A Dear Friend Remembered

Jerry Gross, the longtime radio announcer whose wide-ranging career included play-by-play work on Padres, San Diego Rockets, SDSU, USD and local high-school games, has passed away after a 23-year battle with cancer. (Peggy Peattie photo)

When there was a National Basketball Association team born in San Diego, Jerry Gross was its first voice, and it was nearly perfect. At one with the game.

Gross, who succumbed to cancer last Wednesday at the age of 81, provided play-by-play for broadcasts of games of just about every major sport and team in San Diego. Padres. Chargers. San Diego State. University of San Diego. Local high-school football.

He was also a sports anchor at Channel 8, a pioneer in both the sports-talk genre and the hiring of women in sports broadcasting.

"He really did it all in San Diego," said longtime Padres broadcaster Bob Chandler. "He was a major figure in sportscasting in the city for a long time."

But it was at the microphone for the Rockets - the expansion team that lured him here from St. Louis in 1967 - that Gross gave San Diego the sound of big-time basketball.

"There's a rhythm to the game that Jerry captured," said Bruce Binkowski, the San Diego Bowl Game Association executive director who was a young statistician for Rockets games at the Sports Arena. "It's an exciting game and he'd get very excited when he was calling it, but he wasn't an overt homer. He made you feel like you were right there."

Jim Dillon, who was Gross' friend and working partner over several decades, recalled a game between the Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors that Gross called at the Forum. At one point, Dillon said, Lakers broadcasting superstar Chick Hearn announced to everyone within earshot that Gross was "the finest play-by-play basketball announcer I've ever heard in my life."

And it wasn't just the delivery, either.

"There was nobody in the announcing business that was better-prepared than Jerry Gross," said Dillon, now residing in Montana. "Absolutely nobody."

"An absolutely fabulous NBA announcer," said Chandler, who'd known Gross since 1967. "I thought he was truly great at it."

Likewise, when the Padres made their debut as San Diego's major league baseball team in 1969, Gross was in the broadcasting booth with Duke Snider and Frank Sims. Before coming to San Diego, he'd also done double-duty as play-by-play announcer for baseball's St. Louis Cardinals and basketball's St. Louis Hawks.

Gross later broadcast Indiana Pacers games and college football with ESPN.

"He was happiest behind the microphone," said his daughter, Suzy Hellman. "That was my dad. His life was ... well, socially, he never knew when to shut his mouth, God bless him. But he was always more concerned about my mom (Gretchen) and her issues (with Parkinson's Disease) than his."

Gross waged a 23-year fight with prostate cancer, knowing his fate was sealed when the disease had spread into his bones.

"The last time I saw Jerry at the ballpark, a couple years ago now, he was making his final rounds," said Chandler. "He'd come to say hello and goodbye to Vin Scully."

Over many of his later years, he'd regale fellow assisted-living residents of the Brookdale Place in San Marcos with tales of his experiences as a sports broadcaster.

"His lectures were fascinating," said Robert May, the executive director of Brookdale. "It was very meaningful to the people here, to have an icon of sorts sharing his life and wonderful baseball stories with us."

In addition to his wife of 58 years and daughter, Gross is survived by son Jeff of Solana Beach and three grandchildren.

An Army veteran, Gross will be inurned at Miramar National Cemetery, which also is the final resting place of Padres broadcasting legend Jerry Coleman.

"There you go," said Gross' daughter. "Pops loved Jerry Coleman!"

Source San Diego Union Tribune (01/26/2015)