JIM LANG ON SPORTS

TONY GWYNN – THE HITTING MACHINE

Some sad news this week with the announcement from the San Diego Padres that Tony Gwynn had passed away at the age of 54 after losing his battle with cancer. When I was young I had always thought Rod Carew was the best pure hitter I ever saw.

Then Tony Gwynn showed up in the big leagues.

The man turned hitting the baseball into an art form.

This is one of my all-time favourite Tony Gwynn stats. In 1987 Gwynn had more stolen bases (56), more doubles (36) and more bases on balls (82) than he did strikeouts (35). Gwynn hit .370 in 1987 and won one of his eight batting titles. Those eight batting titles went along with his five gold gloves and his remarkable 3,141 career hits.

If not for the strike of 19994, Gwynn might have broken Ted Williams’s immortal record of hitting .400. Gwynn was hitting .394 after 110 games before the season was called off. In 1995 Gwynn struck out a grand total of 15 times for the entire season. Or one for every 35.7 at bats. His bat control and ability to read the incoming pitch were incredible, to say the least.

Gwynn’s .338 career batting average is better than Carew, Stan Musial and Joe DiMaggio. Gwynn played in the big leagues for 20 years, and only had one game where he struck out three or more times. Once in 20 years!I loved this story from the Washington Post this week.

Tom Boswell at the Post once asked legendary pitcher Greg Maddux about the art of pitching and why it was so hard for guys to get hits off of him. “No hitter can tell the difference in speed of different pitches, except that &^%$#@! * Tony Gwynn.”

Tony Gwynn left us way too soon. But his legacy as a hitting machine Major League Baseball will live on forever.

OJ SIMPSON

As everyone knows by now, this week marks the 20th anniversary of the infamous OJ Simpson/White Bronco chase through the streets of Los Angeles.

What followed was something called the “trial of the century” and the dawn of reality television as we know it. “If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”

Pretty soon we knew as much about Johnnie Cochran and Kato Kaelin as we did about OJ.

Because of the heinous crimes OJ was accused of (Double Murder) and the trial that followed Simpson’s football has long been forgotten. Long before the White Bronco and Judge Lance Ito Simpson was one of the best running backs in the NFL.

A member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Simpson was the first player in the history of the NFL to run for over 2,000 yards in a single season. Back in 1973, in a 14 game regular season, Simpson ran for 2,003 yards. In a five year span between 1972 and 1976 OJ ran for 7,699 yards and was far and away the Buffalo Bills biggest star.

From there Simpson went into broadcasting and acting. Simpson’s character “Nordberg” appeared in all three of Leslie Nielsen’s hilarious Naked Gun movies. The third and final Naked Gun movie was released in March of 1994. Three months later OJ Simpson was charged with the gruesome double homicide of his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ronald Goldman. OJ’s arrest and the trial that followed changed everything.

All of a sudden the walls between athletes, celebrities and the media came crashing down in the quest to bring everything into our living room. An estimated 95 million people watched OJ’s White Bronco chase, better ratings than the Super Bowl that year.

The world couldn’t get enough of OJ and the trial. As far as OJ Simpson the football player is concerned it is almost like that part of his life didn’t really happen.

THE CFL

Chad (ochocinco) Johnson has over 3.6 million Twitter followers.

Chad Johnson is also a 6-time Pro Bowler had racked up over 10,000 receiving yards in his NFL career. But now he is in the CFL. Once he steps on the field in the regular season teammates and opponents are not going to really care about his past. They will be more concerned with the here and now.

Teammates and coaches will want to know how much gas Johnson has left in the tank. And opponents will want to know how quickly he can pick up the nuances of the Canadian game.

The other thing Johnson will have to understand is that he is the not the only receiver in Montreal. The Als depth chart already features studs like S.J. Green and Duron Carter. As long as he can live with the fact that he is just one of many cogs in the Als offence, then there shouldn’t be any problems.

I hope Johnson is able to make the transition to the CFL and makes an impact in Montreal. He can be good for the league, on both sides of the border. But time and time again there have been former NFL players, some of them Pro Bowlers like Johnson, who come up to the CFL and up falling flat on their face. I did think it was pretty funny that Johnson was very excited to find out there are numerous McDonald’s restaurants in Canada. With that kind of attitude he should have no problem fitting in the Als locker room.

THE WORLD CUP

According to Stats Canada soccer is the number one “team” sports for kids in Canada.

That makes total sense. There isn’t a great expense signing your kid up for soccer and both girls and boys can play it without much fear of any serious injury.I can’t speak for the rest of Canada, but I know that Southern Ontario has a bad case of “World Cup Fever”.

It seems that if every other car in Toronto and the surrounding suburbs has a flag representing one of the 32 countries competing down in Brazil.And yes, that includes countries like the Ivory Coast and Algeria. That is one of the great things about living in Canada.

We have the freedom to cheer for Canada when they are involved in an international sport, and the freedom to cheer for the country of their birthplace. Sometimes Canadians take for granted how lucky we are to be able to do that with-out any government interference.

TYLER SEGUIN

While working on a future project I ran across Tyler Seguin of the Dallas Stars at a high performance training centre.

First off, Seguin is ripped to shreds. Even the trainers say that Seguin has extremely low body fat, even for a hockey player. There is no real story here other than it was another reminder how hard players have to work in the off-season to keep playing at a high level. Players take the job of staying in shape very seriously.

It wasn’t that long ago players did nothing in the off-season but golf and hang out at the cottage.

Those days are over.

Every time I see a feature story on a player working out like a maniac in the off-season I am reminded of a story told to me by Marty McSorley.

The St. Louis Blues were one of the first teams in the NHL to hire a full-time strength and conditioning coach. At the start of training camp the coach was putting the players through their paces. This included a lot of the same drills and tests that the NHL make junior players go thought prior to the draft.

Well Marty said the coach got to the vertical jump test and Brett Hull had pretty much had enough of this guy’s act. When it was Hull’s turn he didn’t bother jumping and with a bored expression on his face reached up with his right hand and barely touched the bottom marker.

When the coach questioned Hull’s effort in the drill he said; “Buddy, I scored 86 freaking goals last year, I think I know how to raise my arms.”

The coach has no comeback for that line and moved on to the next player. Needless to say there are not many players in today’s NHL that could get away with that kind of attitude during fitness testing.

(Follow Jim on Twitter @JimLangSports)