Gammons a Hall of Famer

Dan Shaughnessy wrote a really nice tribute to Gammons. Most of the article was positive, but he did complain about how most people now see Gammons as an ESPN personality rather than a writer. Gammons' ESPN association has especially annoyed me recently now that it seems you need to be an "Insider" to read his work. Here's two excerpts from Shaughnessy:

...Gammons has done more to influence the way major league baseball is covered than any columnist or beat guy of the last half-century. He is, and forever will be, the de facto commissioner of baseball. He is to our craft what Ted Williams was to his: When Gammons walks through a press box, any scribe who knows history should point and say, ''There goes the greatest baseball writer who ever lived."

...The shame is that Gammons today is most famous as a television analyst and commentator for ESPN. He writes for ESPN's websites and ESPN The Magazine, and you can find him in Baseball America, but most young baseball fans know him solely for his TV work. That would be like knowing the late Joe DiMaggio only as a pitchman for Mr. Coffee, or knowing Bob Cousy only as a color analyst on Celtics broadcasts.