The joy of Tony Gwynn

Tony Gwynn, a Hall of Fame baseball player known as one of the game's all-time best hitters, died Monday, June 16, after a multiyear battle with salivary gland cancer. He was 54.

Gwynn, seen here in 1989, played his entire 20-year career with the San Diego Padres.

Gwynn watches the flight of a ball against the New York Mets in 1993. Gwynn finished his career with 3,141 career hits and a .338 batting average.

Gwynn bats during Game 1 of the 1998 World Series. Although the Padres lost the Series to the New York Yankees that year, Gwynn told the MLB Network that his opening game home run was "the highlight of my career."

Gwynn signs a baseball for two police officers before the 1999 All-Star Game. Gwynn made the All-Star team in 15 of his 20 seasons.

Gwynn gets his 3,000th hit during a game against the Montreal Expos in 1999.

Gwynn celebrates his final game as he walks off the field with teammate Rickey Henderson in 2001.

A bronze statue of Gwynn is unveiled at San Diego's Petco Park in 2007.

Gwynn poses with his Hall of Fame plaque during his induction in 2007.

Gwynn throws out the first pitch to his son, Tony Gwynn Jr., before a 2011 game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Houston Astros on Father's Day. Gwynn's son was playing for the Dodgers at the time.

After retiring from baseball, Gwynn became head coach of the baseball team at his alma mater, San Diego State University. Here, he talks to the team during an NCAA tournament game in 2013.

• Mike Downey: Tony Gwynn had dazzling baseball, but he kept his humility, common touch


• He says in 9,288 official at-bats, he struck out 434 times. You threw it, Gwynn hit it


• But he had something more, he says. He seemed eternally happy, sociable, without airs


• Downey: He took obvious joy in the game and the trappings. Baseball mourns his loss

Editor's note: Mike Downey is a former columnist for the Los Angeles Times and a frequent contributor to CNN. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely his.

(CNN) -- They come in all sizes and shapes, athletes do, small and tall, round and lean. They come with all kinds of personalities as well. Some are cheerful as a cheerleader and sunny as a summer's morn. They do more than just impress you, on the field or off; they delight you.

Precious few have been the equal of Tony Gwynn, when it comes to a combination of superhuman prowess plus an everyman's way of coming across not as someone to idolize but more like your drop-by-for-coffee neighbor next door. When he died Monday, cut down at 54 by a mouth cancer that spread, Major League Baseball mourned.

The statistics of Anthony Keith Gwynn are so off-the-chart absurd, they almost make a baseball lover laugh out loud: In the 20 seasons he played (all for the same team, the San Diego Padres), he did not slug home runs the way Babe Ruth or Hank Aaron or Barry Bonds did; on the contrary, a mere 135 homers in all that time? Ha, you would think this Gwynn must have been a 98-pound weakling, rather than the chubby-cheeked, tubby-tummied specimen that he was.

What he did do was hit the ball.

In his two decades, in 9,288 official at-bats, Gwynn struck out a grand total of 434 times. A pitcher couldn't get a pitch by him. It was the old "like trying to throw a lamb chop past a wolf" kind of joke. You chucked it, Tony Gwynn knocked it. A single to left, to center, to right, wherever he darn well pleased. He looked like a slow-pitch softball batter who decided to poke a ball anywhere he liked. Except he did this against young, rock-abbed, iron-armed men who could hurl a hardball between 90 and 100 mph.

Gwynn's lifetime tally of 3,141 hits exceeded that of Rod Carew, Al Kaline, Roberto Clemente, Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig...

His career batting average of .338 was the kind kids fantasize about when they are up-and-comers, watching videos of themselves, trying to learn how to hit.

The ballpark figures this Hall of Famer etched into the game's record books are exceptional. Yet there was so much more to Gwynn: a perpetually happy and humble human being.

A couple of examples, just to get the ball rolling:

2007: Gwynn inducted into Hall of Fame

2007: Gwynn inducted into Hall of Fame

The year was 1984 and the San Diego Padres had made it to the World Series at last. Game 1 was about to be played there in southernmost Southern California, in a town known far more for its beauty than its baseball. Tony Gwynn sat in a dugout, taking on all comers, talking to reporters and teammates and TV cameramen and vendors and batboys. "Don't you just love baseball?" Gwynn asked at one point of no one in particular.

He and the Padres were expected by many to lose to the Detroit Tigers, a very strong team that year.

"If we do lose," Tony the non-Tiger said, "hooray for the Tigers. Somebody's going to win, so if it can't be us, hooray for them."

Don't you just love that? The lack of intensity, solemnity, fear that his observation would be interpreted in some negative way? Kirk Gibson, star of the opposing team, was the kind of guy who would have stared daggers at a teammate who fraternized with the enemy. Gwynn sought them out, trying to find Tigers before the game, eager as a frisky puppy to make friends and then go play.

He had a brother, name of Chris, who got to play on his team. In 1996, the Padres were up north in Tony's birthplace of Los Angeles for a big game. It was decided on a clutch 11th-inning double by a pinch-hitter -- yep, Chris Gwynn, the lesser of the Gwynn brothers historically, and it won the division championship for the Padres.

"Aren't you Chris Gwynn's brother?" a reporter joked.

"I am today!" Tony exulted.

He loved his brother. He loved pretty much everybody.

Including his own son, Tony Gwynn Jr., who also made it to the major leagues. Brother and son might not have been in Tony's league (as it were), but those Gwynns, they could play this game.

Tony Jr. was succinct and sincere on Twitter when the bad news came Monday: "Today I lost my Dad, my best friend and my mentor. I'm gonna miss u so much, pops."

He had a cherubic face and a soft and nasal voice, a little bit Walter Payton, a little bit Wayne Newton. He had the torso of a nonathlete and his cheeks were puffed by smokeless tobacco, a habit that likely killed him. He endured oral surgery in 2010 and again in 2012, and there had been a growing dread that his days were numbered.

Tony Gwynn is gone? Say it ain't so.

He didn't play for New York or St. Louis or San Francisco. He played against them. But he played for all of us, watching him with that bat, waggling it, digging in, smacking a ball where it couldn't be caught. He would smile, patting the other side's fielder on the back, while the rest of us turned to each other, shook our heads and said something like, "Man, that guy can hit."

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Copper cable thieves caught

National Police in Malaga have caught two people who now stand accused of the robbery of more than 1,500 kilos of copper cabling stolen from a quarry in Igualeja, Malaga.

The cabling was found in an abandoned farm house along with the stolen vehicle which the thieves used in the course of their robberies and to transport the cabling.

The investigation started when the owner of the abandoned farm house called the police to let them know that his house was being used by two individuals to store items which he knew nothing about, among them a lot of copper cabling.

The police then put surveillance in place and waited until someone turned up – they didn’t have to wait long as the very next day they observed two people unloading more items into the abandoned house. When the two individuals were questioned as to the origins of the copper cabling they were unable to explain where it had come from.

The two suspects, a 23-year-old man and a 27-year-old woman, stand accused of robbery of both the cabling and the van.

All the cabling has been returned to its rightful owners at the quarry.

Fake landlords swindle prospective tenants in Marbella.

FAKE landlords in Marbella have swindled a couple out of €600.

“Central flat, near amenities and beach” This is the advert that Ezequiel Eduardo Bruscagin and his partner Natalia Taboada answered when they were looking for temporary accommodation in Marbella in May.

Bruscagin and Taboada both live in Granada but spend their summers working in Marbella and, as such, need somewhere to live so they answered the advert and were met by “Fernando” and his son who professed to be the owner of the studio. After seeing the space and talking with “Fernando” the couple agreed to rent the studio; they put down a deposit of €150 and two weeks later they put down another €150 towards the deposit and the first month’s rent – in total they paid out more than €600.

The problem was that “Fernando” was not the owner of the studio and had no right to rent it out.

Bruscagin and Taboada lost all the money they put down and have never seen “Fernando” again. The actual owner of the flat has come forward and stated to the authorities that he had nothing to do with the swindling of the couple.

After a complaint was lodged with the police they immediately recognised who they were dealing with as “Fernando” was well known to them for various crimes committed in his past.

Bruscagin commented that in future he would always ask to see the deeds of a property before handing out any money.

Casey Kasem: Pop's 'gateway drug'

Casey Kasem, who entertained radio listeners for almost four decades as the host of countdown shows such as "American Top 40" and "Casey's Top 40," died early Sunday, June 15, according to a Facebook post from his daughter Kerri Kasem.

Kasem, the legendary DJ, host and voice-over talent, was born in Detroit and got his start at Michigan radio stations. Here he is in the DJ booth at Detroit's WJBK in 1957.

Kasem moved to the West Coast in the early '60s. He hosted the KTLA music show "Shebang!" in Los Angeles in 1965.

Kasem was also an actor, though his films weren't necessarily Oscar material. In 1971, he starred in "The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant" with Berry Kroeger, left, and Bruce Dern.

He made occasional TV guest appearances as well. "The Mystery of the Hollywood Phantom," an episode of "The Hardy Boys Mysteries" in which Kasem affected a Columbo-like persona, also starred Pamela Sue Martin (as Nancy Drew) and Parker Stevenson (as Frank Hardy).

Kasem married Jean Thompson in 1980.

Casey and Jean Kasem attend the 21st Annual International Broadcasting Awards in Century City, California, in 1981.

Casey and Jean Kasem are shown with children Kerri Kasem, Michael Kasem and Julie Kasem at the Lebanon-Syrian American Society of Greater Los Angeles Man of the Year Awards in Beverly Hills, California, in 1985. The children are all from Casey Kasem's first marriage, to Linda Myers.

Casey and Jean Kasem were frequent participants in the Hollywood social circuit. Here, they attend the Stars 'N Hearts Benefit Fund-raiser for Animals in 1982.

Kasem was an in-demand voice-over artist. He's probably best known for supplying the voice of Shaggy in the "Scooby-Doo" cartoon series.

Kasem hosted a number of countdown shows, including "American Top 40," "Casey's Top 40" and "America's Top 10." He handed off "AT40" to Ryan Seacrest in 2004.

Casey and Jean Kasem ride in the 2007 Hollywood's Santa Parade in Hollywood, California, on November 25, 2007.

Even after leaving his long-running radio shows, Kasem stayed active. He attended Fred Segal's birthday charity event and auction at a private residence in Malibu, California, on August 29, 2009.

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• Mark Coleman: Casey Kasem was "tastemaker" before era of streaming and downloading


• Kasem's "America's Top 40" wasn't gatekeeper but a conduit for popular songs, he says


• Coleman says Kasem's show was accessible; his voice upbeat, not smarmy


• Kasem an iconic voice of common-denominator music during divisive time, he says

Editor's note: Mark Coleman is the author of "Playback: From the Victrola to MP3, 100 Years of Music, Machines and Money." The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) -- The late Kemal Amin "Casey" Kasem was much more than a relic of radio's Top 40 heyday. In this era of streaming and downloading, when everyone functions as his or her own DJ and program director, the "tastemaking" role of music radio in the late 20th century -- the role that Kasem pretty much owned -- is almost impossible to fathom.

Casey Kasem was neither a maverick like pioneer rock & roll disc jockey Alan Freed nor a budding multimedia entrepreneur like Dick Clark. He didn't strive to be hip or hustle after the cutting edge. He wasn't really a gatekeeper or curator. His on-air presence was neutral; he merely was a conduit for whatever records were most popular.

Each week he'd present the top singles as reported on the Billboard charts, framing the songs with homespun advice, listener dedications and decidedly noncontroversial anecdotes about the performers. From 1970 to 1988, his syndicated weekly program, "America's Top 40," documented the ever-shifting mainstream of musical tastes. By today's standards, it can sound overly cautious or conservative, but it also reflected a cultural consensus that barely exists anymore.

Kasem's long-distance dedications

Easily accessible and free of charge, "America's Top 40" was a gateway drug for a generation or two of budding music fanatics. Kasem was the patron saint of preteen pop devotees held captive to their parents' car radios. His data-dependent chart format made him an enabler for amateur statisticians and precocious list-compilers, kids who couldn't afford subscriptions to the trade magazines.

The sturdy scaffolding under Kasem's success was his voice: upbeat, naturally modulated, soothing without being smarmy. Hear him once and he became Casey: familiar, somehow. You could accuse him of being corny, a shameless Pez dispenser of sentimental patter and clichéd advice along with pablum pop. You'd be literally correct but also fundamentally clueless about his down-to-earth appeal.

Friend: Kasem was 'one in a million'

Casey Kasem: A legendary voice in radio

Kasem family feud erupts in weird video

Kasem managed to be commercial without coming across like a hyped-up huckster. He made it seem easy, and also seamless, for instance segueing from a convoluted factoid about Top 10 hits with the word "Doctor" in the title to a Dr. Pepper spot.

His voice was the product of formative years spent jumping from radio station to station as well as some acting work. Voice-over gigs proved to be a consistent and profitable sidelight; Kasem's resonant tones appeared in commercials and cartoons. Somewhat improbably, he supplied the voice of Norville "Shaggy" Rogers on "Scooby-Doo." No doubt this further endears him to a generation weaned on musty anachronisms such as network television and Top 40 radio.

Tributes: 'Keep reaching for the stars'

Truthfully, even at his most popular, Kasem was a bit of an anachronism. When "America's Top 40" debuted in 1970, the rock revolution was in full swing, and free-form FM radio was on the rise. But he stuck to the middle of the road, and not only endured but thrived during the tumultuous expansion and dissolution of the musical counterculture in the ensuing decades.

The Top 40 renaissance of 1984, kick-started by MTV, and the late '90s teen pop explosion can both be seen as vindication of Kasem's rigidly democratic format. In fact, the millennial breakthrough of boy bands and Britney Spears may go down in history as the Top 40's last hurrah.

Born the son of Lebanese immigrants in Detroit, Kasem went on to become the iconic voice of common-denominator music during a divisive time in our culture. In the end, what could be more American?

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