Damn, 54. Going to the Padres/M's game on Wednesday (next time they're home) so guessing they do something.

Died of cancer. RIP to a fine gentleman and legendary hitter.

rip

I had no idea he was sick. That is really sad.

Great player, and most important, a great person...RIP

One of my favorite players to watch. Also one of my favorite people. What a shame.

Loved watching him play. Grew up idolizing two players early on...Robin Yount and Bruce Sutter. Then Tony Gwynn. May you RIP

LINK

Really sad.....one of my favorite all-time players.

The pic I have hanging in my room back home.

RIP

Man...this sucks

Many years of dipping. So sad.

Yep, very sad. One of the all-time greats. I remember an article that said he continued to dip even after they found the cancer and removed the tumor. Sorry to see him go, one of my favorites growing up...

I saw his last game at the Dome and his last game at Minute Maid. Absolutely loved the guy.

Be sure to check this out....

The Gwynn men: A son's love, a father's fight

Very sad news.

Stay away from the chew, kids.

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Stay away from the chew, kids

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This. If there some good to come from this story I hope it's some exposure to the dangers of chewing/dipping.

Just a few stats that I found that show just how good of a baseball player he really was...

- His career high for strikeouts in a single season was 40. That's just unbelievably good.

- In order for his career batting average to drop below .300, he would have had to go hitless in his last 1,183 at bats.

- His career batting average against Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, Tom Glavine, Pedro Martinez, Nolan Ryan, and Dennis Eckersley... Was .366 in 382 at bats. He made Hall of Fame quality pitchers look silly.

- He stole 56 bases in 1987 and had 4 gold gloves. Just an all-around incredible baseball player.

- Tony Gwynn got a hit in 75% of the games he played in throughout his entire career.

- He never struck out three times in one game. Ever.

Baseball lost an incredible player today. But more importantly, baseball lost an incredible human being. Thoughts and prayers go out to the friends and family of Tony Gwynn.

never do chewing tobacco. It sucks he died early. Loved that man

RIP, Tony. One of the best hitters ever.

Tim Kurkjian's summary of his career on SportsCenter was outstanding.

Tony Gwynn was one of my all-time favorites for about 145-150 games every year. Only when he was destroying the Astros did I ever root against him. Amazing eye-hand coordination.

Great rep for BB. RIP Tony.

One of my favorites. You could always tell how much fun he was having playing the game.

Greatest pure hitter of all time not even close. Just saw Kieth Obermans tribute, it brought a tear to my eye and I usually fine Kieth to be insufferable.

From Newberg this morning

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Michael Young evidently texted Fox Sports columnist Ken Rosenthal on Monday morning, saying: “Ted Williams gets to talk hitting again.”

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From some reason, that cheesy line punched me in the gut.

I'm glad I finally quit dipping last year after about 17 years.

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Greatest pure hitter of all time not even close.

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You almost need 2 categories - the guys who made their living hitting the ball out of the park (Bonds, Cabrera, Pujols, Williams), and the guys who just hit it hard or found a hole somewhere routinely (Gwynn, Brett, Boggs, Carew, Ichiro).

Ted Williams crosses the two of those groups pretty easily.

I'd also consider George Brett kind of a hybrid of those categories as well with his 317 home runs.

Another great article.....

I Was Tony Gwynn's Bat Boy

Best pure hitter of his generation

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- He never struck out three times in one game. Ever.

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Except in this one game.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SDN/SDN198604140.shtml

And the pitcher who did it died last week.

http://msn.foxsports.com/west/story/mike-scioscia-reflects-on-former-teammate-bob-welch-061014

Good catch! I was wrong. Still incredibly impressive

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This. If there some good to come from this story I hope it's some exposure to the dangers of chewing/dipping.

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This loss is sad, but the fact is there is essentially no statistical evidence that dipping causes cancer. Smokers have a very elevated levels of oral cancer. The risk of oral cancer in people who dip alone and don't drink or smoke is essentially the same as people who don't drink, dip, or smoke. Not to say it's good because gum loss is definitely prevalent in smokeless tobacco.

Not trying to be a proponent of tobacco but don't just accept what the standard line is. I wonder what other habits Gwynn had besides just chew.

http://regressing.deadspin.com/did-chewing-tobacco-kill-tony-gwynn-1592459255

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It makes sense that Gwynn attributed his illness to chewing tobacco—the stuff is known to contain toxins that trigger cancer of the lip, tongue and mouth—but as any oncologist will tell you, chewing tobacco hasn't actually been linked to the type of cancer that killed Tony Gwynn.2 Loren Mell, chief of the head and neck radiation medicine service at the Moores Cancer Center in San Diego—and a consulting physician on the team that treated Gwynn—recently weighed in, dismissing Gwynn's assertion that chewing tobacco was to blame. "He may have chewed tobacco," Dr. Mell said, "but that's not likely to be the cause."

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We've all seen the strawman examples of a 19 year old kid who dipped for a year and got oral cancer. What they fail to point out is there are statistically consistent incidences of oral cancer in 19 year olds who contracted oral cancer and never dipped or chewed. Most oncologists will tell you that cancer from toxins occurs over many years of use and the dipping and oral cancer in those cases was likely purely coincidental.

If there is an increased risk, statistics show it's so small it's almost incomprehensible. An analogy I saw is that it's like saying if you live in Florida you have double the risk of being hit by lightning as in Kansas. Even if you knew that, you know the risk of being hit by lightning in the first place is negligible so it makes little difference.


[This message has been edited by Deadwood (edited 6/21/2014 11:58a).]

I went to the Royals game last night, and they had a moment of silence for him. I'm sure they did it at all the parks, but I wasn't expecting it and thought that it was a classy move.

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the fact is there is essentially no statistical evidence that dipping causes cancer. Smokers have a very elevated levels of oral cancer. The risk of oral cancer in people who dip alone and don't drink or smoke is essentially the same as people who don't drink, dip, or smoke. Not to say it's good because gum loss is definitely prevalent in smokeless tobacco.

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There are enough studies out there that have found links that I'm not sure using the word "fact" is appropriate here.

The problem is and will continue to be, I surmise, some problems in conducting studies which on their own are statistically significant.

We'll see where the science goes as chew and dip continues to gain popularity as folks look for ways away from cigarettes.

Anyways, chew and dip ain't extending any lives and we can almost all agree on gum loss and what not.

BTW, be careful not to misread that quote from that article.

[This message has been edited by TXAggie2011 (edited 6/21/2014 5:36p).]

How did I misread the quote from the article? The consulting oncologist says that wasn't the cause. I'm not sure how the quote could be misread. Am I missing something here?

I didn't say it was harmless. However, like many other topics in health, people run with a narrative that has been put out there (many times by those with financial motive) and assume it is fact. There have been hundreds of studies over the years - to say that this has not been studied is simply not true.

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There are enough studies out there that have found links that I'm not sure using the word "fact" is appropriate here

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This is simply not true. The ones that did find correlation did not filter out folks that also smoke and drank - when doing that, none was established. If you can find one, I'd be very interested in reading it.

Take a look at this study. They actually went into the study with the intentio of proving a correlation and came away concluding there was not. Men have a higher overall rate for oral cancer than women, but men also smoke and drink more, so you can't use that fact alone. So they chose to compare West Virgina to the national average. West Virginia has the highest rate of use of smokeless tobacco anywhere in the country, yet has a low rate of oral cancer.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9868728


[This message has been edited by Deadwood (edited 6/21/2014 7:41p).]