In addition to working in baseball for six seasons, Greg has written for the East Valley Tribune and the Arizona Republic. After covering high school sports for the Republic, Greg moved over to the Tribune in 2004 to cover high school sports and the Arizona State women’s basketball beat for the 2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons.

 

Greg studied broadcast journalism at Arizona State University, graduating in 2003.

Best sporting event you've covered — The 2007 Baseball All-Star Game (down to the wire in the ninth inning) and the 2005 Home Run Derby (in which Bobby Abreu set the record).

What event would you like to cover that you've (so far) never done — Easy. I always wanted to cover Bart’s mini-golf showdown with Todd Flanders. If I was a columnist, though, I’d have blasted them for accepting a tie. 

Favorite sport to watch — Baseball.

What is your favorite sport to cover — Football. So many storylines in a football game. 

Favorite movie — The Godfather. The Godfather II isn’t far behind, though.

Favorite food — Pasta, especially Chicken Parm with pasta.

Five favorite TV shows (current) — Lost, Weeds, Family Guy, The Office (American), Entourage.

Five favorite TV shows (all time) — Simpsons, Seinfeld, Sopranos, West Wing, The Office (British).

Favorite ice cream flavor — Maple Walnut…. Butter Pecan is very, very close, but it will never gain any ground because of the maple factor. When you grow up in northern New England, you learn to embrace the maple. 

Favorite fast food joint — If Dunkin’ Donuts counts as a fast food joint, then that wins in a landslide. It would occupy the top four spots in my top five. If it doesn’t count (but it should, because Mark counts everything as a fast food joint, apparently), then I guess I’d go with Chick-Fil-A.

Favorite Muppet — Tough… Statler and Waldorf are two Muppets, and I can’t separate them. They aren’t as funny without eachother. Who would name just Costello as his favorite comedian without including Abbott? So I guess my favorite Muppet is The Swedish Chef. Erdy gerdy verdy. Bork bork bork.

Favorite 19th century U.S. President — As tempted as I am to pick Franklin Pierce (New Hampshire’s only president, if Jed Bartlett doesn’t count), he was possibly our country’s worst. So I’ll go with Thomas Jefferson, who might have been our best. Fun fact: Jefferson’s Vice President (after Aaron Burr left office following the dueling murder of Alexander Hamilton) was George Clinton. Jefferson’s joint chiefs of staff? The P-Funk All-Stars.

Favorite athlete nickname — Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown... The guy was missing an index finger (he actually had three fingers in addition to his thumb). Can you even imagine making a nickname specific to someone’s handicap today? Tom “One Foot” Dempsey? Evander “Partial Ear” Holyfield?

Best sports memory - as a viewer — Sitting in the right-field bleachers at Fenway Park, right behind the visitor’s bullpen, to watch Game 2 of the 2004 World Series. 

Best sports memory - as a participator — You mean other than jacking a softball over the fence on a small field in a co-rec, pick-up softball game? Because that was pretty awesome. In that case, I guess it would be winning regular season softball championships in Scottsdale and Tempe in the same season.

First job — Working at McGrath’s Grocery in Alton, N.H. When I was 16, I sliced a decent chunk of skin off my thumb in a meat slicer, causing me to go to the town doctor and tell him I nicked it with a  box cutter because you were supposed to be 18 to work on the meat slicer. True story. They called me Greg “No Thumb” Salvatore that baseball season. OK, that part isn’t true.

Talent I would most like to have — Throwing a baseball really, really hard with super-accurate control. You see what guys with those talents are getting paid these days?

City I would like to visit — Sicily. London. Iowa City. Tokyo. No particular order. 

Best city I have visited — Munich, easily. Super cool city. Pretty much everything is new — buildings, infrastructure, everything — because the place was bombed to hell and back in WWII. And the bratwurst, sauerkraut and beer were as good as advertised. 

I'm addicted to... — Dunkin Donuts iced coffee.