I live in San Diego, and, every night, I watch four at-bats, maybe five if I'm lucky. I do not watch the rest of the game. Screw the rest of the game. I watch Tony Gwynn, or I watch nothing at all. I come running to the TV when he's up, and I go back to what I'm doing when he's not. Tony Gwynn is the only baseball I watch, which now can mean only one thing: Baseball's over.

He says he's retiring after the season, said it on Thursday, said it even though his batting average is .333. No one retires with that average. Wade Boggs was hovering around .250 when he bailed out, so Boggs should've quit. But Tony Gwynn could hit .300 today, tomorrow, and in 2004. He could go to the American League as a designated hitter, and bat .300 until he's 45. Trust me, he could. But Tony Gwynn ain't a DH, doesn't want to be a DH. He's a National Leaguer, born and raised, and his body has fallen to pieces. And so the last baseball player on earth is leaving, and I'm going with him.

He's only got three months left, and he needs to get off the disabled list so he can get his proper standing ovation. And I'm begging you to give it to him. I'm begging you to forget Cal Ripken for a second and get sentimental about Tony Gwynn. They're going to retire together, and they're going to the Hall of Fame together, but Tony Gwynn is the better player, and, in my mind -- and this is nothing against Cal -- the better person.

I know Tony Gwynn better than I know Cal Ripken, so maybe I'm biased. But eight batting titles don't lie. And 18 consecutive .300 seasons don't lie. And five Gold Gloves don't lie. And that laugh, that high-pitched, Willie Mays laugh ... Cal don't have that, either.

I know Tony Gwynn, and you should wish you did, too. He broke me in as a baseball writer, back in 1985, back when we were both 24, back when the Padres had a lot of angry faces. They had Goose Gossage, and Graig Nettles, and Garry Templeton, and they had Dick Williams as their manager, and even though I like all four of them now, back then they were a bear.

But up would walk Tony Gwynn, young Tony Gwynn, coming off of a .351 season, and he would be civil. I was just this waif of a basketball writer, trying to understand baseball for the first time, trying to understand a sport I didn't care for, and Tony Gwynn invited me into his world, and explained it all.

His motto was basically this: I suck. He had this fear of failure, this obsession with not embarrassing himself. So he would show up every game day at 2 p.m., at least an hour before everyone else, and take batting practice alone. And 100 swings later, he would curse himself. And he would say, "I suck." And four hours later, he would go 2-for-4.

I ended up learning a lot of things about Tony Gwynn.

· I learned that he was almost more comfortable with two strikes.

· I learned that he had 20-15 vision.

· I learned that he wrote 5.5 on his cleats -- because he always wanted to hit the ball inside out between short and third. "The 5.5 hole," he'd say.

· I learned he was the all-time basketball assist leader at San Diego State, and that he used to shut down BYU's Danny Ainge.

· I learned that he was drafted by the San Diego Padres and the San Diego Clippers on the same damn day.

· I learned that he thought could've made the Clippers.

· I learned that he'd just had a son and a daughter.

· I learned that he and his wife met in elementary school.

· I learned that every time I mentioned 3,000 hits, he'd tell me to stop. Stop right there.

· I learned that every time I mentioned the Hall of Fame, he'd tell me to stop. Stop right there.

· I learned that as a rookie, his wife started taping every Padre game, and that he'd race home afterward, to analyze every at-bat.

· I learned that he used to phone her from the road, and have her describe what he did wrong.

· I learned that that's when he started bringing a VCR on the road.

· I learned that he began turning his hotel rooms into makeshift TV studios. That he'd set up his VCR and his TV on the ironing board, and would write a note to the hotel maids: "Don't touch!"

· I learned that, after the games, he'd return to the room, and tilt the TV up on telephone books so he could watch his at-bats from bed.

· I learned the video equipment was extremely heavy, but he carried it everywhere, on every road trip.

· I learned there was not one other Major League player doing this.

· I learned that he cared more about the Gold Gloves than the batting titles. Because he thinks he used to "suck" in the field.

I learned all of this, and then I left. For another newspaper. And then I went to another newspaper. And then to ESPN.

We didn't see each other much, but every morning I still raced to the box scores. Gwynn, 2-for-4; Gwynn, 3-for-4; Gwynn, 3-for-5. On and on and on. Every day, every year.

He was hitting .394 in 1994, when the strike hit, and I saw him again that September, and he was telling me he knew he would've hit .400. He knew it because his dad always said he would. And his dad had just died that year, and Tony Gwynn was as miserable as I'd ever seen him that day. And I left him that day also believing he would've hit .400. I believed it because if anyone could've handled the media scrutiny, it was him. He could fill up a notebook. Trust me on that one.

And then I heard about his retirement press conference, just this Thursday, and I had to go, and he hadn't changed, not one iota. He laughed his hyena laugh, and he called me the same nickname he'd called me 16 years before. And then we talked, and I thought about it all.

·I thought about how every team in baseball has a video department -- thanks to him and his ironing board.

·I thought it was a damn shame he'd gotten his 3,000th hit in Montreal, of all places. In front of only 13,000.

·I thought it was nice that his son was now a rising baseball star at San Diego State and that his daughter was a high school point guard and that he and his wife, Alicia, just had their 20th wedding anniversary on June 6.

·I thought it was cool that he wants to own just two of his baseball cards: his rookie card and this year's card.

·I thought it was awesome that he turned down more money to play 20 years in one city.

·I thought it was unbelievable that someone in the audience was talking to him about a home run he'd hit in college, and that Tony Gwynn still remembered that the pitch was a slider.

·I thought it was strange that he still didn't think he was a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame.

·I thought to myself: he must still think he sucks.

Well, this just in: he doesn't. He is the greatest hitter of the last quarter-century, and he's spoiled me rotten, and if he ain't playing, I ain't watching.

Don't even bring me the box scores.

Tom Friend is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at tom.friend@espnmag.com.