This story was excerpted from Daniel Kramer’s Mariners Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

SEATTLE -- Ty France said he still has a few of the DVDs lying around somewhere, and after a recent conversation about how they first came into his possession, he admitted that nostalgia could prompt him to dig them up.

The contents contain up-close video of France taking swings or making plays in the field during his college days at San Diego State, and the manufacturer of the discs was his coach at the time, Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn, who was a pioneer in the sport for studying video to improve.

An icon in baseball, who was a 15-time All-Star and eight-time batting champion over his 20-year big league career, Gwynn passed away 10 years ago this Sunday of salivary gland cancer. He was 54.

Nicknamed “Mr. Padre” for spending his entire career in San Diego, Gwynn will be remembered across MLB this weekend, but particularly within the Mariners’ clubhouse, between France and backup catcher Seby Zavala, who were teammates at SDSU and played together for Gwynn from 2013-14.

“I still think about him pretty frequently, especially in the position that I'm in, still being able to play,” France said. “He's a big part of the reason I am where I am today.”

Added Zavala: “It's not like I'm actively looking for stuff, but something will happen and I'll be like, 'Oh, Gwynn used to say this' ... It actually happens more than you’d think.”

Video study has long been part of baseball’s fabric for preparation, especially in today’s high-tech era. Gwynn would probably be flabbergasted by the access that players have today, with iPads capturing multiple angles of their swings, viewable in the dugout in real time.

Because Gwynn was among the first to utilize video regularly.

As MLB.com's AJ Cassavell beautifully detailed in this longform remembering Gwynn, Mr. Padre began having his wife tape Padres broadcasts on TV, which he studied in his early career, then later, he invested thousands of his own dollars for video equipment that he shared with his teammates.

So of course that obsession translated to his coaching tenure -- and trickled down to France and Zavala. That’s where the DVDs came into play.

“He would burn it off of his computer, give it to us in a little slip and he expected us to watch it,” France said. “He would quiz us on it and ask us questions about it. And by the end of my three years there, I had probably 300 DVDs. So yeah, it was another one of those things you didn't realize how important it was as a 17- or 18-year-old kid, how breaking down the swing can help you out so much.”

Zavala had an even taller task. When Tommy John surgery sidelined him for the entire 2013 season at SDSU, he was enlisted to record game tapes and allocate it for Gwynn to disseminate to his teammates.

“I learned a lot just from being hurt that year,” Zavala said, “just like asking questions and being intuitive with what I was doing. That was my job. There's a reason why he did it and there's a reason why it made him better. And I wanted to figure out why.”

Both Zavala and France played one additional season at SDSU after Gwynn’s passing then were selected in the 2015 Draft.

Zavala was taken in the 12th round by the White Sox, debuted in '19 and then arrived in Seattle via the Eugenio Suárez trade with Arizona in November.

France’s path is even more unconventional, because it doesn’t exist anymore. He was selected by the Padres in the 34th round, which was eliminated after the Draft was truncated from 40 to 20 rounds in a stretch from 2019-21. He’s joked in the past that he was the chubby kid who was picked last in grade school, yet he’s gone on to carve out a six-year MLB career that included a 2022 All-Star selection.

A transformation clearly took place in between those playground days and today, and he’s not lost sight of Gwynn’s impact at a pivotal stage of both his player and personal development.

“He was the best of the best,” France said. “So he expected that from you as well. And I think deep down, he knew we weren't going to be that good. But it came from a good place. It came from love, and he just wanted to bring the best out in you -- and he did a very good job of pulling that out of you.”