RIP Pedro Gomez

If you're going to watch one thing in regards to him, this is probably it:



Here's the ESPN story:

ESPN baseball reporter Pedro Gomez dies at 58

 

Damn it's dusty in here.

 

Wow, that’s awful. Unexpected death at age 58. Yeesh. I admit I’m curious what the hell happened. I didn’t know him, but I enjoyed his work. RIP

 

Must ... stop ... reading ... teh ... Twitterez.

 

Way to young. Was nothing but friendly to me the few times we interacted with each other.

 

The clip with SVP is coincidental to what I'm watching with S4 of Wiseguy and the Cuban-American Dream. This episode opened with 2 powerful and parallel scenes, first with the Haitian refugees reaching the shores of America followed by the father-son Cuban baseball moment ... with a black catcher thrown in for good measure.

I always liked Pedro and his work.

58? Covid?

 

This was unnecessary.

 

From Derrick Goold's chat today:

"Baseball is less today. There's a hole. There's heartbreak.

A great storyteller, and a greater person. You have probably seen the outpouring of compliments and grief from his peers. Not too long ago, as I had those drives all around the country from city to city Cardinals series to series, Pedro was one of the baseball writers who would call to help me pass the time. We swapped stories about TLR as I drove through Arkansas. When I was a young baseball writer, there were plenty of people telling me how I couldn't be one, wouldn't last as one, didn't belong as one, had no place in the press box, and so on, and then there were people like Pedro who told me why I could be a baseball writer, why it was worth chasing and trying, and how to do it.

And I'm not alone. One of the reason Pedro means so so much to baseball writers is because so many of us can point to the person he mentored, the moment he stood up, the story he told -- the way he contributed to each of us, and our friends.

He was one of the 13 reporters to go to Havana and Cuba in December 2015 on what MLB called a "goodwill" tour. It was an emotional trip for him, and still he was there to help many of us, give us background, negotiate what we could not. As you can imagine, the Wi-Fi was tricky but we knew of a hotel that had a floor with a strong single. With Pedro in the lead, we found a way to create a bureau setup in that floor -- like a newsroom. Were we could all work and trust that we could file our stories, or send back photos.

Our flight out of Havana was delayed by hours -- and it was unclear if it would ever come that day, honestly -- and while we waited Pedro and I spoke about the trip, what it meant to us, what it meant to him (his parents left Cuba shortly before he was born), and what it meant for the future."

 

Kudoboard for Pedro Gomez | Kudoboard

 

Couple of reactions from Northern California where, as you can imagine, everyone who worked with him when he was covering the A's for the Sacramento Bee and Mercury-News are devastated.