SAN DIEGO - In an era of heavy artillery, Tony Gwynn was a swordsman.

With his 30 1/2-ounce saber, he inflicted damage with the same inexorable certainty as the big bombers.

Gwynn played baseball for the Padres the way he knew how, one base at a time. Hit after hit, base after base, year after year, he reduced pitchers to mere fodder. The cumulative results today are all but certain to put Gwynn in baseball's Hall of Fame.

It's the ultimate honor of his chosen profession. Around 11 a.m. today, a call will come from Baseball Writers Association of America secretary/treasurer Jack O'Connell to squash any remnant of doubt Gwynn still might have. It will become official: Tony Gwynn, Hall of Famer.

"What does it mean? The only word I can think of is validation," Gwynn said as the day approached. "I wasn't a big home-run, big RBI guy. I was really Punch and Judy, but I was very good at it.

"To me, there are certain things you have to do if you're that type of hitter. To get to the ultimate, to get to the Hall, would mean to me validation more than anything else. It means that what you did was worthy."

Gwynn, now 46 and the baseball coach at San Diego State, proved his worth during 20 major-league seasons, all in San Diego. He compiled 3,141 hits and finished with a career batting average of .338. He hit .300 in every season but his first, a testament to his consistency.

A poor defensive outfielder at San Diego State, where basketball was his primary sport, Gwynn honed that part of his game to the point that he won five Gold Gloves in right field. He was a running threat - 319 stolen bases, including a season of 56 in 1987 - before cartilage damage in his left knee and weight gain slowed him down.

"When you talk about Tony, you have to start with his talent," said Bruce Bochy, both a former teammate and manager of Gwynn, "both his ability to hit a baseball and his ability to play the game of baseball. He played great defense, ran the bases. A guy with that type of ability comes along only every once in a while, and we were fortunate enough to have him right here in San Diego.

"Along with that talent, you have to always talk about work ethic with Tony Gwynn. He continued to try to improve as a ballplayer. He never felt like he arrived as a hitter, as an outfielder, a baserunner. He was relentless in being the best baseball player he could. That's why he has eight batting titles and why he is headed for the Hall of Fame."

Make no mistake -- Gwynn set the Hall of Fame as a goal long ago. When he reached 2,000 hits in 1993 -- on Aug. 6, his mother's birthday -- he said it was a nice milestone but he wanted another 1,000. He knew that 3,000 was the gold standard for contact hitters. With 3,000 hits, Gwynn knew, his place in baseball history was undeniable.

He reached the magic milestone on Aug. 6, 1999, in Montreal. His mother, Vendella, was there to see it, another birthday gift from her middle son.

En route to the last 1,141 hits of his career, Gwynn earned four more batting titles and actually increased his batting average. Instead of succumbing to age, he became an even better hitter. Having displayed his ability to knock balls to left field for years, the left-handed-hitting Gwynn added a new dimension. Conversations with two hitting legends, Ted Williams, and, to a lesser extent, Stan Musial, convinced him that he could soon handle the inner portion of the plate without sacrificing coverage of the outer half.

"I had reached a point where I thought that was as good as I was going to get," said Gwynn, a longtime Poway resident. "Talking to those two gentlemen, they told me there was more there and I had to dig deep to get it. So I pushed myself a littler harder. I wanted to really understand what they were talking about. I came to realize they were right. I could become a more complete player."

Gwynn put their advice into practice, combined it with his use of video to hone his mental edge and soon become a hitter with no obvious weakness. He pounced on get-ahead fastballs. He out-thought crafty pitchers. He could stay back on pitches longer than almost any other hitter and still put the ball in play. He could swing at pitches out of the strike zone, yet rarely strike out.

At age 34, he batted .394 and was denied a run at .400 by a players strike. At age 37, he turned in this 1997 monster year: .372 batting average, 97 runs, 220 hits, 49 doubles, 17 home runs, 119 RBIs and a .547 slugging average. At age 38, he got his snapshot moment - a homer off the facade of the top deck of Yankee Stadium in Game 1 of the World Series.

When his body finally failed him and his knee made him not much more than a pinch hitter, he still batted .323 and .324 in his 40s.

He was unique.

"There's not many times a hitter can go up to the plate and dictate the action," Gwynn said. "The pitcher has the ball. He knows what he wants to do. He knows how he's going to attack guys. But when I went to the plate, I flipped the script. I made it so I was dictating the action."

A generation of pitchers on the wrong end of Gwynn's swordsmanship would have to agree.

- Contact staff writer Shaun O'Neill at (760) 740-3546 or soneill@nctimes.com.