Pedro Gomez, a mainstay of ESPN’s protection of Main League Baseball for a lot of the previous twenty years who went from the newspaper sports activities part to hundreds of thousands of tv screens, died at his dwelling in Phoenix on Sunday, ESPN and his household stated. He was 58.
No explanation for loss of life was given by the community, which introduced Mr. Gomez’s loss of life late on Sunday night time.
“We’re shocked and saddened to study that our buddy and colleague Pedro Gomez has handed away,” James Pitaro, the chairman of ESPN and Sports activities Content material, stated in an announcement. “Pedro was an elite journalist on the highest degree, and his skilled accomplishments are universally acknowledged. Extra importantly, Pedro was a sort, expensive buddy to us all. Our hearts are with Pedro’s household and all who love him at this terribly troublesome time.”
Tributes to Mr. Gomez, a son of Cuban refugees, poured in from throughout journalism {and professional} sports activities, together with from a number of baseball franchises. Mr. Gomez’s son Rio Gomez performs for the Salem Crimson Sox, a minor league affiliate of the Boston Crimson Sox.
“Devastating information about Pedro Gomez,” Jeremy Schaap, the veteran sports activities reporter and an ESPN colleague, said on Twitter. “Such a beautiful, kindhearted, proficient human being. So happy with his household.”
Jason La Canfora, who covers the Nationwide Soccer League for CBS Sports activities, said on Twitter that he appeared as much as Mr. Gomez.
“I used to be blessed to satisfy Pedro Gomez as a cub reporter in faculty, and additional blessed to have the ability to name him a buddy,” Mr. La Canfora wrote. “He represented the very best of us, as journalists and human beings.”
Mr. Gomez joined ESPN in April 2013 after spending 18 years as a baseball beat author and columnist, together with for The Miami Herald in his native South Florida, San Jose Mercury Information, Sacramento Bee and Arizona Republic.
Throughout his profession, he coated 25 World Collection and 22 All-Star Video games, in accordance with an ESPN biography, which stated he attended the College of Miami and majored in journalism.
Mr. Gomez additionally chronicled among the extra sordid episodes of the nationwide pastime. In 2007, there was Barry Bonds surpassing Hank Aaron’s dwelling run file beneath a cloud of suspicion over steroid use. There was additionally the case of the Chicago Cubs fan Steve Bartman deflecting a foul ball throughout Recreation 6 of the 2003 Nationwide League Championship Collection, which the then-Florida Marlins went on to win.
In 2016, Mr. Gomez and his son Rio had been profiled by ESPN for a Father’s Day function. That very same 12 months, he traveled to Cuba to report on an exhibition sport between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban nationwide workforce, the primary time a Main League Baseball membership visited there in about twenty years.
“Fully surreal to these of us Cubans and/or Cuban People,” Mr. Gomez said on Twitter on the time.
In the course of the journey, Mr. Gomez took his father’s and brother’s ashes again to his household’s homeland, ESPN recalled.
Mr. Gomez was a member of the Baseball Writers’ Affiliation of America and a voting member for the Baseball Corridor of Fame.
Along with his son Rio, he’s survived by his spouse, Sandra Gomez; one other son, Dante; and a daughter, Sierra.