Peter Gammons began a distinguished career in sports journalism as a beat reporter in 1969 for The Boston Globe. Thirty-six years later, he stood at Cooperstown, N.Y., the recipient of the J.G. Taylor Spink Award “for meritorious contributions to baseball writing” and a member, with Wade Boggs, Ryne Sandberg and Jerry Coleman, of the baseball Hall of Fame class of 2005.
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| Peter Gammons began as a print journalist but has become a familiar face on ESPN. |
A tireless, resourceful reporter with an undying passion for the game and its participants, Gammons also is a studio analyst on ESPN’s “Baseball Tonight.”
Gammons took a few minutes off during the pennant races to speak with SportsBusiness Journal New York bureau chief Jerry Kavanagh.
Favorite author: David Halberstam, as a journalist, for non-fiction; Hermann Hesse for fiction
Last book read: “Forging Genius: The Making of Casey Stengel” by Steven Goldman. I don’t read a lot of baseball books, but this was a great historic study of a fascinating man.
Favorite piece of music: “Gimme Shelter” by the Rolling Stones
Favorite players: My favorite all-time player before I started covering the sport was Willie Mays. And since I started covering it, it’s George Brett. He just encompasses everything passionate about the game that I love. And I’d rather have him up in a clutch situation than anyone I ever saw.
Favorite quote: It’s a Bob Dylan line that I wrote in a game story once, and Tony LaRussa has it up in his office: “Backseat drivers don’t know the feel of the wheel, but they sure know how to make a fuss.”
Congratulations on your induction into the baseball Hall of Fame.
Gammons: It was a great thrill for me, and such a reassuring thing because those guys care so much and respect so much what they are. No one [has the attitude], “Oh, boy, I should be a hall of famer.” It’s pretty cool. You get guys like [Sandy] Koufax and [Bob] Gibson and [Al] Kaline, and they just reek of the dignity of the place. They lead the way for everybody else.
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| “I’m 60 years old, so in my lifetime, Willie was the guy we all wanted to be like.” |
You said that something happened at Cooperstown that was “beyond anyone’s wildest, most childlike dreams” when Willie Mays asked you to add your signature to a ball signed by other hall of famers.
Gammons: I’m 60 years old, so in my lifetime, Willie was the guy we all wanted to be like. And just the way he did it, because I said, “I’m not a hall of fame player.” He said, “Ah, you’re one of us.” That’s something I’ll never forget.
You are highly respected by your peers, and you have enviable access. What’s been the key to your success?
Gammons: Work ethic and trust. I believe that an awful lot of the business is off the record. I think it has to be that way so that you really understand. People have to trust you. They have to know that if they tell you something off the record, it is off the record. I know there are lines of conflict, but knowing people and having them trust you is the most important thing. I think that’s also true of politics. I remember George Will telling me that people used to say to him that he took too much off the record. And he said, “Well, it’s hard to do my job unless I know how politicians think. It’s impossible to do your job unless you know how athletes think.” I agree with that.
Senator John McCain has proposed legislation that would put the four major professional sports leagues’ steroid policies under the White House drug czar. Should baseball’s steroid policy be under government control?
Gammons: I don’t think so, but I think what Senator McCain has done is attempt to force baseball to clean up its own house. Senator [Jim] Bunning has been behind this. He’s a hall of fame player and the man who found Marvin Miller, so he’s very interested. But even going back to the 2002 agreement between the owners and players, Bud Selig has tried to be proactive. It’s been difficult dealing with the union. McCain is giving them an opportunity: Clean it up, get tough or we’ll take care of it for you. And I think that’s the last thing baseball wants. If the union refuses to cooperate, then they will get what they deserve.
Original thinkers from Bill Veeck to Charlie Finley have been looked on skeptically by baseball. Where is the imagination in the game today?
Gammons: I think some of it is in management, in the creative ways to acquire players. And not just in the traditional way, you know, out of the draft. It’s a combination: You try to get two players out of the draft, two players out of Latin America or world draft and two players somewhere else every year.
People don’t like to hear it, but I think Billy Beane was a guy who helped revolutionize the business. Not that the way he does it is necessarily the best. A lot of people looked at what Billy did and said, ‘You know what? There’s not just one way to do everything.’ People still think he’s talking about on-base percentage; actually it’s about not striking out and defense and pitching. That book [“Moneyball”] was about undervalued players and thoughts, not about one way to do things. I think we’ve seen it with the Red Sox and a few different teams in getting creative.
Anywhere else?
Gammons: It’s too bad we don’t have Mike Veeck in the major leagues somewhere. He’s a brilliant and creative man. Some of the most creative work done in baseball is in the minor leagues. This is a boom period right now for baseball, and I think the minor leagues have a lot to do with it. They not only develop players, they develop fans. The major league teams are learning more and more from the minor league teams. The Red Sox have taken a lot of the minor league marketing principles.
What’s the best new idea in baseball?
Gammons: I think it’s probably the way that baseball is marketed. And I really believe in the long run that this World Cup idea is brilliant. I’m not a soccer guy, but I love the passion of soccer’s World Cup. I said in my speech at Cooperstown that baseball should remind people that it is reflective of American immigration patterns, more than any sport, and it should be a world game. This is a great concept. I give Bud [Selig] a lot of credit, whether it’s his idea or he listened to the right voices. He agonized over the way to do it. The players association will ensure that there’s a minimal chance for injury, because you know how they protect their people in the union. I’m really glad that the union is involved with it as heavily as they are.
If you could change one thing about the game, what would it be?
Gammons: I would shorten the season to 150 games and get the playoffs and World Series going earlier, with seven-game series in all three rounds. I think that the season is unnecessarily long and that if they could start the playoffs in September, it would build to a greater crescendo for the World Series.
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| Bush’s 9/11 pitch was “a great moment to be an American.” |
Pat Williams of the Orlando Magic said that after 9/11 he was so proud to be working in sports because, “The heartbeat, the pulse of our country, is our sports teams.” You were at Yankee Stadium when the game resumed after 9/11.
Gammons: It was one of the most dramatic moments of my life. When George Bush strode out to the mound … I don’t care what anybody thinks about President Bush, that was a great moment to be an American. I did lean over to Buck Showalter and say, “Hey, there’s got to be Secret Service guys here because there are eight umpires on the field.” It was a really chilling moment and it took me a long time for that to wear off.
What is your earliest baseball memory?
Gammons: Listening to the seventh game of the 1952 World Series when I was 7 years old in the barber’s chair. Billy Sambito was my barber — and eventually the sponsor of my Little League team. His nephew, Joe Sambito, went on to be a great pitcher and we became very good friends. He’s now an agent. Our families were forever intertwined.
I have a tape of that game. It’s so different, because the pitchers all had full windups and pumped over their heads. There wasn’t a lot of baserunning. You can watch that and see how Jackie Robinson changed the game. The Yankees used four starting pitchers in relief in that game. It was tremendous.
With no barber shops open at midnight, there are no such memories anymore for 7-year-olds.
Gammons: No. Unfortunately.
