Tony Gwynn, when he played, wore custom cleats with “5.5” embossed on them. This wasn’t superstition; it was a tribute to how he made his name and his living. Gwynn called the space between the third baseman, no. 5 on a scorecard, and the shortstop, no. 6, the 5.5 hole. It was where he placed an untold number of the 3,141 career hits that will earn the universally beloved San Diego Padre induction into the Hall of Fame this weekend.

This is charming, and also perfectly reflects what kind of player Gwynn was. If you think about his strategy, it doesn’t make all that much sense. For a left-handed hitter to consciously go to the plate trying to put the ball on the ground through the left side of the infield, he has to be perfectly confident in his ability not only to go with the outside pitch, but to place it exactly where he wants it. The problem is that you can’t wait for the outside pitch. Think of a left-handed power hitter pulling an inside pitch down the right field line. If you imagine it vividly, you’ll see that the batter is waiting with his hands back, waiting to turn on the ball with a quick, short stroke. To go with the outside pitch, he’ll have to not only reach out for the ball, but do so without waiting for it. This is one of the most difficult things to do in baseball.

Aside from its inherent difficulty, Gwynn’s approach presented other problems. For instance, when a defense knows that a player is going to try and hit the ball a certain way, they can shade in that direction, set into motion, or even stack the infield that way with a straight shift. Gwynn always had to be alert to this possibility, and so had to have total confidence in his ability to pull the ball from either side of the plate against certain defensive alignments. There’s also the fact that when your approach is so consistent that you emblazon it on your shoes, pitchers are going to be aware of it and not give you the sort of pitch you like to hit.

None of this mattered, and Gwynn hit .338 over 19 years in the major leagues, winning eight batting titles along the way and standing to this day as the last man to make a serious run at hitting .400. He even hit .429 against the great Greg Maddux, the only man you’d suspect could outthink him.

How was Gwynn able to do this? Part of it was that he was a phenomenal athlete; as a collegian, he was able to dunk a basketball flat-footed, and when he was young he was an excellent center fielder who stole 56 bases in his best year. A knee injury robbed him of much of his speed and led to massive weight gain later in his career, but he retained his most important gifts — hand-eye coordination, quickness in the wrists, and eyesight. When he was 41 and outright fat, he was still a .320 hitter.

A lot of it, though, was that he was an innovator. These days, when hitters watch game film that is shot with special cameras on their customized iPods, the fact that Gwynn was the first hitter to set up a real video room and a library to aid him in studying pitchers doesn’t seem very startling, and of course that studying was nothing that hadn’t been done in the past. From scouting, which is as old as baseball, to managers like Earl Weaver keeping preposterously detailed charts on hitter and pitcher tendencies, to next generation managers like Tony LaRussa and Davey Johnson raising that art to a science, everyone has always sought an edge.

Gywnn did, though, revolutionize what you might call intelligence collection in the sport. By keeping his own tapes so he could study patterns, tells, and tendencies, he showed every hitter how to be his own scout. This naturally inspired counterintelligence. Pitchers couldn’t rely so much on odd patterns or angles, and those without the raw stuff to dominate found that life became a bit harder. Keeping certain pitches or sequences in reserve and studying hitters became more important, and the speed with which adjustments had to be made increased. The confrontation between hitter and pitcher became far more scientific than it had been in the past, to the point that when you watch the dugout from the stands today, you’ll usually see a coach or manager calling many or most of the pitches. The various studies and counter-studies and adjustments and counter-adjustments have become so refined that no one can trust them to the players. Perversely, this probably makes life easier for players who, unlike Gwynn, rely on physical skill — but such are the unpredictable consequences of technology.

That, though, isn’t what Gwynn will be remembered for. He’ll be remembered as simply one of the most extraordinary hitters we’ve ever seen. Today, when everyone is a disciple of Bill James, batting average is rightly seen for what it is, a relatively meaningless statistic that tracks just one of the many things a batter can do to put runs on the board. Does that make any one of Gwynn’s eight batting titles mean a jot less? Of course not. Everything else aside, the game comes down to trying to hit the ball and reach first base. Gwynn did that about as well as anyone ever, and in as unlikely a fashion as you’ll ever see. I’m pretty sure he could still hit .320 just on brains. It will be a glorious weekend in Cooperstown.

tmarchman@nysun.com