REALLY GOT HIS G.O.A.T.
Sportscaster Gray tells how he got stars to open up, and confronted network bullies, who often tried to squash him
Jim Gray goes places lots of sportscasters won’t. Some reporters might have hesitated to follow a raging Mike Tyson into his dressing room after a loss, particularly after he revealed his mood by biting off part of Evander Holyfield’s ear. But Gray did and got his interview.
Most TV personalities covering an all-star event would have safely stayed in a fan-friendly zone. But Gray strayed outside to confront Pete Rose about his gambling, and why he refused to apologize.
Gray revisits those stories, and more, in “Talking to GOATs: The Moments You Remember… and the Stories You Never Heard,” as he recalls time spent with athletes considered “Greatest of All Time.”
And he explains why sometimes we didn’t hear the whole story, thanks to nervous networks and corporate bullies who downplayed his work or killed it outright.
In 1991, Gray interviewed Hank Aaron. The home-run titan talked frankly about breaking Babe Ruth’s record — and the expected windfall that never came.
“If it had happened to Joe DiMaggio or Mickey Mantle or someone like that,” Aaron insisted, “it would have been a financial bonanza.” It was racism, Aaron said.
Dynamite, Gray thought, when the piece ran. Dangerous, said his bosses at CBS. They had just landed the Major League Baseball television contract, and baseball’s top management hated the story. Gray was moved to the football beat for the rest of the year.
The tough lesson, and hard fact, was that pro sports are big business. To keep their share of the profits flowing, networks must play nice.
For example, during the 2000 Olympics, NBC promised sprinter Marion Jones they wouldn’t ask about her husband, shotputter C.J. Hunter, and his steroid use. Gray was told he couldn’t even mention performance-enhancing drugs.
“It hurt our credibility,” Gray says of the ground rules. “I had a bad feeling whenever we put her interviews on the air.”
He had an even worse feeling seven years later when Jones admitted using drugs during the 2000 games and had to return her five Olympic medals.
Sometimes the pressure didn’t come from corporate overlords but from the fans and athletes themselves. At the 1999 World Series, during a special “All-Century” salute to baseball’s greatest players, Gray rushed to interview Pete Rose.
The crowd saluted Charlie Hustle with a standing ovation. But Gray was there as a reporter, not as a fan. And so, he asked Rose about his gambling. Rose deflected it. Gray asked again. And again. The interview became an interrogation.
MLB didn’t have a problem with the story; it had long seen Rose as an embarrassment. But afterward, players refused to talk to Gray. Fans filled his voicemail with death threats. The network assigned him security.
Finally, Gray was forced to apologize on air. Although, as apologies go, it was a sorry/not sorry sort of thing, with Gray only telling viewers he regretted if he “took out some of the joy of the occasion.”
It “doesn’t seem too sincere,” he admits now, rewatching the tape. But at the time, Gray felt he didn’t have a choice. “I just wanted to get back to my job,” he admits.
He did, but with another lesson learned: Remember who you work for. And as a TV sportscaster, those bosses not only include your network but the industry you’re supposed to be covering and the viewers you’re trying to inform.
Although he’s sometimes faced obstacles in broadcasting the story, Gray prides himself on getting the facts. And in providing viewers with insight into some of the world’s biggest celebrities, in and
out of sports.
After the Holyfield match, he remembers a furious Tyson, ranting that his opponent was a dirty fighter and a long way from “the tough warrior everyone says he is.” He also remembers an impulsive, ridiculously generous Tyson, who, after dinging his $350,000 Lamborghini, gave it away, throwing the keys to a stranger.
Yet there was always that air of danger. When Gray asked about the rape conviction that sent the boxer to prison in 1992, Tyson denied the crime. But he said he accepted the punishment.
“There are four or five things I’ve done throughout the course of my life that are worse,” he confided to Gray. “I’m at the right place.”
If Tyson was the most dangerous athlete Gray encountered, Tom Brady was the most inspiring. “It’s not a coincidence that he won a Super Bowl at age 41,” Gray raves. “He’s all repetition, all preparation, all ‘If I do these things over and over, I will inch closer to my desired result.’ … Sometimes perfection is that simple.”
As for “Deflategate,” Gray calls the allegations about tampered footballs one of the worst rushes-to-judgment he’s seen. He believes Brady was railroaded, and he partly blames social media.
“Everybody has a voice, and everybody can shout whatever they want into the world,” he says. “That’s how fiction morphs into truth.”
What is true is that over a more than 40-year career, Gray has covered every major sport.
And because sports touch so many lives, he’s also had the opportunity to interview some world leaders.
Like former boxer and lifelong sports fan Nelson Mandela, who spoke about his time in prison on South Africa’s harsh Robben Island.
Once, Mandela said, toward the end of his sentence, the warden tried to curry favor by offering him a conjugal visit with his wife. No, said Mandela, I want you to bring in 88 women. “There are 87 other guys in here with me,” he explained. He refused any special treatment.
And Gray remembers the unflappable resolve of George W. Bush, who after 9/11, not only accepted the offer to throw out the first pitch of the World Series but insisted it be at Yankee Stadium.
Aides worried about an assassination attempt. Secret Service agents took the field, disguised as umpires. Then Bush just coolly walked out and threw a perfect strike.
“If you’re afraid for your own life,” he told Gray later, “there’s no way you can lead a nation.”
Looking back over a long career, Gray mostly remembers the high points. The gentleness of Muhammad Ali. The single-minded drive of Floyd Mayweather.
But also some low points, like the pettiness of Donald Trump.
In 2009, Gray was filming him for a show on the Golf Channel. Trump insisted they play a game at one of his courses. After, Trump pushed him for a compliment.
Wasn’t he the best golfer he’d ever played? No, Gray said, he’s played with pros. The best amateur? No, Gray said. The best golfer over the age of 60, then? Nope.
Finally, Trump bullied Gray into saying he was the best golfer he had ever played in New Jersey. “That’s gotta be in the piece!” Trump announced afterward.
Of course, Trump was the only golfer Gray had ever played in New Jersey. But that didn’t matter. All that mattered was the praise. And that stuck with Gray.
He was accustomed to interviewing athletes determined to be the best. But Trump’s need was different. He didn’t care about rules or record books. He didn’t care about the facts or Halls of Fame. All Trump wanted was the title.
Even if no one believed it but himself.