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San Diego Padres Opening Day Countdown: Tony Gwynn’s Record 85

By Nick Stevens |
SAN DIEGO, CA - JUNE 16: Emmanuel Savala, 20, of San Diego, California, mourns the late San Diego Padres great Tony Gwynn at a statue of Gwynn at Petco Park. where the Padres play, June 16, 2014 in San Diego, California. "I had to have number 19 (Gwynn's number) in any sport I played," said Savala. "I wanted to be him so bad." Gwynn died this morning after a lengthy battle with cancer, according to published reports. He was 54. (Photo by Bill Wechter/Getty Images)
SAN DIEGO, CA - JUNE 16: Emmanuel Savala, 20, of San Diego, California, mourns the late San Diego Padres great Tony Gwynn at a statue of Gwynn at Petco Park. where the Padres play, June 16, 2014 in San Diego, California. "I had to have number 19 (Gwynn's number) in any sport I played," said Savala. "I wanted to be him so bad." Gwynn died this morning after a lengthy battle with cancer, according to published reports. He was 54. (Photo by Bill Wechter/Getty Images)

The countdown to San Diego Padres Opening Day 2019 is down to 85 days.

Look up and down the San Diego Padres record book and you see one name over and over again. Not only was Tony Gwynn the most successful player to ever suit up for the Padres, but he was also a hero for Padres fans around the country who inspired multiple generations to play the game of baseball or fall in love with the sport, even more. To represent the 85 days until Opening Day 2019, we take a look at two different Tony Gwynn records which won’t be broken any time soon.

This isn’t any sort of ranking of Gwynn’s records and is not an attempt to make these two records seem more noteworthy than others, simply the only two records that sit at 85, just to clarify.

Across his 20 seasons of Padres baseball, Gwynn racked up 85 triples, including four seasons of double-digit totals. Only three players recorded double-digit triples in 2018 (Ketel Marte, Yolmer Sanchez, and Mallex Smith). Number two on the Padres all-time list in this category is Gene Richards with 63.

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Like many of his records, I don’t expect anyone to touch this mark for a very long time, considering no current player is in the top 10 and Luis Salazer sits 10th in franchise history with 24 triples.

Gwynn also hit a franchise-record 85 sacrifice flies over the course of his career, 49 more than Khalil Greene and Dave Winfield who rank second on this list. You might be thinking to yourself, “sacrifice flies are pretty boring.” True, they aren’t the most exciting thing in sports and tell us virtually nothing about how effective a player is, but you know who loves sacrifice flies? Tim Kurkjian does, so much so he wrote an entire piece about fun sacrifice fly stats many years ago.

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Just 85 days left, everybody! You know what that means? Just over one month before pitchers and catchers report to spring training!

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