Q: RIP to Pedro Gomez. By all accounts an incredibly decent man. Any stories you can/want to share?
ESPN reporter Pedro Gomez tries to keep dry while doing a standup in the rain before a Giants game in 2006. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)
A: 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 Tony La Russa 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 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 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 he knew of a hotel that had a floor with a strong signal. 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.
