It was a magical time: Tony Gwynns Hall of Fame career started 40 years ago this summer

June 22, 2024

WALLA WALLA, Wash. — The most harrowing, agonizing turn in Tony Gwynn’s journey to Cooperstown and baseball immortality occurred 40 years ago this summer, and it happened before he played his first professional game.

Days after being selected by the Padres in the third round of the 1981 draft, Gwynn and his wife, Alicia, pointed her Plymouth Arrow in the direction of Los Angeles International Airport, which would serve as the starting point for Gwynn’s career.

The Gwynns had been married less than 10 days when Alicia parked the car and got out to hug her husband before watching him vanish into the domestic terminal at LAX — a suitcase in one hand, a bag of baseball gear in the other and a head swimming with possibility.

Gwynn’s destination was tiny Walla Walla, a remote outpost in southeastern Washington. It was the home of the short-season Class-A Walla Walla Padres of the Northwest League, the first rung on Gwynn’s ladder to get to the big leagues.

“No one (in my family) had ever heard of Walla Walla, Washington,” said Chris Gwynn, Tony’s younger brother. “I think my mom kind of raised her eyebrows, and was like, ‘Wow.’”

It took two flights to get Gwynn where he needed to be; the first a nonstop to Spokane, which went smoothly — an important detail for Gwynn, who detested flying. Years later, even as he was carving up big league pitchers from coast to coast, that sentiment never changed.

“Tony’s disdain for flying was certainly well known,” said John Boggs, Gwynn’s longtime agent.

Waiting for Gwynn in Spokane was his biggest nightmare: a 19-seat turboprop serviced by Cascade Airways, a now-defunct airline that served routes throughout the Pacific Northwest. The ride was cramped, hot and beyond bumpy. The flight to Walla Walla took 40 minutes. It felt like 40 hours. Gwynn clutched the armrest the entire time, sweat trickling down his face.

“Just knowing how he was, I’m sure he had never been so afraid in his life,” Alicia Gwynn recently told The Athletic.

Life got exponentially better once Gwynn got settled with his host family, and certainly when he found his way to his home away from home — the ballpark.

Gwynn was in the Northwest League for less than two months, but what a period it was. He hit .331/.406/.512 with 12 homers in 42 games before he was promoted to Double A. The next year Gwynn was in the big leagues for good, the first of 20 seasons, all with the Padres.

“He didn’t deserve to be there,” said John Kruk, Gwynn’s teammate in Walla Walla. “He was so much better than everyone else.”

Gwynn’s time in Walla Walla was a summer of fun, frivolity and moments that launched his Hall of Fame career.

“Tony was like a kid in a candy store. He called me every night. He had no complaints at all. Every time I talked to him, he was like, ‘I’ve got to go practice,’” Alicia Gwynn said. “He was always so eager to get to the ballpark. He was having the time of his life.”

“I can remember us sitting in the back of a bus in Walla Walla, Wash., it’s 100 degrees and the windows wouldn’t open, we’re drinking Coca-Colas and talking about how great one day it would be if we could ever get to the big leagues.” — Tony Gwynn, 2007

It was another scorcher of an afternoon in the summer of 1981, not uncommon in these parts, as two young men pushed through the glass doors of the Bicycle Barn in downtown Walla Walla and asked for the owner.

They wanted to know if the store rented bicycles.

Minutes later, 20-year-old Kruk and 21-year-old Gwynn, days into their professional baseball careers, giggled as they set off on their 10-speeds, their means of navigating a city they knew nothing about.

“We rode those bikes everywhere,” Kruk said, laughing. “… It wasn’t like we could afford a rental car or anything.”

The trip from the homes of their host families to Borleske Stadium, the home of the Walla Walla Padres, took no more than 10 minutes, though these two often deviated from the swiftest path, seeking shade as they rode under the towering maple and sycamore trees that lined the streets.

Laughing all the way, of course.

“It was a match made in heaven,” Kruk said of his relationship with Gwynn. “We immediately hit it off, and we spent a lot of time together.”

What they found was a sleepy city.

“Walla Walla was known for two things,” said Jeff Ronk, a teammate of Kruk and Gwynn that season. “… Its sweet onions and its penitentiary.”

But the city, like Gwynn, went on to big things and is now a world-renowned wine region.

Alicia and Tony Gwynn were married three days before the Padres selected him in the third round of the 1981 draft. He had been a star at San Diego State University, and the Padres were smitten with his bat and athleticism. Gwynn was also a standout point guard on the Aztecs’ basketball team.

The Gwynns honeymooned in Las Vegas, but cut their trip short to make sure they were back in his hometown of Long Beach for the draft — well, two drafts.

On June 6, the Padres selected Gwynn in the third round (No. 58 overall). Three or so hours later, the NBA’s San Diego Clippers picked Gwynn in the 10th and the final round of their draft.

“I really think basketball was Tony’s first love. And I know that he thought about it … but I remember him saying, ‘Alicia, I’m short and the longevity in baseball is better,” Alicia Gwynn said. “Finally he said, ‘Alicia, I can play 10 years in the big leagues. I’ve got a better chance with baseball.’”

Soon enough, Gwynn had his marching orders from the Padres. He was heading to Walla Walla, the same place where shortstop Ozzie Smith began his professional career in 1977.

The immediate reaction to the news was nearly universal in the Gwynn household.

Walla, what?

Gwynn, however, was nonplussed by his destination. He could have been sent to Mars to start his career and he wouldn’t have questioned it.

“He was just so excited to get drafted, he didn’t care where he went. He knew that he would get drafted, but never thought it would be that high,” said Alicia Gwynn, who spent a week in Walla Walla that summer. “He was excited and ready to play.”

After an initial meet-and-greet when the players arrived in Walla Walla, they got to the business of baseball and the team’s upcoming Northwest League slate.

Ed Clendaniel was a reporter at the time with the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, and he and sports editor Skip Nichols headed to Borleske Stadium one afternoon for a workout in advance of the team’s first game.

“The team’s very first workout, Skip and I were standing behind the batting cage, with our backs to the cage. We were talking and all of a sudden we hear this crack of the bat that sounded … different,” Clendaniel said. “So we turn around, and it’s Tony Gwynn.”

Clendaniel and Nichols looked at each other, dumbfounded.

“I had been watching minor-league baseball in Walla Walla since I was a teenager. And I can tell you I never heard or seen anything like that,” Clendaniel said. “He was like a man playing with boys.”

That became apparent when the Padres opened the season at home against Salem. Gwynn, hitting leadoff, singled in the first inning, stole second and third base and scored on an errant pickoff throw from the catcher.

Gwynn finished with three hits, including a triple, as the Padres won 10-9 before a crowd of 707. Tim “Toy” Cannon hit a walk-off home run for the Padres and was the game’s hero. But it was clear who really stole the show.

“It’s our first game, and I’m on deck. Tony gets three hits and I’m thinking, ‘Who is this guy?’” Ronk said. “But every game, Tony tore it up. He was a natural.”

The box score clipping of Tony Gwynn’s first professional game. (Walla Walla Union-Bulletin)

Back in Long Beach, the Gwynns, including Tony’s parents, Charles and Vendella, anxiously awaited Tony’s call each night. Rarely was it bad news. Chris Gwynn noticed something about his older brother over the course of that summer based on those nightly phone calls.

“He’d call and say he got two hits one game, three hits the next game. I think Tony really grew as a person in Walla Walla,” said Chris Gwynn, who was younger by four years.

While teammates huddled after games in their tiny clubhouse below the grandstand at Borleske Stadium, slugging down Rainier beers, Gwynn abstained, preferring to talk hitting with anyone who would listen — before, during or after games.

“Tony was all about what was in front of him. For him, it was about the journey,” said Chris Gwynn, who played parts of 10 seasons in the big leagues for three teams.

That didn’t make him a stick-in-the-mud by any means. Teammates loved Gwynn. They loved watching him play, marveling at his bat-to-ball skills and his mature approach to the game.

“In your lifetime, you’ll never see a hitter like him,” Ronk said. “And you’ll never meet another person kinder than Tony.”

Gwynn wasn’t afraid to show his fun-loving side, either.

Although the decision to choose baseball over basketball was a relatively easy one for Gwynn, it wasn’t like he was going to give up the game. He loved it far too much. While in Walla Walla or on the road, Gwynn would often play pickup basketball.

On one road trip, the team’s hotel actually had a basketball hoop in the parking lot. Walla Walla pitcher Jim Giacomazzi challenged Gwynn to a game of H-O-R-S-E.

“We were playing for lunch money,” Giacomazzi said. “After Tony took about $15 from me, I said, ‘You’re pretty good.’ He said, ‘Yeah, I got drafted by the Clippers.’ I said, ‘You should have told me that.’ Tony says, ‘You should have read the papers!’”

Gwynn was never more playful, or at ease, than when he was with Kruk. The two gravitated to each other shortly after they first met and became inseparable during their time together.

“It was a magical time,” Kruk said.

When they weren’t whirling around Walla Walla, Kruk and Gwynn were probably at Bowlaway Lanes on Ash Street. But not to bowl. Instead, these two pumped quarter after quarter into video games at the bowling alley.

Kruk and Gwynn would park their bikes, take a $5 bill up to the counter and exchange it for quarters and disappear for hours.

“Tony was the one who introduced me to video games,” Kruk said. “I never played one in my life before I got to Walla Walla. Tony annihilated me in video games, so much so that I never played again.”

They often talked about hitting. Kruk struggled that summer, hitting .242. This was one year before he made a dramatic change in his stance to raise his hands, which certainly got his career going in the right direction.

But at 20, Kruk was desperate for some answers. That’s where Gwynn stepped in.

“That time for me was really insightful because I got to watch how someone goes about preparing. If I didn’t do something … Walla Walla was going to be my only stop before going home,” Kruk said.

“Watching Tony made me realize just how much I had to work on my skills. Tony really helped me with the thought process behind hitting. It’s not something that I had ever thought of before then.”

Gwynn could fall out of bed and get three hits. But that didn’t mean that he was a complete player by any means. There were other facets of his game that were, say, lacking at the time.

“He wasn’t a finished product,” Chris Gwynn said. “He could hit and he was super athletic, but he really had to work on his throwing arm. But Tony didn’t mind that at all. Tony was a worker.”

Greg Riddoch, who managed Eugene, spotted Gwynn’s biggest deficiency right away and wasn’t afraid to attack it.

“He was at what I call the neophyte stage of his career,” Riddoch said. “He was as natural a hitter as I’ve ever seen, but he was a poor outfielder. He didn’t charge the ball, his mechanics weren’t good. I could score anyone on (Gwynn’s arm).”

Six seasons later, Riddoch joined the Padres’ big-league coaching staff, and he was later Gwynn’s manager. He saw a different Gwynn, who didn’t just put meticulous work into his hitting routine, but also his defense.

By then, Gwynn had already won the first of his five Gold Glove awards.

“The next time I saw him, Tony had developed a routine of how to prepare to play a game,” Riddoch said. “Tony was a learner, and wanted any competitive edge he could get. I’ve never met anyone like him.”

The Walla Walla Padres weren’t very good. Despite future big leaguers in Gwynn and Kruk and with Ronk, who hit .302, the pitching wasn’t there. The Padres finished the summer with a 30-40 record.

But boy, could they hit, especially with Gwynn at the top of the order. During one blissful three-game stretch, he led off the game with a home run. There were a lot of doubles that summer, which kept Gwynn and Ronk well-fed.

“They had a deal downtown, for every double you hit, you got a sub sandwich,” Ronk said, referring to a promotion at the Walla Walla Sub Shop. “Well, Tony and I are getting a free sub every day. I was like, ‘I love this.’ The owner was like, ‘I’m going broke.’”

Rare were the times when Gwynn didn’t get a hit for the Padres that summer, Kruk said. There was one particular series where Gwynn simply couldn’t make an out — and the only way he did was because of a rare ejection.

“We had a four-game series and Tony led off and I hit second. He hit home runs in the first three games,” Kruk said. “In the fourth game, he hit a ball that the center fielder dove for and got past him. It was an inside-the-park home run. But the ump said he missed first base.”

Gwynn was steamed and was ejected for arguing the call. Kruk could not believe what he was seeing.

“That was the only time I ever saw Tony get mad,” Kruk said.

Most times, the affable Gwynn was as happy as they came. He was getting paid to play baseball, what could be better?

Gwynn had a sneaky mischievous side, as Kruk discovered on one road trip to Bend, Oregon.

“I’m sleeping and someone is knocking at the door,” Kruk recalled. “I had no idea who’d be banging on the door that early in the morning. I go to open the door and it’s a police officer. And I’m thinking, ‘Oh crap.’”

Well, this police officer starts saying that I did this and I did that. I’m thinking that I came right back to the hotel after the game. He puts my hands behind my back, and then all of a sudden … I hear this laugh. I hear his (Gwynn’s) laugh.”

Gwynn had a friend in Bend who he had asked to be a part of the prank.

Oh yes, Gwynn’s laugh. It’s hard to describe, let alone replicate. Longtime Padres radio broadcaster Ted Leitner, now retired, keeps an old voicemail on his phone, one with Gwynn’s unmistakable laugh. Leitner still occasionally listens to it.

It always makes him smile.

“It was everything, absolutely everything,” said Leitner, who actually played a clip of Gwynn’s laugh at his memorial. “To me, Tony’s laugh was the sound of the Padres. It wasn’t the crack of his bat, it was his laugh.”

In August, the Padres finally decided to give Gwynn another challenge. He was to fly to join the team’s Double-A affiliate in Amarillo, but the air traffic controllers’ strike delayed Gwynn’s departure a few days.

“There goes our team,” lamented Walla Walla manager Bill Bryk.

Gwynn hit .462 in 23 games with Amarillo, a remarkable feat considering he spent those three weeks dodging mosquitoes the size of grapefruits. Sure, Walla Walla got hot in the summer, but this was something else entirely.

“There were so many bugs landing on him in center field, they had to spray Tony between every inning,” Alicia Gwynn said.

Tony Gwynn in 2007. (Seth Wenig / Associated Press)

Walla Walla had an affiliated minor-league team from 1969-83, with the Padres there from 1973-82. In 2010, the Walla Walla Sweets, a college wood-bat team, began playing at Borleske Stadium, which looks much like it did in 1981.

The rest of the city and its surrounding areas do not.

In 1981, there were no more than four wineries in and around Walla Walla. Today there are 120, with 30 tasting rooms peppering downtown. This was once a blue-collar, meat-and-potatoes town. Not anymore.

From a table outside at AK’s Mercado on Main Street, you can enjoy chef Andrae Bopp’s brisket tacos and tamarind rum punch while watching tourists roam shops and tasting rooms on a sunny summer evening. The place is hopping.

“Walla Walla in 1981 … Well, it’s not what it is now. It’s like a mini-Napa,” Clendaniel said.

Gwynn, who had 3,141 career hits and eight batting titles and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2007, never made it back to Walla Walla. He died of cancer in 2014 from what he maintained were years of tobacco use. He was 54.

After Gwynn retired following the 2001 season, he and Alicia talked about his time in Walla Walla, but the conversations seldom had anything to do with baseball. It was more about the connections he made with his teammates, especially Kruk.

The mischief. The laughs. The memories.

“When we’d talk about Walla Walla years later, we would always laugh about it … mostly because of him getting on that plane. He always said that was the worst flight he ever had,” Alicia Gwynn said.

“But once he got there … Tony said that the people there treated him really well.”

(Top illustration by Matthew Shipley)

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