[3] He played baseball as a youth, and for many years pursued a career as a major league ball player.
[3] But after only a short time on active duty he left the military and enrolled at Temple University, where he received a Master of Arts in 1957.
[3][4][5] Although he still wanted to play professional baseball, at the urging of friends he enrolled in the graduate doctoral program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
[3] Dissatisfied with the degree program, he decided to leave and take a job with the Continental Can Company in New York City.
[2][3][10] Gross is the recipient of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities,[11] and in 2007 was Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in Corporate Social Responsibility at McGill University in Canada.