Late ESPN Reporter Pedro Gomez Connected With Everyone — Even Barry Bonds

It is easy to get jaded after you have covered baseball for a long time.

The hours are long as most writers get to the ballpark four-to-five hours before first pitch and do not leave until well after the last out when all the stories are finally written.

The schedule can be relentless with spring training starting in mid-February and the World Series finishing at the end of October. There are few days off and the offseason seemingly becomes busier each winter.

That is why it was always a treat whenever my path crossed with that of Pedro Gomez. The longtime ESPN baseball reporter always had a smile on his face and a big hug whenever we would run into each other, be it in spring training, at the All-Star Game, World Series or Winter Meetings.

Gomez, who died unexpectedly Sunday at 58, was that way with everyone, though. He loved covering baseball, he loved the people in and around the game and that love always shined through to the point where he could connect with even the most difficult of interview subjects.

Including Barry Bonds.

Bonds could often be surly with the media, though, in fairness, he could also provide some enlightening answers when the mood struck him. Yet Gomez connected with Bonds like few other reporters and that led to him contributing many insightful interviews with baseball’s all-time home run leader.

“I don’t trust many of you guys (in the media), but I trust Pedro,” Bonds once told me. “He’s real.”

Gomez was as real as it gets, which I quickly found out during the Oakland Athletics’ home opener in 1997.

I was in the Bay Area covering the Pirates for the Beaver County Times, a newspaper north of Pittsburgh. They had opened their season a day earlier against the San Francisco Giants at Candlestick Park.

With the Pirates and Giants having the day off, I decided to venture to Oakland because I had never been to The Coliseum.

Gomez was then working for the San Jose Mercury News as the Athletics’ beat writer. Spotting a new face in the press box, he walked up and introduced himself.

That began a friendship that lasted nearly a quarter-century. However, Gomez was that way with everyone. He made everyone feel important and never big-timed anyone.

That likability came across to the viewers.

While his work in covering Bonds was outstanding, his most memorable piece for ESPN  came when he covered the Tampa Bay Rays’ trip to Havana in 2016 o play a pair of exhibition games.

Gomez’s parents emigrated to Miami from Cuba in 1962 while his mother was pregnant with Pedro. His father vowed to never return to the island nation while it was ruled by Fidel Castro and the Communist party.

While on assignment in Cuba, Gomez had a chance to spread the ashes of his father, who died 12 years earlier.

ESPN.comPedro Gomez: ‘There’s a big piece of me that is here always’ – ESPN Video

The human side of Gomez also came through when he reported from the 2016 College World Series in which his son, Rio, participated as a pitcher for the University of Arizona. Rio Gomez is now in the Boston Red Sox’s farm system.

“Pedro was far more than a media personality. He was a Dad, loving husband, loyal friend, coach and mentor,” the Gomez family said in a statement released through ESPN. “He was our everything and his kids’ biggest believer.”

Gomez joined ESPN in 2003 after a six-year stint at the Arizona Republic. He also worked at the Miami News, San Diego Union, Miami Herald and Sacramento Bee.

Gomez is survived by a wife and three children.

And he is also survived by a countless number of friends that includes seemingly every person involved in the game of baseball.

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