page_title: Tony Gwynn
section_title: 1993–1997
hierarchical_section_title: Tony Gwynn / Professional baseball career / Major leagues (1982–2001) / 1993–1997
caption_attribution_description: English: Inscription: "If you work hard good things will happen" - Charles Gwynn Senior - on the base of the statue of Tony Gwynn in Park at the Park, a publick park adjacent to Petco Park in San Diego, California. Petco Park is a baseball ground and is the new home of the San Diego Padres. Tony Gwynn played 20 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Padres.
context_page_description: Anthony Keith Gwynn Sr., nicknamed "Mr. Padre", was an American professional baseball right fielder, who played 20 seasons in Major League Baseball for the San Diego Padres. The left-handed hitting Gwynn won eight batting titles in his career, tied for the most in National League history. He is considered one of the best and most consistent hitters in baseball history. Gwynn had a .338 career batting average, never hitting below .309 in any full season. He was a 15-time All-Star, recognized for his skills both on offense and defense with seven Silver Slugger Awards and five Gold Glove Awards. Gwynn was the rare player in his era that stayed with a single team his entire career, and he played in the only two World Series appearances in San Diego's franchise history. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2007, his first year of eligibility.
  Gwynn attended San Diego State University, where he played both college baseball and basketball for the Aztecs. He was an all-conference player in both sports in the Western Athletic Conference, but was honored as an All-American in baseball.
context_section_description: Gwynn entered the 1993 season anticipating that he would be better after his past two surgeries, and he had also incorporated Williams' advice into his swing. The Padres lost 101 games that year for the team's worst record during his career. They finished last in the division, behind even the Colorado Rockies, who were an expansion team in their inaugural season. San Diego that season had traded most of its star players—including Fred McGriff, Gary Sheffield, and Tony Fernández—in fire sales. Gwynn finished with a .358 average, the then-second best average of his career, but Colorado's Andrés Galarraga won the title at .370. He batted .587 on pulled balls, compared to his .315 in 1991 before Williams' pointers. Gwynn was affected early in the season by a sprained thumb, but he hit .400 (76-for-190) over the second half of the season. On June 10, he missed the opportunity to hit for the cycle when Manager Jim Riggleman replaced him in the seventh inning of a 14–2 rout against the Dodgers after he had hit for a home run, double, and triple in his three prior at-bats. Riggleman was not aware that he needed a single to complete the cycle. Still wary of Clark's earlier criticism that he was selfish, Gwynn did not contest his removal, which angered his manager when he found out after the game. On August 4 against the Giants, Gwynn had the only six-hit game of his career. He might have gone 7–for–7 if not for an excellent play at first base by Will Clark. Gwynn recorded his 2,000th hit with a single off Colorado lefthander Bruce Ruffin on August 6. His last game was September 5 before undergoing arthroscopic surgery to clear "loose bodies" from his knee. It was the fourth consecutive year his season ended early, and the third straight season it was due to left knee surgery. 
  After the season, Gwynn's father, Charles, died young at the age of 57 from heart problems. Two days earlier, Charles had argued with Gwynn that he should leave San Diego, questioning the Padres' commitment to winning. Gwynn eventually concluded, "No, I like it here, I should stay." He contemplated leaving baseball after his father's death; however, he recalled his father always telling him to "never be a quitter, work hard".
  For years during Gwynn's career, media preseason predictions declared that "this season" he would become the first player to hit .400 since Williams in 1941. Relatively healthy in 1994, Gwynn batted .394, his career-high and the highest in the National League since Bill Terry hit .401 in 1930.  He also had a league-leading .454 OBP. From April 22 through the 24 against Philadelphia, he had eight consecutive hits and reached base nine straight times, tying Padres records held by Winfield and Bip Roberts, respectively. Gwynn was batting .383 at the All-Star break; however, talk of a strike by the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) was looming, and he wanted to get to .400 before that date. He hit .423 over 28 games in the second half, and heated up to .475 though 10 games in August, when the season ended prematurely on August 11 due to the baseball strike. He was 6-for-9 in the last two games and 3-for-5 in the eventual finale, falling short of batting .400 by three hits. Fans were awaiting an end to the strike and for Gwynn to resume his quest for .400, but hopes of the season restarting were dashed when the World Series was canceled. He later commented, "I'm not unhappy or bitter that the strike came. I look at it this way: I would have sooner fell short due to the strike than if I would have hit .400 and then the strike came. Then people would have thought I would have collapsed down the stretch, instead of being at .390 when the strike came and being so close." That year, Gwynn pulled the ball with greater regularity. He was 10th in the league with a slugging percentage of .568, which was also his career-high. His 12 homers in 419 at-bats was a higher rate than in 1986, when he hit a then-career high 14 homers in 642 at-bats. He won another batting title (.368) in 1995. For the second straight year, he did not go longe
caption: Inscription «If you work hard good things will happen» by Charles Gwynn, Tony Gwynn's father
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