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Gammons Ends Hall of Fame Run with ESPN

Posted by Editor • December 8, 2009 • Printer-friendly

Baseball Hall of Fame journalist Peter Gammons has decided to pursue new endeavors and will no longer be a contributor to ESPN after this week’s winter meetings.

 

Norby Williamson, ESPN executive vice president, production:

 

"As a print journalist moving to television, Peter was a pioneer who became a Hall of Famer. His contributions to ESPN will never be forgotten. We're sad to see Peter go, but understand his desire for new challenges and a less demanding schedule."

 

Peter Gammons:

 

 

Peter Gammons

“My decision to leave ESPN and move on at this point in my life has been conflicted. I owe a great deal of my professional life to ESPN, having spent more than half of my 40 years in journalism working for the network, and the choice to move on was made with nothing but the strongest feelings for the people with whom I worked. ESPN gave me a great deal more than I gave it, and will always be a huge part of who I am.

 

“I will forever be joined at the hip with John Walsh, who hired me as an ink-stained wretch, plunked me on TV and has always been a guiding spirit. Understand how the people who run ESPN treat people: when I was felled by a severe aneurysm in 2006, George Bodenheimer, John Skipper, Norby Williamson, my former Boston Globe boss Vince Doria and everyone made certain that my family and I had the best care and support, far, far beyond any reasonable expectation. My ESPN life has been lined with foxhole people whom I’ll never forget.

 

“I’ve been able to work with my closest and oldest friends, like Jayson Stark, Tim Kurkjian, Buster Olney, Peter Pascarelli, Jerry Crasnick and Charlie Moynihan. I spent three seasons doing games with a producer, Tom Archer, who is among the most revered leaders I’ve ever met. I told everyone last October that the team baseball coordinating producer Jay Levy put together with Mark Preisler and Marc Carman was the most creative in my 20 years on the show. I apologize to hundreds of people I owe for all these years for not mentioning their names.

 

“You would have had to be there for 20 years to know how hard so many good people sweated in anonymity to make all of us look as if we knew what we were doing.

 

“My friend Tom Rush – who taught James Taylor and me our first guitar chords – once wrote how strange it seems to walk away alone. With no regrets.�

 

John Walsh, ESPN executive vice president and executive editor:

 

“Peter was the best and the brightest in making the transition from print to video. For ESPN, he contributed 21 Hall of Fame years as a journalist and, throughout, set the standard for others to reach for.�

 

 

Gammons bio

 

Peter Gammons, a highly respected Major League Baseball journalist, was an ESPN reporter/analyst for 20 seasons (1999-2009). He regularly provided analysis on ESPN's Sports Emmy Award-winning Baseball Tonight. From 2006-08, he reported during ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball telecasts from the ballpark, generally from field level. Gammons also provided "Diamond Notes" and other reports for SportsCenter. Amongst his multimedia role, Gammons also wrote a column and a blog for ESPN.com.

 

Gammons, 64, was honored as the recipient of the 2004 J.G. Taylor Spink Award for outstanding baseball writing during the 2005 Hall of Fame induction ceremony July 31 in Cooperstown, N.Y. He was selected in balloting by the Baseball Writers Association of America.

 

He began his career as a reporter for the Boston Globe in 1969 and wrote a very popular weekly Sunday baseball column for many years. He has also worked for Sports Illustrated covering the National Hockey League, college basketball and Major League Baseball (1976-78, 1986-90).

 

In 1986, upon his return to Sports Illustrated as a senior writer following a second stay at the Globe, he wrote numerous stories covering some of baseball's most important news events, as well as authoring "Inside Baseball,� Sports Illustrated's weekly baseball notebook.

 

http://www.espnmediazone3.com/us/2009/12/gammons-ends-hall-of-fame-run-with-espn/

 

 

Peter was great for the game of baseball...

Gammons is amongst the best baseball writers of all times a sure spots awaits him in cooperstown I imagine TV must have been too draining with all its demands especially as it relates to ESPN

:(

 

The one person on ESPN who actually has shown some love for the Marlins is leaving. How will he ever be able to continue his love for Giancarlo Cruz- Michael Stanton?

 

Most knowlegable ESPN personality imo.

I'm going to miss reading the legendary Gammons. Buster is now the last good espn columnist. I hope Petter still finds a way to keep writing.

One of the reasons why CC received ROY was because Gammons always talks about him. Who will give us exposure when we need it now? :(

So long constant bogus rumors.

Don't forget he was the first to recognize Stanton in the media and we all know how much he loves him..... This news makes me feel as sad as trading JJ.

Wow, I wonder what he's going to do now.

  • Author

Wow, I wonder what he's going to do now.

 

 

 

MLB Network? :mischief

Didn't he get thrown off a building in The Departed?

:(

 

will miss him they better give his spot to boog!

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