After 20 years, one of the most recognizable faces at ESPN is leaving the network.
Hall-of-Fame ESPN baseball analyst Peter Gammons will leave the network at the conclusion of baseball’s winter meetings. Gammons, who contributed to Baseball Tonight and at one point was a field reporter for Sunday Night Baseball, had been with ESPN since 1989.
Gammons, in a statement: “My decision to leave ESPN and move on at this point in my life has been conflicted. I owe a great deal of my professional life to ESPN, having spent more than half of my 40 years in journalism working for the network, and the choice to move on was made with nothing but the strongest feelings for the people with whom I worked.”
“We’re sad to see Peter go,” ESPN EVP/production Norby Williamson said Tuesday, “but understand his desire for new challenges and a less demanding schedule.”
According to the Associated Press, Gammons is expected to announce on Wednesday that he will join MLB Network. Boston Globe writer Pete Abraham wrote on Twitter that it may be “a Boston-based gig.”
Additionally, Gammons will serve as a studio analyst and reporter for Boston regional sports network NESN.
Gammons began his career with the Boston Globe.
Gammons would be the latest high profile hire for MLB Network, joining NBC’s Bob Costas, former FOX and Padres play-by-play voice Matt Vasgersian, and former ESPN and TBS analyst Harold Reynolds.
Additionally, Gammons is just the latest high profile loss for ESPN’s baseball coverage, following the firings of Reynolds in 2006 and Steve Phillips earlier this year.
(Associated Press, via Houston Chronicle; Fang’s Bites, twitter.com/peteabe, twitter.com/amaliebenjamin)
