What a welcome change to have Mets coverage. For the last few years, The Star-Ledger’s baseball coverage has seemed to be “all Yankees all the time.” It’s nice that someone seems to have realized there is more than one area professional baseball team. I hope this is a sign of more good things to come…Please tell Manuel Goméz to keep up the good work and thank you. — Ed of Flemington, Star-Ledger subscriber for 44 years
Delivering on something you’ve been asking for – especially after a long time – is especially rewarding in the business of journalism. It’s not as easy as you might think to find a sportswriter with deep knowledge about baseball to cover one of the region’s local teams.
Enter Manuel “Manny” Gómez, our recently appointed Mets beat reporter, who started covering the team in February. This month, he celebrated his one-year anniversary with NJ Advance Media, which provides content to NJ.com and The Star-Ledger.
“Covering a Major League Baseball team has been nothing short of a dream come true,” Gómez told me from the Mets clubhouse this past week. “To get to drive up to the ballpark every day and surround yourself around a game that you love is something not many people get to do.”
Gómez, 39, was born in Washington Heights, N.Y., moving to New Jersey after his father opened a bodega in Newark called El Caballo Blanco (The White Horse). He worked at his dad’s bodega while attending Montclair State University, where he studied history. Both his parents are from a small farming community in the Dominican Republic that grew yuca.
Even though he didn’t get to play much ball growing up, he was a 20-minute walk to Yankee Stadium. “Naturally, I grew up a Yankees fan,” he confessed. “My favorite player growing up was Paul O’Neill.”
Before getting into sports journalism, Gómez was a special education teacher in New York City Public Schools, where he taught for seven years — four in East Harlem and three in Long Island City in Queens.
“Once my first daughter was born, I felt motivated to pursue my actual dream of becoming a writer,” he said. “Given my love of baseball, I paired the two and started a blog, which wound up being featured on Bleacher Report.”
Gómez’s blog caught the attention of the then-president of the Baseball Writers Association of America, Jesús Ortiz, who asked him to write features and columns for a section called “Our Esquina” (Our Corner), which is dedicated to amplifying Latino voices in the sport.
Soon after, he became a BBWAA member, where he cut his teeth interviewing coaches, players and other MLB staff at clubhouses around the country. He fondly remembers speaking to Dodgers legend Manny Mota as well as covering the World Series in 2022, including the combined no-hitter marshalled by Astros pitcher Cristian Javier.
About a third of the approximately 1,000 active MLB players are Latino or Hispanic, according to global data group Statista. Many of them speak only Spanish, often using MLB interpreters during press conferences. Out of the 347 Hall of Famers, a mere 19 Latinos have graced the baseball pantheon.
In the Mets clubhouse, he stands out as the sole Spanish-speaking reporter covering the team.
“I would be lying If I didn’t say that I try to use my Spanish-speaking abilities to my advantage,” he said.
For instance, in a recent article about ace pitcher Kodai Senga practicing pitches, the two hitters the Mets brought in from High-A Brooklyn didn’t speak English. No other publication got to learn what Senga’s pitches were from the batters’ point of view.
“Any chance that I get to speak to the Spanish speakers, I take. It’s allowed me to build relationships early on that I hope will allow me to grow as a reporter,” Gómez said.
That ambition to continue growing as a sportswriter is grounded in a desire to serve.
“One of my goals is to become someone baseball fans can trust for coverage,” he said.
He acknowledges the price of having a dream job often comes with sacrifices. With his wife, Shannon, a radiologist who was born and raised in Kearny, Gómez is raising two daughters, Francesca, 7, and Margot, 9.
He says it’s been tough now that the season is in full swing to be away from the family, covering all home games and some away games. Including spring training and playoffs, there are some 200 games to cover.
“Obviously the days are long here,” he said, adding that it’s not just about watching the games and writing about it. “You are here four hours before first pitch. You have the game, which can go long like yesterday’s game was about three hours. Then you go downstairs to talk to the guys, the manager.”
And then the story must be written, which takes another hour or two.
“A typical day can go somewhere between 2:30 and 11 or midnight,” he said. (And that’s why you may not see many of this reporter’s game-day stories in the printed newspaper – but you can find them on NJ.com/mets or in the Update section of the online Star-Ledger.)
“Yeah, it’s difficult when you have a family and two daughters,” said Gómez, thankful for technology like Facetime so he can video call his kids on long days.
“But I’m hoping that that the example they take from this is that after I decided to give my dream a chance, I made it happen,” he said.
If you want to say, “hola!” to Manny Gómez, send him a note to mgomez@njadvancemedia.com.
Enrique Lavín is the editor of online newspapers. Email him at elavin@njadvancemedia.com.
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