La Vida Voices: Bob Klapisch

Considering that he epitomizes the fearlessness of the New York baseball writing corps, it’s difficult to imagine that there was a time in the early 1980s when Roberto “Bob” Klapisch was nervous about asking fundamental questions to a manager.

He got over that fear quickly to become one of the best New York baseball writers of his generation. By the time I met Klapisch in 1998, the former Columbia University pitcher was a giant among giants in the New York baseball writing fraternity. He was more than a bright, talented wordsmith.

He was also fearless, oozing with confidence, substance and countless key sources spread from the top to the bottom of the Yankees and Mets organizations and throughout the majors.

Klapisch had famously been man enough to stand up to Mets slugger Bobby Bonilla, refusing to back down after the Nuyorican threatened to show him the Bronx. For the record, Bonilla wasn’t offering Bob a tour.

More importantly, Klapisch was connected and trusted enough in the Mets and Yankees clubhouses to secure hundreds of major scoops during his time with the New York Post, New York Daily News, Bergen (N.J.) Record and USA Today.

He has also authored five books, all must-reads for New York baseball fans. He spent the 2018 season embedded with the Yankees, receiving unprecedented access throughout the organization while writing “Inside The Empire” with Rolling Stone’s Paul Solotaroff.

Few people realize that Klapisch is also one of the country’s foremost Latino baseball writers. His late mother Esther emigrated from Brazil to the United States when she was 32. She taught him Portuguese.

With Portuguese as a strong base, Klapisch worked diligently in high school and Columbia University to become fluent in Spanish. He has used his Spanish skills over the last three decades to provide depth to his features on Latino players. His versatility and writing chops shine in “Inside the Empire.”

I recently caught up with Klapisch to discuss his career and his new book. Let’s discuss the keys to success in the tough New York market, the benefits of learning Portuguese as a child and some of the highlights of a stellar baseball scribe’s career.

Jose de Jesus Ortiz: Bob, you’ve been one of the most accomplished baseball writers in New York over the last three decades. If you could go back to your first year on the beat and give yourself advice, what advice would you give yourself?

Bob Klapisch: I would look my 24-year-old self squarely in the eye and say: “There is no such thing as a dumb question! Ask away!” I remember how nervous I used to be, debating whether I’d sound foolish raising even a fundamental strategy question to the manager. I was the new guy on Yankees beat in the mid-80s, and I’m forever thankful the New York Post was willing to take a chance on a rookie. But confidence didn’t come easily against the industry’s heavy hitters of that era: Murray Chass from the Times, Bill Madden from the Daily News, Moss Klein from the Newark Star-Ledger. Be fearless, was the lesson I eventually learned.

A reporter will be respected if they project confidence, regardless of the question. My career took off once I understood that.

JJO: Many people don’t realize you have Latino roots as a son of a Brazilian mother. What lessons have you learned as a first-generation American?

BK: I’m old enough to remember what the U.S. was like before hyphenated identities. You were either American or you weren’t, and my mother wasn’t. She came from Brazil at the age of 32 with barely any English, which meant we grew up with Portuguese in the house. It’s a beautiful language, and to this day my brain is hard-wired to it. It still feels most natural to me, like it’s my first language. But even after she learned English my mom always spoke with a heavy accent. My friends used to make fun of that. Even my parents’ circle used to mock her pronunciation – lovingly, of course, everyone adored her – but she just didn’t fit in like other Americans.

JJO: How have your Portuguese skills helped you as a baseball writer? How crucial was your late mother Esther’s first language as you learned Spanish in high school and studied it at Columbia?

BK: I wish I had taken more pride in my mother’s Brazilian roots because ultimately those were my roots, too. I identify as a (half) Latino more today than I did growing up. Brazil is a sprawling, wondrous, multi-racial society full of potential, much of it still unrealized. And as a nation, it stands out: Brazilians are Hispanic with an asterisk because of the different language.

Still, my Latino connection is strong enough that I always feel a bond with Spanish-speaking players in the clubhouse. Portuguese is so similar to Spanish that I had a head start in high school and college. Altogether I studied it for eight years and am pretty close to fluent today. Most of my interviews with Latino players are done without an interpreter, although every once in a while a Portuguese word or phrase will slip into the conversation. Instead of saying, “yo soy” I find myself saying “eu sou.” I smile and think, “That was for you, Mom.”

JJO: What are your three or four most memorable moments covering baseball in New York, whether as a beat writer or a columnist?

BK: “My favorite team to cover is – and always will be – the ’86 Mets. There’ll never be a group like that, just as that era in baseball will never be duplicated. This was the pre-internet days, pre-cell phones, pre-Twitter, pre-everything. Newspapers were the sole source of information for baseball fans. You had to read the Post or Daily News to know what was going on in the clubhouse. And make no mistake: the players were the game’s news-makers. Not the GMs, not the scouts and certainly not the agents. Your value to the reading public was commensurate to how close you got to the players. Once they trusted you, you became privy to an entire plane of information that no longer appears in newspapers today.

It certainly helped that I pitched at Columbia. I understood the craft in a way that most writers couldn’t. I also benefited from the overall sense of communion the players had with the media – especially the beat guys. We were all part of the same entertainment circus. Not so today. The gap has never been wider. There’s less access in the clubhouse, fewer one-on-one interviews, less time getting to the real stories. For that reason baseball writing has drifted towards transactions and roster construction and a mad dash to post it first on Twitter.

There’s obvious value in social media, but I sure miss the good old days of breaking a story because a player pulled you aside and dropped a bombshell in your lap.

That’s what it was like covering the Mets. I remember back in 1987, on the day Darryl Strawberry called Wally Backman a little redneck and said he wanted to punch him in the face. Yes, that’s what players actually said on the record back then. I was so busy running around the clubhouse covering the story that when Lenny Dykstra decided he wanted out – “Klap, I’m demanding a trade, I want you to write that” – I literally waved him off. “Lenny, I can’t help you today. You’re going to have to hold that for 24 hours.” And you know what? He did!

JJO: You have never been afraid to show up at the clubhouse after writing a critical piece. How important is it for a writer’s credibility to face the men we cover after writing something that may be deemed critical?

BK: “A sportswriter’s credibility is all he really has, especially in a profession where he or she has to see their subjects in person. That’s the part of the job outsiders don’t know about. You write honestly about someone and the next day you’re in their living room, inches from their face. It’s not as easy or as glamorous as it sounds. Crime reporters never come into direct contact with the mafia kingpins they write about. Political columnists rarely find themselves sitting across from the President after calling him corrupt.

I learned this lesson in 1993 after publication of my first book, “The Worst Team Money Could Buy,” a diary of the disastrous ’92 Mets season. My much-publicized run-in with Bobby Bonilla started in the pre-game clubhouse on the first Saturday of the ’93 season. He launched a verbal attack on me unlike anything I’d ever heard from a player. The torrent of threats and vulgarity was bad enough that PR chief Jay Horwitz had to clear the clubhouse two hours before first pitch. At the time, MLB rules allowed writers access up until 60 minutes (before the first pitch). But not on this day. Horwitz sensed a disaster and ordered everyone out, including me.

For the next three hours in the press box, I had reporters asking me if I dared to go back to the clubhouse. Of course I was. I had to. Not only was it my job, it was my reputation that was at stake. I couldn’t let Bonilla run me off like that. I took a deep breath just before I walked back into the room after the last out. The Mets lost that day, as they would many times that season. What ensued was brutal. I’ll leave it at that. It culminated with Bonilla and I face to face, me asking him, “You want to fight?” Google the rest. But the point was: accountability matters. Showing up is half the job.

JJO: You’re an accomplished author. Do you have a favorite among the books you’ve written? If so, why?

BK: I’ve written five books and, as I mentioned, “Worst Team” was the most newsworthy after the Bonilla fallout. Little did Bobby know our confrontation was being filmed that day by a local camera crew. I should add (that) we finally made peace, but not until 1999. Despite the notoriety, my favorite book is the one that’s about to be released: “Inside The Empire” which I co-wrote with Rolling Stone’s Paul Solotaroff. It’s a deep-tissue work about the Yankees’ business operation, sitting atop a diary of the 2018 season. Everyone cooperated with this project, including Hal Steinbrenner, Brian Cashman and Randy Levine. Even better is the time I was able to spend with Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Boone. I got to know Gleyber Torres and Miguel Andujar and found out what makes Gary Sanchez click. The writing and reporting are unlike anything you’ve ever read in a baseball book. I’m very proud of it and can’t wait for it to hit the stores.

JJO: Thanks for your time, Bob. Be sure to follow Bob on Twitter at @BobKlap.

Featured Image: @BobKlap