Tony Gwynn Jr., the son of the Baseball Hall of Famer, played at Poway High, San Diego State and for eight seasons in the major leagues for four teams, including the Padres. He lives in San Diego and works as a broadcaster for the Dodgers. He wrote this essay for the Union-Tribune.

My dad was on the National League All-Star team 15 times. I wasn’t even 2 years old when he made it the first time in 1984, so I was too young to remember many of them.

The one I will never forget was in 1994 in Pittsburgh when I was 11. It’s regarded as one of the greatest games in All-Star Game history. There were five lead changes, the National League won 8-7, and my dad scored the winning run in the 10th inning.

I had gone to the game with him before that, but the one in Pittsburgh is the one that stands out.


San Diego Padres Tony Gwynn slides safely home with the winning run past Texas Rangers catcher Ivan Rodriguez in the 10th inning of the 65th All Star Game Tuesday, July 12, 1994 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburg, The National League won 8-7. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio) (Carlos Osorio / ASSOCIATED PRESS)

When the game was in Toronto in 1991, I was hanging out with Ozzie Smith’s son. I think we stayed up for a 24-hour period. I fell asleep during the game and didn’t see one inning of it.

The next year it was in San Diego. With all the hustle and bustle, I didn’t really get to do any of the activities because my dad was being pulled in all kinds of directions. I didn’t really get to enjoy that one because I was in the stands. I was stuck in terrible seats. But I did have a good view of watching him throw two runners out at second base, which tied an All-Star Game record.

I didn’t go in 1993 when it was in Arlington, Texas. It was the first time I got to be an All-Star in Little League, for Poway American. That was my first All-Star experience, so I wasn’t going to miss that.


Then came 1994. I had been with my dad for Home Run Derby and the workout the day before the game, but ’94 was the first time I got to go on game day and actually go in the clubhouse.

Part of the reason might have been the players were going on strike and my dad knew it was going to happen, so maybe he wanted to make sure he took advantage of that, not knowing what was going to come of it.

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My first memory is walking in the clubhouse and seeing Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell. They were the first two guys who seemed like they wanted to have a conversation with me. And then Mike Piazza after that. And Moises Alou.


I was good to go at that point. I was mingling with the guys I see on TV all the time. It was like, “Wow.” As a kid, when you’re around people every day, when you’re 11 years old, you think these guys are your real friends. I was in there hanging out, talking baseball.

It was different than during the season. I would see his teammates all the time. They were like family almost. Whereas, these guys, I was seeing them on “SportsCenter” highlights almost every night. It was a big deal to me. It was the first time I was confident enough to have a conversation with these kind of guys.

Because of an injury to another player, I think my dad knew he was going to play a lot of the game that day. At that point in my life, it seemed like the National League hadn’t won an All-Star Game. They had lost six in a row coming into the game in Pittsburgh. In my memory at that point it seemed like they had been blown out of every All-Star Game I had attended.

In the regular season for a Padres game, I would be in uniform. In Pittsburgh, I had some clothes to wear so I could go shag baseballs in the outfield, but after that I had to get my regular clothes on. I wasn’t allowed to wear a uniform on that particular day because I wasn’t allowed to be a batboy. My dad wasn’t going to let me get to the dugout, so I was confined to the clubhouse during the game.


I sat watching the TV, staying by my dad’s locker. The last thing I wanted to do was get in trouble so I didn’t get to come again.

In the meantime, the players were coming out of the game and coming in. If they approached me, we talked; if not, I just kept to myself.

My dad doubled off the Royals’ David Cone in his second at-bat, driving in two runs to break a 1-1 tie. Then he came around to score. And so I’m already gassed up, pumped up at this point.

In the meantime, all the guys who had been in the game came in the clubhouse. Barry Bonds came in. Mike Piazza came in.


And at this point, while I had the confidence to talk to guys like Bagwell and Biggio and Piazza, more so because they approached me, I wasn’t quite ready to talk to Barry yet. He was on a whole other level. I remember him wearing what must have been a Versace vest. It had all kinds of crazy colors. I remember him going onto the field in his suit when they won the game.

I remember them all leaving the clubhouse and it was just me in there because they all wanted to go celebrate.

I remember having a conversation with Moises Alou in the clubhouse before he went into the game. Little did I know he would be the one to get the game-winning hit. I didn’t have that kind of premonition where I could see that far ahead.

I remember my dad coming up in the 10th inning for his fifth at-bat. Jason Bere from the White Sox was pitching. My dad ends up chopping the ball up over the middle and gets a base hit.


Moises was up next. The Padres had played Montreal right before the All-Star break and Moises was wearing them out. That was when he was just getting on the scene in ’94. I remember my dad saying as he was going through his video, a couple of days before we got out there, ‘Man, you can’t sneak a fastball by this guy. He’s gonna get you.’”

Sure enough, Bere tries to beat him with a fastball and he just buggy-whips it into left-center.

I’m watching and they have the camera on the outfield, they’re flipping it back to my dad running around second and I’m like, “He’s not going to make it.” I thought he was going to be out.

The throw comes in and I could tell that he got under the tag by Ivan Rodriguez and they called him safe. At that point there’s no replay, so it’s a done deal.


My dad jumps up and pumps his fist. That was the first time I had seen my dad emotional on the baseball field. He was pumped. I’m sure he was like that when the Padres were in the playoffs in 1984, but I was 2 so I saw it on video.

The 1994 All-Star Game in Pittsburgh came to an exciting conclusion when Gwynn scored all the way from first base on a 10th-inning double by Montreal’s Moises Alou to give the NL an 8-7 victory over the AL. (The Associated Press)

I’ll always remember seeing his emotions like that for the first time. It bothers me to this day that I didn’t get to be out there on the field. But I got to be inside the clubhouse and watch them all come in, which you wouldn’t have seen any other place. You got to see why these guys play baseball, and why they enjoy it so much.

Back then it’s just an All-Star Game. It doesn’t mean home-field advantage for the World Series. It’s just a game. But these guys were pumped, like they had won a World Series. It was that kind of excitement — for everybody in the clubhouse.


In the clubhouse, my dad didn’t show the same kind of emotion that he showed when he slid into home plate. When he came in, it was almost like he had another four-hit game. It was like ho-hum.

It took him forever to get to his locker because everybody’s giving him some love as he’s walking in.

Once he got to his locker gave me that, ‘Yeah,’ where he kind of pumps his fist and gives me that look. That’s all we needed. And that’s kind of where it ended.

He was the best of the best that night, but I didn’t look at him like that until much later. He was still just my dad.


We didn’t talk about it much on the drive back to the hotel. My dad never reflected on anything until the season was done. I think that was by design. That’s how he kept his edge of wanting to continually get better. When you have some success and start to look at that success you’re not going to be there much longer. That’s just human nature. It’s hard to look at your accomplishments and stay driven.

I will say this, I never saw him watch a highlight other than when he’s hitting a baseball. But he probably watched that highlight more than I’ve seen him watch any other highlight.

Every year, he would get a highlight tape from the season. It would have music on there. He knew my sister and I loved to watch these highlight tapes.

Highlight tapes for kids are the ultimate. There’s nothing but good stuff coming, you’ve got some music behind it and it kind of gives you that movie feel. My sister and I, even though most of the music was jazz and stuff we didn’t really like, it was cool to us.


When we put in a highlight tape, we’d run that clip multiple times. He would always have a smile on his face, I’m sure partly because of how excited it made me.