[link] ESPN baseball analyst Peter Gammons, 61, is out of surgery and in intensive care after undergoing an operation for an aneurysm in his brain.
Gammons was stricken earlier today near his home on the Cape. He was taken to a hospital on the Cape before being air-lifted to a Boston-area hospital. He is expected to be in intensive care for the next 10 to 12 days.
Gammons and the Globe were the trailblazers of the baseball notes format in the 1970s. From that time until 2000, save for a few interruptions in the 1980s, Gammons's unique take on baseball was a mainstay of the Sunday Globe's sports section.
Gammons was honored as the recipient of the 2004 J.G. Taylor Spink Award for outstanding baseball writing during the 2005 Hall of Fame induction ceremony July 31 in Cooperstown, N.Y. He was selected in balloting by the Baseball Writers Association of America.
Peter Gammons needs no introduction to baseball fans or anyone who grew up in the age of ESPN. Apparently he is out of surgery and "resting comfortably."
Growing up in New England, I've been a longtime Gammons fan. I grew up looking forward to reading the big Sunday Globe column whenever I could (we didn't live in Boston, so it was harder to come by back then). So enjoyable was that column, I remember being totally pissed/dissappointed when ESPN made him go exclusive with them (broadcast) and it was the end of a newsprint era.
Since I'm a Sox fan, it never bothers me that he's totally AL East-centric and a Sox homer in a national analyst role. Yeah, at times his speculation has been wildly off the mark, and he has picked up some annoying habits as a TV guy, but I still have a soft spot for him, which is more than I can say about most of the clowns on ESPN. Plus, he loves Little Feat.
I'm assuming he'll need a stretch of time off for recovery, the trade deadline won't be the same without him this season. Get well, guru.
2 comments:
Gammons wrote one of the best short pieves on baseball I ever read: in SI the week after the '86 Series called, "Living & Dying with the WoeSox."
I cannot tell you how much I used to enjoy those Globe columns. We lived in CT, and didn't actually get the Boston Globe, so I only saw it when i went out of my way (library, somebody else's house or on vacation) to find it. Then I read him online religiously.
Once ESPN put Gammons behind the pay wall it was all over. That and the fact that I never watch ESPN anymore means I'm in a serious Gammons dry-spell for the last few years...
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