Gammons pays visit to Fenway in Boston

Sunday, August 20, 2006 BOSTON (AP) — ESPN baseball analyst Peter Gammons was at Fenway Park on Saturday, his first visit to a major league stadium since his brain aneurysm in June. Gammons visited both clubhouses before the game between the Yankees and Boston Red Sox. The 61-year-old former newspaperman was speaking with New York manager Joe Torre in the visitors' clubhouse when hitting coach Don Mattingly came up to say hello. Gammons and his wife, Gloria, watched the game from owner John Henry's box. A note welcoming him to the game was posted on the scoreboard during the sixth inning, drawing an ovation, while a recording of Gammons singing the Chuck Berry song "Carol" was played over the loudspeaker. Gammons was stricken June 27 at his Cape Cod home and was airlifted to a Boston hospital. He was released from the hospital July 17. A Boston native who grew up in nearby Groton, Gammons worked for The Boston Globe and Sports Illustrated before joining ESPN full time in 1990. At the Globe in the 1970s, Gammons popularized the baseball notes columns that have become staples in Sunday newspapers. He is in the writers' wing of the baseball Hall of Fame.