Tony Gwynn's decision to retire at 41 brings to mind the great Ty Cobb quote from several years back.
"If I was playing baseball today against modern pitching, I'd only be able to hit about .300," Cobb said.
Someone asked, why so low?
"Well, you have to take into consideration that I'm over 70 years old."
Unquestionably, Gwynn will be able to hit .300 when he's 70, .300 when he's 80 and, probably, .300 when he's 90. The greatest hitter of our generation, his stroke is that good and his technique is that fluid.
But there are hamstrings, and knees, and cartilage, and tendons that simply will no longer hold up at 41, let alone at 70. And so, in a very sad twist to that old baseball tradition of doubleheaders, Gwynn will confirm that he will retire at the end of this season -- probably on Thursday -- barely more than a week after Baltimore great Cal Ripken announced his.
"I've heard people say, 'Make them rip the jersey off your back,'" Gwynn said this spring in Arizona while discussing his impending retirement with SportsLine.com. "I tend to stick with that...
"You can't play forever. When the time comes, you have to deal with it rationally. The last thing you want to do is go out and embarrass yourself."
For Gwynn, who played in only 36 games last season before undergoing his seventh knee operation, the time has come. He hasn't played since May 10 because of a strained right hamstring. Twice since then, the hamstring has suffered setbacks just as Gwynn thought he was close to returning to the lineup.
He's won eight batting titles, he's 16th on baseball's all-time list with 3,124 hits and his lifetime .338 average is second only to Ted Williams' .344 among players who have played since World War II.
He's played in only 16 games this season because of that bum hamstring, but he's hitting .333.
There's no doubt that Gwynn, who certainly will go into the Hall of Fame with Ripken in 2007, would hit .300 in the majors every season for the rest of his life.
Come to think of it, scientists from all over are gathered in San Diego this week for a Biotech convention. Maybe they could come up with some kind of gene experiment to keep Gwynn and Ripken ticking.
