There was an occasion, maybe three years before Tony Gwynn’s 2007 induction to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, when it was brought to his attention his autograph on a baseball was selling for $129 online.

Gwynn just shook his head.

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“My autograph can’t be worth anything,” he said. “I’ve signed for everyone.”

Probably three times over.

Gwynn was so accessible throughout his 20-year career with the Padres and for more than a decade thereafter when he returned to San Diego State to coach the baseball team, that seemingly every San Diegan — not to mention many baseball fans across the country — had his signature.

They also seemingly knew everything there was to know about the man because his career was chronicled more closely here than any sports figure we’ve seen.

But, in honor of what would have been Gwynn’s 60th birthday on May 9, the Union-Tribune offers 60 things to know about Gwynn — some that have been discussed through the years and some that even his most fervent fans may not know.

Several interviews — including with his wife, Alicia, son Tony Jr., brothers Charles and Chris, agent and close friend John Boggs, San Diego State baseball coach Mark Martinez, former Padres executive Andy Strasberg and former Union-Tribune sportswriter Bill Center — assisted in uncovering the following five dozen items about Anthony Keith Gwynn (1960-2014).

1. Gwynn went from first to third pretty well, especially early in his career.

He went from third to fifth at Long Beach’s John Muir Elementary School, skipping the fourth grade.

2. Gwynn played the trombone in junior high.

3. Gwynn had his eye on a girl named Alicia Cureton from about the age of 10, although he was too shy to speak to her. Maybe because she was two years older than him.

“Everywhere I went, even in junior high school, I would see him in my peripheral vision all the time,” Alicia said. “I didn’t know until after we got married that he was following me and always liked me.”

4. When Tony and Alicia were students at Long Beach Poly — and not yet dating — Tony rode his bike the eight miles from his house at 3524 Delta Ave. to watch Alicia’s track meet at rival Millikan High on one particular Saturday morning.

Tony’s bike was stolen while he was there. Fortunately, he was able to ride back on the bus with the track team.

It wasn’t all bad. He got to speak with Alicia, which sped up the time frame for their courtship.

“That’s what prompted it,” Alicia said.

5. Tony and Alicia Gwynn were married on June 6, 1981, although their Las Vegas honeymoon was cut short three days later so he could be in San Diego for the draft(s).

The Padres selected him in the third round (58th pick overall) of the major league draft. Later in the day, the San Diego Clippers selected him in the 10th round (210th) of the NBA draft.

He was the first player in history to be selected on the same day in two different sports.

6. Gwynn received a $25,000 signing bonus with the Padres. (He made $440,000 as a rookie, with his largest salary, $6.3 million, coming in 2000, his penultimate season, according to Baseball-Reference.com.)

7. Nearly half his signing bonus was spent on his first new car, a slate blue 1981 Monte Carlo.

8. Gwynn’s eight batting titles (.351 in 1984, .370 in 1987, .313 in 1988, .336 in 1989, .394 in 1994, .368 in 1995, .353 in 1996, .372 in 1997) are second only to Ty Cobb’s 12.

9. A memorable moment before the 1999 All-Star Game at Boston’s Fenway Park was when Hall of Famer Ted Williams was driven onto the field near the mound and surrounded by the All-Star players.

When it came time for Williams to throw out the first pitch, it was Gwynn he asked to help steady him for the throw.

“Can you believe that, Alicia?” Gwynn said after the game. “Ted chose me.”

10. Williams and Gwynn first met at the stadium in the late 1980s and a friendship soon blossomed.

They crossed paths again during the 1992 All-Star Game at Qualcomm Stadium. Williams got Gwynn’s bat in his hands and to illustrate how light it felt, Williams pretended to pick his teeth with it like it was a tooth pick.

Gwynn swung a bat that was 32 inches long and weighed 30 1/2 ounces. Williams swung a 35-inch, 32-34-ounce bat in 1941 when he batted .406.

11. Gwynn wrapped athletic grip tape around the handle of his bat exactly eight times, with the ends lining up exactly.

12. In 1994 Padres manager Jim Riggleman pulled Gwynn from a game in which he was only a single short of the cycle.

“I was totally oblivious to it at the time,” Riggleman said years later. “I always felt bad about it, but what are you going to do.”

Gwynn said the Padres had an 11-1 lead at the time and he was not particularly upset by the move.

“Honestly, I thought another chance would come up,” Tony said. “That’s just how you thought.”

The Padres didn’t have a player hit for the cycle until Matt Kemp finally did it in 2015.

13. At some point, Gwynn got another bicycle.

In fact, within days of being drafted, he was assigned to the Padres’ Single-A Walla Walla (Wash.) affiliate, where a teammate and roommate was first baseman/outfielder John Kruk.

The pair would ride bikes to the stadium, although it was not a straight line from hotel to ballpark but a zig-zag route with stops at fast-food restaurants along the way.

14. Gwynn had the amazing ability to determine what pitch was coming before it left the pitcher’s hand, based on the position of the hand and fingers, how much of the ball he could see, etc.

“He would talk about being able to see fingers up on the ball, like a knuckle curve,” said Tony Gwynn Jr., recalling when his father was offering insight to some young minor leaguers. “I said, ‘Dad, I don’t think anyone here sees that, including me.’

“You’re either gifted with that kind of eyesight or you’re not. … You have to be able to slow a guy’s arm down enough in the process of it coming at you in order to see that. It can’t just be vision.”

15. The first Padres uniform Gwynn wore wasn’t the No. 19 he was given upon his call-up on July 19, 1982. And it wasn’t the No. 53 he received earlier that year in spring training.

While still a baseball player at SDSU, Gwynn wore the No. 15 of Broderick Perkins for a Padres commercial that included car dealer Cal Worthington (who rides in on the back of the San Diego Chicken).

16. Gwynn worked at McDonald’s in Mira Mesa. For a day, anyway. He worked the counter there on Oct. 6, 1989. It was founder’s day for McDonald’s.

17. Gwynn’s favorite player growing up was Dodgers center fielder Willie Davis, a left-hander batter who could hit, run the bases and played great defense over his 18-year career.

In 1987, Strasberg made sure to invite Davis when the team hosted an old-timers game at the stadium.

Afterwards, Strasberg asked Gwynn if he had a chance to chat with Davis.

“I couldn’t meet him,” Gwynn said. “I was too nervous.”

18. Gwynn considered not playing baseball his senior year at Long Beach Poly so he could focus on his basketball career.

“No, no, no,” his mom said. “You’re going to need baseball.”

Gwynn relented, played baseball and batted better than .700.

19. Arriving several hours before first pitch for his major league debut at San Diego Stadium, Gwynn was directed to his locker by Padres equipment manager Ray Peralta. Longtime clubhouse man Whitey Wietelmann brought Gwynn his jersey.

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It was No. 19, the same number Williams (as well as Wietelmann) had worn as a Padres minor leaguer in 1936.

“Don’t disgrace it,” Wietelmann said.

“I’ll try to do the best that I can, Mr. Wietelmann,” Gwynn replied.

20. Gwynn batted .289 (55-for-190) during his rookie season, two hits short of an even .300. He never hit lower than .309 over the remaining 19 seasons, a stretch of consecutive .300 seasons surpassed only by Cobb (23).

21. After Tony Jr. was born in 1982, the Gwynns purchased a video camera so they could capture his childhood from its earliest moments.

They also bought a machine to play back the videos.

That set the stage for a moment of inspiration a year or so later when Gwynn was struggling at the plate on the road.

“He was so discouraged and couldn’t figure out what he was doing wrong,” Alicia said. “I knew we had that machine sitting there because we would play tape of little Tony in the back yard.

“I said, ‘I could tape you and then you could see.’ ”

Gwynn reviewed the tape when he returned, realized he wasn’t keeping his hands back and then pioneered the use of video for hitting instruction.

22. Gwynn was a closet fan of the Indiana Pacers (and to some degree the Indianapolis Colts). He purchased a home in the Midwest state early in his career as a getaway place and he and Alicia had courtside seats to see Reggie Miller and Co. Marshall Faulk’s presence on the Colts made them one of his favorites.

23. Gwynn credited SDSU shortstop Bobby Meacham with getting him on the team at SDSU — reminding Aztecs coach Jim Dietz that “the best baseball player at the school is playing on the basketball team” — and attracting pro scouts to Aztecs games. In fact, Meacham was the first SDSU player selected in that 1981 draft, going in the first round to the St. Louis Cardinals.

24. Early in his career, Gwynn changed the way he wrote the ‘G’ in his last name from cursive to a block letter. It was much easier to sign that way.

25. In pregame warmups when he played basketball at SDSU, Gwynn always took five dribbles before taking his first shot.

26. Gwynn’s 1983 Topps card was No. 482 in the set and is regarded as his rookie card. It’s not his first baseball card, however. That would be a 1982 card with the Triple-A Hawaii Islanders.

27. Gwynn wore No. 28 and also No. 3 during his baseball career at SDSU. No. 19? That was worn by pitcher Bud Black, who was Gwynn’s SDSU teammate in 1979.

28. Charles Gwynn remembers watching a Giants-Dodgers game on TV with his brothers when the childhood of Hall of Famer pitcher Juan Marichal was discussed.

“The Dodgers were playing at Candlestick,” Charles Gwynn said. “Juan Marichal was pitching and Vin Scully said Juan Marichal and his brothers played with socks in the back yard.

“So we were like, ‘Oh,’ and got our socks and went to the back yard and started playing.

“It was too easy, so we cut them down to about one-third of the size, wrapped them with rubber bands. We played that game for 20 years. As the years went by, we made it tougher and tougher, got closer and closer.”

29. Socks were not the only thing the brothers hurled from the back yard mound.

“We had a fig tree in the back yard,” Charles said. “We didn’t really like figs, so we let them stay out there and get old. One day we started hitting those and found out that was the toughest thing to hit because you could make it do all kinds of things when you threw it.”

30. On an occasion early in Gwynn’s career when his father visited the Padres clubhouse, Pops noticed the players didn’t shine their own shoes.

“A man always polishes his own shoes,” he said.

Gwynn shined his own shoes thereafter.

31. Gwynn’s .338 career batting average ranks 19th in baseball history. Williams (.344) is the only player in the past 80 years to hit for a higher average.

32. In 20 seasons, Gwynn struck out only 434 times, which is an average of 21.7 strikeouts per season.

According to MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell, last season there were 129 players who had at least 22 strikeouts by the end of April.

33. Gwynn’s basketball abilities resulted in several scholarship offers.

He trimmed his list of potential college destinations to Michigan State, Cal State Fullerton, TCU and San Diego State.

Chris Gwynn remembers Tony crossing Michigan State off the list, telling him: “I heard they recruited a 6-foot-9 point guard.”

Turned out to be a guy named Earvin Johnson.

34. Cal State Fullerton basketball coach Bobby Dye introduced Gwynn to Titans baseball coach Augie Garrido on a recruiting visit, where Gwynn inquired about playing both sports at the school.

“Baseball is a full-time job,” Garrido informed him.

And so Cal State Fullerton was crossed off the list.

Years later, when Gwynn was coaching the Aztecs against Garrido’s Texas Longhorns, Augie admitted: “Biggest recruiting mistake I ever made in my life.”

35. TCU didn’t want Gwynn to play both sports, either. Off the list.

36. SDSU basketball coach Tim Vezie was agreeable to Gwynn playing both sports, asking only that Tony focus on basketball his first year at the school.

That’s why he played four years of basketball but only three years of baseball for the Aztecs.

Gwynn was the only athlete in the Western Athletic Conference to earn all-conference honors in two different sports.

37. When pitcher Stephen Strasburg blossomed into the nation’s best pitcher and the No. 1 pick in the 2009 baseball draft, Gwynn was there to help Strasburg handle success.

A midseason home game against BYU that season stands out. After the game, Strasburg was surrounded by national media that included Sports Illustrated, the Wall Street Journal and an ESPN film crew. It was all getting to be overwhelming.

Gwynn was uniquely qualified to help Strasburg deal with it. But the lasting lesson Strasburg learned from Gwynn was how to dedicate himself to a task and appreciate the process.

“He really helped me understand that it’s not necessarily the results — it’s the work you put in every single day,” Strasburg said. “That’s what matters at the end of the day: that you give it everything you’ve got.”

38. Gwynn’s eyesight was measured at one point as 20/10.

“I couldn’t believe his vision,” said Boggs, recalling a same-day drive to Stockton and back they made for an autograph signing. “We were coming up on an overpass and he said, ‘Hey, look at that bird’s nest.’ I was looking all over and could not see what the hell he was talking about, then as we’re passing it, he says, ‘Right there! Right there!’ ”

39. Gwynn was a nervous flier.

He and Boggs endured one particularly rough flight to Washington, D.C., in the winter of 1994, when Gwynn joined other major leaguers to speak to congressmen about the baseball strike.

“At one point when we hit turbulence,” Boggs said, “his arms went up and my arms went up and we hit each other in the face.

“Then he started laughing. That was the only break in the anxiety from bouncing around like a tennis ball.”

As a major leaguer, Gwynn was making dozens of flights a season for two decades.

“What do you do during the year? Boggs asked him.

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“Ah, I try not to think about it,” Gwynn said.

40. The second leg of that east coast trip took Gwynn and Boggs to Florida for a luncheon at Williams’ Hitters Hall of Fame.

After the rough flight to D.C., Gwynn wanted to drive to Florida but Boggs explained they wouldn’t have made it there in time for the event.

At the luncheon, Gwynn wanted to head out after only a few minutes, intent on renting a car (instead of flying) and getting on the road for the drive back to California.

Boggs coaxed Gwynn into sticking around. Good thing. Late in the event was when Gwynn was approached about sitting down for the interview Bob Costas famously had with Tony and Williams — a discussion which had a significant impact on the second half of Gwynn’s career.

41. Over the last three years of his career, while sitting on the bench and perhaps bored from not playing as much amid injuries, Gwynn would color the MLB logo on his bat with red, white and blue pens.

“It was masterful,” Boggs said. “It was beautiful, really. It was like art.”

42. Jackie Robinson’s No. 42 was retired in 1997 — the 50th anniversary of Robinson breaking baseball’s color barrier by every MLB team. When he became head coach at SDSU, Gwynn also retired No. 42 and had the number put up on a wall beyond center field.

43. Gwynn still owns all the basketball assist records at SDSU for most in a game (18 against UNLV on Feb. 5, 1980), season (221 in 1979-80) and career (590 from 1977-81).

44. Gwynn concluded his SDSU basketball career on March 7, 1981, with a 16-point, 16-assist performance in a home game against New Mexico.

Two days later, he was in the lineup for a doubleheader against Southern Cal College at SDSU’s Smith Field, going 3-for-7 with a double, three runs scored, five RBIs and a stolen base. He also had the winning RBI in both games.

45. Landon Burt was a sophomore outfielder for the Aztecs in 2002 when Gwynn served as an assistant head coach (before succeeding Jim Dietz as the school’s head coach in 2003).

Burt recalled an intrasquad game in which the hitters were struggling.

“Coach Gwynn, who is our hitting coach, is obviously frustrated,” said Burt. “He says, ‘I’m sick of watching you guys swing a bat. Watch me swing a bat.’ He gets a helmet, gets a metal bat and says, ‘Go ahead, Drew.’ “

Freshman left-hander Drew Jenson became the unwitting participant in an impromptu hitting clinic.

“Tony just started lacing balls all over the yard,” said Burt, who is now the baseball team’s director of operations. “The first one he hits one-hops the left-center wall. The second one is right-center.”

Gwynn works the ball around the entire field, offering commentary as he goes.

“The guy is unbelievable,” said Burt. “Drew’s last pitch, he gets a ball, puts it in his glove and before he gets to his release point, Coach yells as he’s swinging the bat, ‘Watch out’ and hits it right off Drew’s hip.

“It was the coolest thing we’ve ever seen.”

Well, maybe not for Jenson.

“We’re all like, ‘No freaking way,’ “ said Burt. “He was a magician with the bat.”

Burt said it was the kind of moment that had every player calling home after practice to describe what they’d just witnessed.

46. Baseball fans gravitated to Gwynn whenever the Aztecs played on the road during his time as a coach, like for a 2009 series at TCU.

“The night that we get there, we practiced and there were probably 30 to 40 people outside the stadium waiting for Tony (hoping for an autograph),” Martinez said. “It was like, that’s cool, people are into their baseball here in Texas.

“The next day we were going to play, almost three hours before game time. The bus pulls up and there’s 70 or 80 people now.

“Tony’s like, ‘Aw, geez. All right.’

“We get off the bus, grab our stuff and Tony’s prepared (for all the fans) and he starts walking and people are going right past him … and they’re waiting for Stephen Strasburg.”

All Gwynn could do was shake his head and laugh.

47. In 1981, Gwynn was MVP of the Northwest League after batting a league-high .331.

48. For the final three weeks of the 1981 season, Gwynn played at Double-A Amarillo (Texas) batting .462 in 23 games.

49. In 1982, Gwynn started the season playing for Triple-A Hawaii, earning a midseason promotion after batting .328 over 93 games.

Gwynn’s major league debut on July 19 (which included two hits against the Phillies at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium) was the furthest thing from his mind the day before when Hawaii manager Doug Rader called the outfielder into his office.

“The night before I had been thrown out at the plate to end the game, and we lost,” Gwynn said for a story on the anniversary of his debut. “Doug called me into his office, he closed the door and before he could sit down, I said, ‘Doug, I know I should have picked up my third base coach a little sooner and that was my fault.’

“He said, ‘Yeah, you’re right, but that’s not why I called you in here.’ Then I didn’t have any idea what he was going to talk about.”

Rader told Gwynn he wouldn’t be playing in that night’s game because there was a plane to catch for the mainland. Gwynn thought Rader was pulling his leg.

“No, I’m serious,” said Rader.

50. Gwynn batted fifth and played center field in his major league debut.

51. Tony Gwynn Jr. collected his first major league hit on July 19, 2006, for the Milwaukee Brewers, 24 years to the day after his father’s first hit. Junior’s hit went for a double, just like his dad.

52. Over his career, Tony batted .302 with two strikes on him. Wade Boggs is second at .262 (since the statistic was kept in the mid-1970s).

“Tony was clutch, man,” said Chris Gwynn, who played with his brother on the 1996 Padres team. “What amazed me that year I played with him is all those nights that he would start a game going 1-for-2 or 2-for-3, then the real game starts about the seventh or eighth inning when they bring in a lefty — and he just hits a bullet. Every time.”

53. Of the 32 players in the 3,000-hit club, Gwynn is the only member who achieved the milestone in another country.

In 1999, he collected a single off Expos rookie right-hander Dan Smith in Montreal to become the 22nd player in major league history to reach the milestone.

54. Gwynn’s 2,000th and 3,000th hits both came on Aug. 6, his mother Vandella’s birthday.

55. Gwynn also is the only member of the 3,000-hit club to hug the first base umpire afterwards. It made sense in this instance — umpire Kerwin Danley and Gwynn were college teammates at SDSU.

56. Alicia Gwynn said her husband spent a sleepless night before the 2007 Hall of Fame voting results were announced.

“I probably won’t make the first cut, Alicia,” he said. “Because I’m a Punch and Judy hitter. No Punch and Judy hitter has ever gone into the Hall (on the first ballot).”

“He said he thought he had a 50/50 chance,” Alicia said.

57. Gwynn is one of 57 first-ballot Hall of Famers. He received 97.6 percent (named on 532 of 545 ballots), which is the 10th-highest total in history.

58. Gwynn batted .399 in three years with SDSU baseball, including .423 in 1980 and .416 in 1981. The Mountain West Player of the Year Award was named in his honor beginning with the 2015 season.

59. Gwynn served as a volunteer assistant at SDSU before replacing Dietz as head coach in 2003 and serving in that capacity for the next 12 seasons.

“I think he loved that more than being a major league player,” Alicia said. “He said, ‘I just love those boys.’ ”

60. Located on a wall beyond right field at Tony Gwynn Stadium are bigger-than-life images of three of the program’s greatest players, Strasburg and first baseman Travis Lee, both Golden Spikes Award winners, and Gwynn.

Next to Gwynn’s image is a quote: “Do things right.”

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