Tony Gwynn, diagnosed with salivary gland cancer last August, underwent treatments at Scripps Health in San Diego. His wife, Alicia, says doctors recently told him he was cancer-free.
LONG BEACH Tony Gwynn couldn't smile. The idea that the Hall of Fame outfielder who spent 20 years in a San Diego Padres uniform needed smile therapy was like saying the eight-time batting champion couldn't slap a single between short and third.
But for a time, the effects of treatment for cancer of a salivary gland discovered last August robbed Gwynn of what he called "a big part of who I am."
"I can smile again. I can laugh again," said Gwynn, coach of the San Diego State Aztecs the last nine seasons, as he sat in the dugout before a game against Long Beach State this month on a field where he played many games during his Long Beach youth.
"People who know me love to hear you laugh, see you smile," he said. "For a while, I couldn't do either. That was really concerning."
Gwynn chewed gum every day as therapy, and as the deadened nerves healed, he regained control of his facial movements.
Other than the very corner of his mouth, his wife Alicia said, the smile is back.
"Oh yeah, it is," she said.
Gwynn, 50, underwent surgery to remove a tumor of the parotid gland on the right side of his face, the third time he had undergone a similar procedure.
This time, unlike the previous two, tests showed the tumor was malignant.
"My wife had to really convince me that things were going to be OK. You hear cancer and you just think the worst," Gwynn said.
The effects of the surgery, during which lymph nodes also were removed, and the chemotherapy and radiation that followed at first left him unable to blink his right eye or move much of the right side of his face.
Alicia, who grew up with Gwynn in Long Beach, and their children, Tony Jr., 28, an outfielder for the
Los Angeles Dodgers, and Anisha Nicole, 25, a recording artist, were taken aback.
"He was in pain," Tony Jr. said before a recent game at Dodger Stadium. "He couldn't smile even if he wanted to. It was only the left side that actually would move. So he kind of had this crooked smile, and it wasn't the same. I think when he recognized that it wasn't the same, he just decided not to smile at all.
"It was tough on all of us," said the younger Gwynn, who played for his father before being drafted after his junior year in 2003. "I spent a lot of time with my dad growing up, and there wasn't a day that went by that he wasn't laughing or smiling at some point."
Gwynn met with his team in October to tell them about his cancer and explain his absence.
He also told them what he suspects but doctors can neither confirm nor refute that chewing smokeless tobacco, the habit-forming substance so prevalent in baseball, played a role in him developing cancer.
"I just figured it had to be a part of it," Gwynn said. "But I've had people since this has been talked about say they had the exact same thing. I've had women tell me they had the exact same thing, and they weren't chewers.
"So I don't know for sure. I just know it's not good for me, and having gone through this, I'm not going through it again, I hope."
The players were stunned, not only by the news, but at the sight of Gwynn: Mr. Padre, using a walker because of debilitating back pain that would require surgery in January, his face misshapen by his treatment.
"It was pretty scary," said Brandon Meredith, a junior outfielder from the San Diego suburb of Chula Vista who grew up watching Gwynn, such an icon that there is a statue of the sweet swing that produced 3,141 hits and a career .338 average outside the Padres' Petco Park.
"He did cry," Meredith said. "I understand. Me and another couple of guys got teary-eyed also."
Not since the day of his diagnosis, Gwynn said, has he chewed smokeless tobacco.
"I had the same tumor before. It came back benign. And I was dipping right away, right after," he said, recalling how he disregarded Alicia's pleas to stop.
"But this time, the first thought that crosses your mind when you're told you have cancer is death. So I stopped. "
Tony Jr., unbeknownst to his father, had started to chew a few years ago.
"After seeing my dad getting affected by cancer, it didn't take much of anything for me to stop," the younger player said.
Setting example for his players
Smokeless tobacco, known as dip or chew, already is banned in the minor leagues and the NCAA.
Gwynn laid down what had been an imperfectly enforced law with his team.
"I promised them I would try to have as much gum and sunflower seeds as I could here," he said.
Pat Colwell, a senior outfielder for the Aztecs, said he has never chewed, but he noticed a change in some teammates who do.
"They've been a little more paranoid about it, which is a good thing," Colwell said. "If they end up quitting, that would be an awesome thing. The message has definitely been sent."
Unlike Major League Baseball Commissioner
Bud Selig or former manager
Bobby Valentine, who recently made public calls for smokeless tobacco to be banned in the majors, Gwynn stops shorts of a campaign.
"There's a lot of people who think I should be the guy leading the charge," he said. "Everybody has to make their own decision. I made mine. Obviously, it wasn't a good one. Now I have to live with the results of that."
Back in uniform in time for the opening game Feb. 18, Gwynn remains slightly limited but is getting stronger as he coaches the 11-26 Aztecs.
Gwynn, who starred in baseball and basketball at San Diego State, has a certain amount of job security: Seven of his first eight teams have finished in the top three of the Mountain West Conference, and the home field is named Tony Gwynn Stadium.
Perhaps someday he'll consider coaching in the major leagues, but for now his devotion is to college players.
"Tony loves the kids.
I think he would do the major league level in some aspect, but I'm not sure he'd manage. Maybe someday," Alicia says.
Sense of normalcy returns
At moments, he has felt like his ordeal is almost over. At others, he recognizes that is not always the nature of cancer. He recently went in for a series of tests and scans. Some of the tests had to be repeated, in part because Gwynn is so claustrophobic he was uncomfortable in the exams.
"Everything turned out good," Alicia said. "He has another test in a month. The doctor told him he was cancer-free and could resume normal activities."
He does not yet throw batting practice, one of his favorite ways to teach the nuances of the contest between a pitcher and a hitter. But it's because his back doctors advised against it, not because of the cancer. He has been told he can begin throwing BP in another two weeks.
There is scarring on the right side of his face near the bottom of his ear. Whiskers no longer grow on that side, and his right eye doesn't adjust as quickly as he would like when he turns his head. But for the most part, Gwynn is back.
One of the last things is his taste buds which could be good or bad.
Once 100 pounds over his playing weight of 230, which contributed to debilitating back problems, Gwynn has slimmed down to 250 after subsisting on a mostly liquid diet.
"Soup. Soup. Bleh," he said. "Lots of water, lots of liquids. Soup was about all my stomach could handle.
"Now I'm starting to eat regular food. My wife's chicken is what I really missed. Fried chicken. Even now I can eat it, but I can't eat a lot.
"It's nice again to be able to sit down and eat some of the stuff I really like to eat."
He still remembers, though, what he expected to be a sense of triumph and finality when he participated in the traditional ringing of the bell when his cancer treatment was concluded.
"I thought ringing that bell meant that was the end of it," he said. "But really, ringing that bell just meant I'm done with treatments, but I've still got to deal with this ordeal until until they tell me one way or the other, I'm done, or finished or whatever.
"I think going through this ordeal, I realize how much I really love doing what I'm doing.
"It's good to be here, honestly."
Tony Gwynn Ready to Smile All the While After Battling Cancer
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