Roundtable: Tony Gwynn, Hit-And-Run Accidents, Congress and Guns

MARK SAUER: I am Mark Sauer, and the KPBS Roundtable starts now. Joining me at the KPBS Roundtable today are San Diego Sports Writer Jay Paris, Dave Roland, Editor of San Diego CityBeat, and Voice Of San Diego Reporter Mario Koran. Well, he embodied the oldest adage in sports and life, it is not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game. Tony Gwynn, who died this week at age 54, put it in even simpler terms: play hard and have fun. And Jay, that is exactly what Number 19 did for twenty seasons with the Padres. Such a sad week in San Diego, and of course we will be mourning right on through the memorial next week. JAY PARIS: We are, Mark. We were all blindsided, we knew Tony was sick. But he made a little progress, and to hear that news really Monday morning sent a shockwave through the San Diego sports community in San Diego in its whole. It kind of crystallized in the last two nights, people returning to Petco Park and seeing the number nineteen in the outfield, and the flowers around the statute. It really hit home these last two nights, and there were not too many dry eyes that first night back. MARK SAUER: Absolutely, we cannot go through all of Tony's accomplishments, butd I'm going to go down through a few of them here. Twenty years with the same team, 3141 hits, career 348 batting average, eight National League batting titles, inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2007. What made Tony so good? How did he do it? JAY PARIS: He had a lot of ability, and he worked hard. You mentioned work hard have fun, he worked at his craft and really that is illustrated more on the defense side. It was not that good of an outfielder and when he came out of San Diego state, he worked at it and worked at it and became a five-time Golden Glove winner. It was the joy that he played the game, a lot of superstars look like they would rather be somewhere else, and Tony smiled all the time. It was at his brightest when he was between the chalk lines. And fans sensed that and connected with him because of it. MARK SAUER: And the cancer that finally took his life, he did blame it on dipping tobacco all of those years, which so many ballplayers have done. I think he may be brought that out so that they would get away from that habit. JAY PARIS: It is so ingrained in the culture of baseball, the big wad of tobacco that you see so often. But now even the little can of snuff, or a little pinch between the cheek and gum, it is not quite as evident. Major league baseball has tried to be proactive in this, and they have banned it in the minor league level, and it is banned in college. They are hoping as these generation of players come through it will not be as prevalent. MARK SAUER: Dave Roland? DAVID ROLLAND: Getting back to the question of what made him so good, the fact that he did not strike out. One of the best ways to judge how good a pitcher is, is how many guys that he strikes out. The more a batter puts the ball in play, the better chance he has got of finding a hole. And Tony Quinn was very good at finding holes. But the strike out rate was incredible. And is in his day, it is more acceptable now to strike out than it was when he was playing. But I was looking at the stats this morning and from six years between nineteen 1991 and 1996 he struck out less than 20 times each season. MARK SAUER: People strike out that many times in a couple of weeks. DAVID ROLLAND: Just to give you some comparisons, I'm looking at some of the best hitters today. Troy Tulowitzki who is one of the best hitters in the National League this year, he has already struck out thirty-nine times. And we are a third of the way through the season. Last year, Andrew McCutchen with the MVP of the National League, he struck out 101 times last year, sixty-six already this year. He is arguably the best hitter in the league. MARK SAUER: And just to put it into play, the eye hand coordination is remarkable as we say, he worked so hard. Let's talk about his work off of the field, he won the Roberto Clemente Award, the Branch Rickey award, and he just seemed blessed to be a major league player and it was a duty for him to give back to the community. JAY PARIS: And he was accessible, a lot of times when these guys go out there are two or three handlers or bodyguards around them. But you could come up to Tony and he would sign your ball, he would pat a kid on the head, and he was never in a rush. It was like he was getting as much out of it as the person was. Really, it illustrates his connection, and staying here all of those years. He could have gone to greener pastures, Cleveland made a real big run at him. He always said it is not about the money. It wasn't about the money for Tony, and it usually is. MARK SAUER: It was about San Diego. JAY PARIS: It was about San Diego, and he liked being a San Diego Padre. So many of the stars of San Diego from Bill Walton to Marcus Allen to Ted Williams, they achieved greatness in other places. Here is a guy who was the star of San Diego state and stayed there for twenty years with the Padres. MARK SAUER: In 1998, the Padres had a great year in the World Series against the Yankees. It was in the UT newspaper at the time, they signed up to a major front page profile with Tony Gwynn, because they figured it was his last shot at the World Series, which of course they did not win. I spent a lot of time with him and talked a lot with Tony and he got mad at me and barked at me because I brought up humanitarian stuff. I know you have taken some kids in and take paid for some kids educations, who could not afford it. I know you went over and wrote a check when they vandalized the vans over at the YMCA. Don't talk to me about that, don't try to sneak in a question about that. You want to talk baseball, I will sit here all of this time, he was very humble about all of the stuff. DAVID ROLLAND: I never got to meet him, but I did a feature story for San Diego CityBeat, in 2005, or 2006. I went to spring training and hung out for three days of the players. It was after he had retired, so he was not around, but I did not get a chance to meet him, and I am sorry about that now. MARK SAUER: Let's talk a little bit more about him as a student at San Diego State. He was a pretty good basketball player. JAY PARIS: He was really good best ballplayer, and San Diego State got him because he said he could play basketball and baseball. But he had to play two years of basketball first, before he could switch over to baseball. He played his freshman and sophomore year, and he was the all-time assist leader to show you how he handled the ball, and his athleticism. He came out the last game of basketball in second season, doubleheader the next day, he got six hits and a doubleheader right after that. Bud Black was on the team at that time, and he is now the Padres manager. They knew that they had something there. He did not get back to the basketball court, but boy did he take off in baseball. MARK SAUER: Right, I was talking in that profile I did with some of the folks back then, as Jack McKeon was the Padres manager back then and general manager for some years, they were all coming out to watch Bobby Meech and this hotshot shortstop, at that time. McKeon turns to the fellow next to him, and says that right fielder, that is the best ballplayer on the team. And he comes back to San Diego state after his playing days are over and he is the baseball coach here, and they named the stadium after him. JAY PARIS: That is not an easy thing to do, when you put at the highest level that he has in college baseball is a grind. To get the players and to do recruiting, and to turn the program around, it really made some traction last four or five years at the NCAA tournament in last four or five years, it was so sad that Tony was not there to bring out the lineup card. He loved those kids and he loves teaching them. A lot of those kids did not see him, but all of those parents saw him and knew who Tony Gwynn was and he was such an asset to the program. MARK SAUER: We do have a byte from CSU baseball coach Mike Martinez, let's hear what he had to say. [ AUDIO PLAYING ] MIKE MARTINEZ: Tony always made you feel like you were his best friend. He would do that even with strangers, and a lot of people would walk away going wow, that guy really knows who I am, or if someone said hey I've met you back in 1980, it's a oh I remember you, and he always made people feel very special. People would walk away and they know that he really, really cares. [ END AUDIO ] MARK SAUER: What is Tony Gwynn's legacy here in San Diego after passing this week? JAY PARIS: I think it is being a San Diegan, wearing the brown uniform, going to only two World Series, but there was more than what he did on the field. It was what he did away from the field. The old joke is San Diego citizens made a deal with God a long time ago, do you want championship teams or 75 weather everyday? It's 75 weather. The Chargers won in '63, but there has really not been a team has won big. Tony was our champion, he was that championship team all within himself, and there has not been anyone like him. MARK SAUER: And even when teams were down and they were not winning, you can always go watch Tony Gwynn and it was worth the price of admission. All right, a free public memorial for Tony Gwynn will be held June 26, next Thursday at Petco Park. Padres officials say it will celebrate his life, a competence, contributions to the team, the city and to his sport. Gates for the event will open at 5:30 and the memorial schedule will start at about 7:20. We will shift gears now, some are calling it an epidemic, thousands of hit-and-run collisions in San Diego County in the recent years, some resulting in fatalities. We have had a dozen people killed by drivers who have fled the scene so far this year, and is only June. Mario, you've reported that fatalities have already exceeded the year average in recent years, what is it about these? Is there any way for law enforcement to put the finger on the spike? MARIO KORAN: That has been the challenge in trying to report this, first of all getting a hold of recent numbers. We can look at the coroners report and we can see that pedestrian fatalities are as high now as they have been in the past five years, in fact they are now above the average for the past five years. As far as what to do about it, I think that is something that police seems to be scratching their heads about. It sort of defies any sort of pattern, a lot of these things happen near freeways are around freeways and they are sort of spaced out around the county. It is difficult to try to ten point anything we can do to prevent it. MARK SAUER: The overall number, 17,000 in a recent five-year period, that sounds like so many. I don't think that people are aware. Obviously collisions happen all of the time, it is a big city with a lot of people. Many millions of miles driven every day, every week. But this number of people fleeing the scene of collisions, it is hard to imagine. MARIO KORAN: Yes, when we see those numbers, 17,000, a lot of those may be fender benders that happen in a parking lot. Those traditionally get less resources, less police time. The San Diego Police Department told me that there are only six detectives that they have at any given time that are tracking down some of these cases. They have to make some tough choices. The time that they do have is spent on the major ones, the felonies and the ones where people are hurt or killed. DAVID ROLLAND: What strikes me about this, something that I have been noticing over the last couple of years driving around San Diego and the side streets, anecdotally to me, drivers are becoming more and more brazen about habits. Particularly blowing through stop signs, not just the old California stop where they almost slow down to a stop but not quite. I am seeing people really just roll through really quickly, not even attempting to stop. Turning right without looking for pedestrians, I see it all of the time, pedestrian is nervous. They have the right away, they can cross the street. The driver is looking to the left to see if anybody's coming that way, I see it all of the time. I don't know how all related it is to what you have been doing, and it really struck me. JAY PARIS: And cell phone, is that a part of it, people being distracted? MARIO KORAN: There are a lot of theories, I think that is one of them, that people are distracted and distracted walking or maybe looking at phones. The thing about hit and runs, that might explain why it more people are hit, but it is not necessarily explain why more people are running. MARK SAUER: You bring up a guilt factor, maybe the driver has been drinking and don't want to hang around to be compounded all of that. Or maybe they have been on the cell phone, maybe they think that they can track that at the time of the accident, but they make the conscious decision to go. How do detectives go about especially, a fatality hit-and-run? Go about trying to figure out what happened and who might've done this, it is an unusual crime scene. MARIO KORAN: Sure, I'm sure that often there is very little to go on to look for anything that is available, maybe there is a side view mirror left at the scene and maybe the contract the number, make and model, track down the car, looking for a 2005 Camry for example. Reporting the story, I had an image in my head that there are just cameras everywhere, and some camera had to pick up his car. But it does not seem to be the case. A lot of times they rely on witnesses to call the police. From what I hear anecdotally, most of the people who are caught, a family member will call or bring it in to get the car fixed, and the person fixing the car may report it. MARK SAUER: Much like a trauma center, if someone comes in with a gunshot wound the police will be notified. Either collision guys, if you bring in a car that looks like it may be involved in some sort of hit-and-run, I don't know how you determine that. Are there forensic guys for that? MARIO KORAN: Good question, I don't know if there is a mandatory reporting law, I don't know if when they call up the insurance company to report a claim that the insurance company has to report that to police, that is a good question. MARK SAUER: It is interesting the whole mindset of this. I don't know, maybe there is a book somewhere that somebody has taken a look at this. We are all drivers, we all realize and come and go and you are driving routinely, accidents can happen. But the whole notion of that split-second decision of driving off, what goes through your mind that moment? JAY PARIS: I don't know how you put your head on the pillow that night when you did get home. It certainly comes back to cell phones, you'd think there would be more witnesses that could see somebody fleeing and call it in. DAVID ROLLAND: My first thought on something not really serious, not somebody getting killed, you mentioned fender benders. How much is it I don't want insurance to go up? This was not too bad, I think I will split, and save myself some money. MARK SAUER: We did note in your story and some of the reporting that we did on this, some people do have a conscience and lay it all out for a family member and a priest and they do come to themselves in. MARIO KORAN: We have seen that, and that in fact there was a hit-and-run yesterday where the driver phone the police not long after and turned himself in, that does happen on occasion. MARK SAUER: Whether it is conscience or can't live with it, knowing who it is. I wonder if you turn yourself in, does that mitigate charges? In a lot of these, we're not talking about the fatality cases, there are misdemeanors. But then they elevate to felony in certain cases. JAY PARIS: Right, someone is physically injured or killed and the person flees, they could potentially be charged with a felony and be convicted of that felony. It is hard in the court of law to convince that person because it is hard to prove that they knew that they had hit somebody or killed somebody. There are a couple of cases that uncover that. Just from scanning local news archives, the defense says well I did not know I hit a person, I thought I hit an owl or a couch. MARK SAUER: Right, an elderly driver. MARIO KORAN: Right. They escaped serious prosecution. JAY PARIS: How much are bicyclists coming into this? More people are cycling, and more bikes, is this part of the trend as well? MARIO KORAN: That is a concern, it is a small percentage of the number of pedestrians hit, I looked pedestrians up as well as cyclists, that is a serious concern for bike advocates in the city. DAVID ROLLAND: That is why I think there is a new law in San Diego, you have to be three feet away from a bicyclists. Did that pass? MARK SAUER: They have enforced a lot more bicycle ordinances here and of course many more people are riding bikes. That is a fine story that you did, and I'm sure we will do more reporting on this as this unfortunate trend continues. Gun tragedies happen with such frequency, many people have become almost numb to the news. Schools, malls, college campuses, all kinds of workplaces, military bases, shooting happened at all of these places in America. Dave, are these shootings not even big anymore because they happen so often? DAVID ROLLAND: I think it is human nature the more prevalent something becomes, the more human nature is that we become desensitized to it. MARK SAUER: Oh, another school shooting. DAVID ROLLAND: Right. We never hear about garden-variety gun violence anymore, if you pardon the term, but it is an absolute epidemic and it has been for years. MARK SAUER: Domestic shootings, bar shootings on a Saturday night, we used to cover the PoliceBeat in Houston in the Houston Post, we cynically referred to those as misdemeanor murders. But somebody is dying and that is a tragedy, and a gun is out. DAVID ROLLAND: Statistics show it is usually family. Whether it is stress, economic stress in a family or a breakup, something like that, it typically is somebody who is going to get hurt is the family member. MARK SAUER: Your editorial in CityBeat talked about specifically this highly visible congressional case here and we will get to that in a minute. Sandy Hook massacre which obviously got everybody's attention in this country, how many school shootings have there been since then? It has been less than two years. DAVID ROLLAND: According to, I believe is the organization Every Town, gun violence, I don't have it in front of me, I think that is the name. They compiled the school incidents and they say at least seventy-four at the time that I wrote the editorial. Seventy-four incidents where a gun was fired inappropriately, I don't know if there's a time when a gun is fired appropriately on a campus. Either an assault, a killing, suicide, something like that, seventy-four times since December 2012. MARK SAUER: It is interesting, that statistic itself. It is such a politicized issue in our society, I noticed this week there was gun advocates starting to parse that number. Yes there was a shooting at a school, but this was a domestic husband who came in angry, or a shooting in the school but it was gang related. Now we are parsing this. If it is a shooting at a school, it is a shooting at a school, whatever the motive. Children are there! DAVID ROLLAND: What struck me is a quote from the superintendent of the School District in Oregon, I have been hoping and praying, this is something that I am paraphrasing, that would not happen. You know there are some kids, families, parents, teachers, school administrators, they are all worried. This is all in their minds. All of the time. Somebody could come in with a gun and that just boggles the mind, that we have to live with that mindset, that something crazy like that could happen. I never thought about that when I was a kid. MARK SAUER: We saw that at the outset, going to a mall, the movies, going to work. The tragedy in this region at the University of California Santa Barbara campus. Richard Martinez made a national name, this pitiable man and a figure of grief, this man whose son was killed up there, the fellow went off with a gun. He has really focused the attention and he said it personally, he has already gotten some blowback from people, death threats even. DAVID ROLLAND: He is an extraordinary figure, he is a lawyer, sixty-one years old, his son Chris was twenty, his only child. What was extraordinary about him, he sort of broke into that press conference and really was shouting, so emotionally at politicians and the gun lobby. MARK SAUER: And got in the face of America, really. DAVID ROLLAND: To do something. Today, I watched the CNN interview with him in right after he did that this conference. Just the emotion, it was gutwrenching, my eyes started to well up watching his grief, just shouting and wailing in anger and sadness about this situation. MARK SAUER: Let's go to the two candidates in the highly congressional race. Carl DeMaio, Scott Peters, what are their positions up there in the North County congressional district? DAVID ROLLAND: Carl DeMaio's position is that he supports the Second Amendment, that is the first thing he said. Which I think is not too veiled code for I am not going to do anything to restrict guns and ammunition. I think it that is what that says. MARK SAUER: And that is his party line. DAVID ROLLAND: He says that he is for background checks, better enforcing existing rules on background checks, and also focusing on mental health, which frankly my opinion is that is diversion. Absolutely, we need to focus on mental health in this country for all kinds of reasons. And gun violence is one of them. But to me, it is a diversion from the issue of gun violence. MARK SAUER: What about Scott Peters, the Democrat? DAVID ROLLAND: Scott Peter's position as a Democrat he is more inclined to do something about the problem. He had not signed on as a cosponsor of an assault weapon ban in the House of Representatives. But, after I wrote the editorial, I was informed by his office that he would indeed be doing that and he has done it and signed on as a cosponsor of a bill that would restrict military style assault weapons. He also supported Barack Obama's call to expand background, you do universal background checks to be more restrictive in the type of weapons that can be manufactured and sold. MARK SAUER: A few seconds left in the segment, is it an issue? Is it a dead issue, will we see it in the midterms? DAVID ROLLAND: I typically don't like to look into a crystal ball, because I often am wrong about that. I personally would like it to become an issue every time there is an election for anything, I would like it to become an issue. MARK SAUER: We will certainly see, because that is coming up in November. Well, that wraps up another week of stories on the KPBS Roundtable. I would like to thank my guests Jay Paris, Mario Koran, and David Rolland. A reminder, all the stories that we discussed today are available on our website KPBS.org. I am Mark Sauer, and thank you for joining us today on the Roundtable. [ END SEGMENT ]