By Jay Levi
The Hall of Fame outfielder for the San Diego Padres revealed to The San Diego Union-Tribune Saturday that he has cancer of the parotid gland.
Gwynn a long time tobacco chewer believes his addiction to the dip is what caused his cancer. Tobacco chew has been long associated with baseball players and they would chew it and spit it out in the dug out. Gwynn failed to kick the habit even after three surgery’s to remove benign tumors in his glands.
“I had surgery for a parotid tumor in 1997 and again three years ago and both those times there was no cancer,” said Gwynn. “But this time they found a malignancy. They took out three lymph nodes and did all the tests and the results showed cancer in the parotid.
“The doctors have told me they feel they caught the cancer early and there was not much of it there.”
Tony Gwynn said he will undergo seven to eight weeks of five-day-a-week radiation treatments and once-a-week chemotherapy treatments, he wants to attack the cancer aggressively and hopes to continue coaching and broadcasting baseball games.
Tony Gwynn