monday in Poway, Calif., at age 54 from cancer of the salivary gland.

By dint of long hours of preparation and study, Gwynn, a walk-on outfielder at SDSU, made himself not only the best hitter for average of his generation, with a career .338, but somebody who would flirt with the magic .400 figure until a strike-shortened 1994 season left him at .394.

Eight batting titles and five Golden Gloves would have found him a place on any MLB roster and free agency would have surely earned him a bigger pile of money and more acclaim in bigger markets. Yet he stayed loyal to San Diego, despite being surrounded by the frustration of a franchise that would finish as far as 43 games out of first place.

When asked why, he would invariably flash a radiant smile that, along with an uncanny ability to punch opposite field hits, especially trademark shots through the 5.5 hole (between shortstop and third base), became his calling card in a first-ballot Hall of Fame career.

In Hawaii we got a front-row glimpse of a star in the making. When UH joined the Western Athletic Conference in 1979, Gwynn was waiting — on two fronts.

He was the starting point guard on the Aztecs’ basketball team, where he had a scholarship, and had just become an outfielder on the baseball team. In time, he achieved All-WAC honors in both and still holds a conference hoops record for assists average.

In his first basketball game against UH in 1980, Gwynn had 13 assists, followed by 11 in his second. Riley Wallace, then an assistant coach, recalls, "He was kind of a chunky guy for a point guard, he had that weight on him. But he was quick, saw the floor well and was a really good point guard. We had no idea he could play baseball, though."

Few did. It wasn’t until Bobby Meacham, who had played against him in California youth leagues, touted Gwynn to coach Jim Dietz that baseball entered the equation. Gwynn characteristically took the opportunity and made the most of it, hitting .398 over three seasons.

At the end of his senior year in 1981, the NBA’s San Diego Clippers, forerunner of the L.A. Clippers, and the Padres drafted him on the same day.

Gwynn chose baseball and, a year later, after hitting .328 in 93 games with the Hawaii Islanders, was in the majors.

And already working on that baseball calling card.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.