Pedro Gomez (August 20, 1962 – February 7, 2021) was an American sports journalist. He worked as a reporter for
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...
from 2003 to 2021, contributing to the network's ''
SportsCenter'' show.
He was primarily a
baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...
reporter and was also a member of the
Baseball Writers' Association of America
The Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) is a professional association for journalists writing about Major League Baseball for daily newspapers, magazines and qualifying websites. The organization was founded in 1908, and is known ...
who cast election votes for the
Baseball Hall of Fame. He covered 25
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winner of the World ...
and 22
Major League Baseball All-Star Game
The Major League Baseball All-Star Game, also known as the "Midsummer Classic", is an annual professional baseball game sanctioned by Major League Baseball (MLB) and contested between the all-stars from the American League (AL) and National ...
s.
Early life
Gomez was the son of
Cuban
Cuban may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Cuba, a country in the Caribbean
* Cubans, people from Cuba, or of Cuban descent
** Cuban exile, a person who left Cuba for political reasons, or a descendant thereof
* Cuban citizen, a perso ...
refugees, born just 20 days after his parents arrived in the United States in August 1962, two months before the
Cuban Missile Crisis. Gomez attended
Coral Park High School in Miami, where he was a year ahead of future major league player
Jose Canseco
José Canseco Capas Jr. (born July 2, 1964), nicknamed Parkway Jose, Mr. 40-40 and El Cañonero Cubano (The Cuban Cannon), is a Cuban-American former Major League Baseball (MLB) outfielder and designated hitter. During his time with the Oaklan ...
.
Gomez then went to
Miami-Dade Community College
Miami Dade College (Miami Dade, MDC or Dade) is a public college in Miami, Florida. Founded in 1959, it has a total of eight campuses and twenty-one outreach centers throughout Miami-Dade County. It is the largest college in the Florida College ...
(south campus) and the
University of Miami
The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private research university in Coral Gables, Florida. , the university enrolled 19,096 students in 12 colleges and schools across nearly 350 academic majors and programs, i ...
.
Career
Gomez wrote for ''
The Miami News
''The Miami News'' was an evening newspaper in Miami, Florida. It was the media market competitor to the morning edition of the '' Miami Herald'' for most of the 20th century. The paper started publishing in May 1896 as a weekly called ''The Miami ...
'' from 1985 to 1988 and then ''
The San Diego Union
''The San Diego Union-Tribune'' is a metropolitan daily newspaper published in San Diego, California, that has run since 1868.
Its name derives from a 1992 merger between the two major daily newspapers at the time, ''The San Diego Union'' and ...
'' from 1988 to 1990.
After years of covering high schools and general assignment sports in
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...
,
San Diego
San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United State ...
, and the
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...
,
Gomez became a full-time baseball beat writer in 1992, covering the
Oakland Athletics for the ''
San Jose Mercury News
''The Mercury News'' (formerly ''San Jose Mercury News'', often locally known as ''The Merc'') is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidia ...
'' and ''
The Sacramento Bee'' from 1990 to 1997.
Those Oakland squads featured stars including
Rickey Henderson
Rickey Nelson Henley Henderson (born December 25, 1958) is an American retired professional baseball left fielder who played his 24 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for nine teams from 1979 to 2003, including four separate tenures with hi ...
and "
Bash Brothers
The Bash Brothers are a duo of former baseball players consisting of Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire. Both prolific home run hitters, the two were teammates in Major League Baseball (MLB) for seven seasons with the Oakland Athletics, helping the t ...
"
Jose Canseco
José Canseco Capas Jr. (born July 2, 1964), nicknamed Parkway Jose, Mr. 40-40 and El Cañonero Cubano (The Cuban Cannon), is a Cuban-American former Major League Baseball (MLB) outfielder and designated hitter. During his time with the Oaklan ...
and
Mark McGwire
Mark David McGwire (born October 1, 1963), nicknamed "Big Mac", is an American former professional baseball first baseman who played 16 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1986 to 2001 for the Oakland Athletics and the St. Louis Card ...
.
Gomez said that covering those A's was like "we were traveling with
The /nowiki> Stones">olling/nowiki> Stones."
![Hanging out with Pedro Gomez (3069158487) (cropped)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Hanging_out_with_Pedro_Gomez_%283069158487%29_%28cropped%29.jpg)
Gomez gained much experience during this seven-year period as a newspaper writer. His work in
Sacramento
)
, image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg
, mapsize = 250x200px
, map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...
,
San Jose and later as a national baseball writer and general sports columnist for ''
The Arizona Republic
''The Arizona Republic'' is an American daily newspaper published in Phoenix. Circulated throughout Arizona, it is the state's largest newspaper. Since 2000, it has been owned by the Gannett newspaper chain. Copies are sold at $2 daily or at $3 ...
'' in
Phoenix
Phoenix most often refers to:
* Phoenix (mythology), a legendary bird from ancient Greek folklore
* Phoenix, Arizona, a city in the United States
Phoenix may also refer to:
Mythology
Greek mythological figures
* Phoenix (son of Amyntor), a ...
from 1997 to 2003 led to
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...
's hiring of him in 2003 to work at ''
SportsCenter''.
Gomez specialized in baseball reporting for ESPN and followed
Barry Bonds for the better part of three seasons as Bonds pursued
Hank Aaron
Henry Louis Aaron (February 5, 1934 – January 22, 2021), nicknamed "Hammer" or "Hammerin' Hank", was an American professional baseball right fielder who played 23 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB), from 1954 through 1976. One of the gre ...
for the all-time MLB home run record.
Gomez's favorite event that he covered was Game 6 of the
2003 National League Championship Series
The 2003 National League Championship Series (NLCS) was a Major League Baseball playoff series played from October 7 to 15 to determine the champion of the National League, between the Central Division champion Chicago Cubs and the wild-card qua ...
, when
Chicago Cubs fan
Steve Bartman attempted to catch a foul ball against the
Miami Marlins, who went on to score eight times in the
inning.
In 2016, Gomez went to Cuba to cover an exhibition game between the
Tampa Bay Rays
The Tampa Bay Rays are an American professional baseball team based in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Rays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Since its inception, the team's home v ...
and the
Cuban national team
Cuban may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Cuba, a country in the Caribbean
* Cubans, people from Cuba, or of Cuban descent
** Cuban exile, a person who left Cuba for political reasons, or a descendant thereof
* Cuban citizen, a perso ...
, the first visit by an MLB club in almost two decades.
He also appeared on ''
Baseball Tonight
''Baseball Tonight'' (stylized as ''Baseball Tonight presented by Chevrolet'' for sponsorship reasons) is an American television program that airs on ESPN. The show, which covers the day's Major League Baseball action, has been on the air since ...
'' and other studio shows.
Gomez also covered sports other than baseball, including working as a sideline reporter during
MLS Cup 2008
MLS Cup 2008 was the 13th edition of the MLS Cup, the championship match of Major League Soccer (MLS). The soccer match took place on November 23, 2008, at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California, near Los Angeles. It was contested between ...
. He covered a
U.S. men's national soccer team in Havana in 2008.
Personal life
Gomez was married and had three children; he resided in
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1,608,139 residents as of 2020. It is the fifth-most populous city in the United States, and the on ...
.
His son Rio played
college baseball
College baseball is baseball that is played on the intercollegiate level at institutions of higher education. In comparison to football and basketball, college competition in the United States plays a smaller role in developing professional p ...
as a left-handed pitcher for the
Arizona Wildcats baseball
The Arizona Wildcats baseball team is the intercollegiate men's baseball program representing the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, United States. They compete in the Pac-12 Conference (Pac-12) of NCAA Division I.
Arizona has won four c ...
team, before starting a professional baseball career within the
Boston Red Sox
The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eigh ...
organization.
Gomez died from a heart attack at his home in Phoenix on February 7, 2021, at the age of 58.
References
External links
*
Pedro Gomez ESPN BioPedro Gomez Remembers His Brothervia
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gomez, Pedro
1962 births
2021 deaths
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists
21st-century American journalists
American people of Cuban descent
American reporters and correspondents
American sportswriters
Association football commentators
Baseball writers
ESPN people
Journalists from Arizona
Journalists from Florida
Major League Baseball broadcasters
Major League Soccer broadcasters
Miami Dade College alumni
The Mercury News people
University of Miami alumni
Writers from Miami
Writers from Phoenix, Arizona