After a prolonged battle with cancer of the salivary gland, 8-time batting champ Tony Gwynn has died at the age of 54. He had battled it in 2009 and again in 2012 when it recurred.
He was equal to Honus Wagner in batting titles and finished with 3,141 career hits (18th all-time) and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2007 with Cal Ripken, Junior.
The head coach of the San Diego State baseball program had taken a leave of absence from the program to fight the disease in recent months.
And, to tell you a quick story on how tremendous a physical athlete Gwynn was, he was once taken in for an eye test since people often wondered how a career .338 hitter could pick up the ball so well and so quickly out of a pitcher's hand.
The initial eye test came back with vision that was 20/10- meaning that he could pick up objects clearly at twenty feet that others could at only ten feet in front of them. A retest was demanded since the first round of results weren't believed.
The second test came back 20/8.
Here's a piece the Aztecs had done on them by ESPN's "Outside The Lines" group after Gwynn survived round one back in 2011. Tom Friend reports for OTL
((HT: goaztecs.com))
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