Padres fans celebrate Tony Gwynn with Christmas light display
We’ve seen a number of tributes to Tony Gwynn since his death in June — from a graffiti mural to a San Diego craft beer — but we’re pretty sure this is the only one that has a Santa Claus, elves, candy canes and a Christmas tree.
And that Santa, we might add, is wearing San Diego State gear.
One house in Chula Vista has decked its halls with a Hall of Famer, centering its Christmas light display around Gwynn. It’s part of the popular Christmas Circle in Chula Vista, where thousands of people come each year to look at top-notch light displays.
This house in particular belongs to Padres fan Eric Rasmussen, 26, his brother Craig, 25, and Craig’s girlfriend, Adair Renkoski, 27. The three of them, inspired by the Rasmussen brothers’ high-school football coach, decided to create a Gwynn tribute on their front lawn.
This might mean the most to Craig Rasmussen, who played baseball at San Diego State for four years with Gwynn as his head coach. He was a relief pitcher from 2008-2011.
“We didn’t decide to do this until about three months ago,” Eric Rasmussen tells Yahoo Sports by e-mail. “Once everybody agreed how amazing this idea would be for our community and fans, we decided to put our heads together begin constructing decorations … We all took great pride in the finished product to honor Tony.”
It wasn’t just the three of them, though. Eric and Craig’s parents, Howard and Julie, helped, as did their 15-year-old brother Stephen and their grandmother, Gwennie.
As you can imagine, most of this was DIY’d, since you can’t walk into your local big-box store and pick up Tony Gwynn-themed Christmas decorations. They made, painted and cut the baseballs, built a batter’s box and a home plate, created the large No. 19 and the sign that reads “Mr. Padre.”
“The only decorations we had were the ones on the left side of the yard, the tree and presents and the Santa Clauses,” Eric Rasmussen said. “Everything revolving around Tony was created by us through plywood and two-by-fours. The Tony itself is a Fathead that we ordered online. The decorations were all handcrafted and painted.”
A single picture of the display was published on Twitter last week, and it was picked up by a number of sports blogs, though little information was available about the people who created the display and why they did.
The response — particularly the online response across the country — surprised the Rasmussens. But as Eric says it, it’s not about them. It’s about Gwynn.
“We are not the ‘center of attention’ type of guys so this blew up way more than we had expected,” Eric Rasmussen says. “We thought it might be mentioned in the local newspapers, but that’s it. We really appreciate the positive feedback from people and how much they appreciate us doing something like this for a man who meant so much to the city of San Diego.”
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Mike Oz is an editor for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
