George Grande

George Grande (pronounced like the English word "grand") is an American sportscaster who is currently a part-time broadcaster for the Cincinnati Reds of Major League Baseball.

Grande is also famous for having hosted the first broadcast of SportsCenter on ESPN in 1979.

He graduated from the University of Southern California in 1969, where he played baseball for four years and was a member of the Trojans' team that won the 1968 College World Series. While at USC, he played with 14 future Major Leaguers, including Hall of Famer Tom Seaver and slugger Dave Kingman.

He began his broadcasting career as a USC student in 1967 as the sports director and news director of the university's radio station, KUSC-FM, followed by radio stints at: KNX in Los Angeles; WERI in Westerly, Rhode Island where he learned his craft from News Director Steve J. Caminis; and WNHC in New Haven, Connecticut. He completed his radio broadcast career by handling the Boston Red Sox pre-game and post-game shows on WMEX. Prior to joining ESPN, Grande served as a sportscaster on TV station WTNH in New Haven.

Grande and Lee Leonard were the first two people to be seen on ESPN upon its launch. After Leonard gave an introduction to viewers concerning what the network was all about, he tossed to Grande who was sitting at a desk dubbed the "ESPN Sports Center", which became the name of the fledging network's nightly news broadcast. In the early years of the network, he served as host of the Inside Baseball weekly magazine program that evolved into the current Baseball Tonight program on ESPN.

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