Greg Gumbel (born May 3, 1946) is an American television sportscaster…..who is best known for his various assignments for CBS Sports….of which the most notable being the National Football League, NBA and NCAA basketball. The older brother of news and sportscaster Bryant Gumbel….he became the first African-American (and Creole) announcer to call play-by-play of a major sports championship in the United States….when he announced Super Bowl XXXV for the CBS network in 2001.
Gumbel is currently a play-by-play broadcaster for the NFL on CBS alongside Trent Green….as well as the studio host for CBS’ men’s college basketball coverage. At ESPN, he anchored the show SportsCenter as seen in this video herewith…..and did “play-by-play” for early NBA games.
Gumbel’s co-host for this 1985 SportsCenter was George Grande (born 1947) is an American sportscaster who is a former broadcaster for the Cincinnati Reds of Major League Baseball. Grande is also famous for having hosted the first broadcast of SportsCenter on ESPN in 1979
Grande and Lee Leonard were the first two people to be seen on ESPN upon its launch. After Leonard gave an introduction to viewers concerning what the network was all about….he tossed the mike to Grande who was sitting at a desk dubbed the “ESPN Sports Center”….which became the name of the fledgling network’s nightly news broadcast. In the early years of the network, he served as host of the Inside Baseball weekly magazine program….which evolved into the current Baseball Tonight program on ESPN.
One of our favorite works of George Grande here at ImaSportsphile is as host of the renowned series of programs under the heading of Baseball’s Greatest Hits’ in which Grande covered many wonderful subjects through out Major League Baseball history….to which we have dozens of these “nuggets of gold” already posted in our baseball library presently.
Grande was a TV play-by-play announcer for Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees in 1989 and 1990 and for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1991 and 1992….when he joined the Cincinnati Reds TV broadcast team….and was its lead broadcaster from 1993 to 2009 for SportsChannel Cincinnati and Fox Sports Ohio….where he teamed with former player Chris Welsh to form the longest-running TV broadcasting partnership in team history. On October 4, 2009, Grande announced that he would step down after 17 seasons with the Reds….stating that he wanted to spend more time with his family…..however, he has since returned for a notable number of games each season through 2018.
Grande also served as master of ceremonies for the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s annual inductions for 31 years, from 1980 to 2010…..and is currently on the board of directors for USA Baseball.
