On The Phone With Jimmy Breslin

By Scott Benjamin

The late Dick Schapp – who wrote books on notables from Bobby Kennedy to Bo Jackson to Billy Crystal – was in his office at ABC News in Manhattan – “one of the few places where you can take a two-minute subway ride and go from some of the richest people to some of the poorest people in the world” - that June morning in 1992 when he took his second phone call of the day from Jimmy Breslin.

Breslin and Schapp went back to when Jimmy, then the 19-year-old sports editor of a Long Island newspaper, hired Dick, then 14, as a part-time sports writer.

In the mid-1960s they had columns side by side in the now-defunct New York Herald Tribune.

Breslin - who had won a Pulitzer Prize in Commentary in 1986 at the New York Daily News and was then at Newsday - wanted to ask which hotels they would be staying as they covered the exhibition games for the Dream Team – a collection of National Basketball Association titans that were prepping for the Barcelona Summer Olympics.

Schapp, who was a commentator for ABC News and ESPN at the time, kept the conversation short, saying that he was being interviewed for a profile and he had dinner the night before with Muhammad Ali’s former trainer, Angelo Dundee, who would be a guest on his ESPN call-in show that night, and he had learned that Miami Dolphins coach Don Shula was in the Big Apple and since Dundee was a Dolphins season ticket holder he wanted to contact Shula and have him be the mystery caller on Schapp Talk.

He quickly concluded the call by saying, “Bye, Breslin.”

As he hung up the phone, Schapp said, “He knows I’m in the office by 7:15, so Jimmy calls this morning at 7:30 and says, “ ‘Did you see what that guy wrote in his column today?’ ”

Schapp replied, “But, Jimmy, you did the same thing 30 years ago.”

Schapp added, “He tells me, ‘That was different.’ Whenever you have these circumstances with him it is always, ‘That was different.’ ”

Breslin, who died March 19 at age 88, once seemed to be the hottest person in New York City this side of Donald Trump.

When Son of Sam killer David Berkowitz was terrorizing the city’s lovers lanes, he wrote a letter to Breslin.

After Berkowitz was apprehended, Lou Schwartz, then the features editor at Newsday, said, “I didn’t understand why Berkowitz just didn’t turn himself in to Jimmy Breslin.”

New York Daily News sports columnist Mike Lupica said in a 1987 interview at his New Canaan home that he was inspired to become a newspaper columnist by seeing a Boston television commercial of Breslin, whose syndicated column then ran in the Boston Herald, sitting near his typewriter.

Lupica said that it was a dream come true to be hired in 1977 to be a sports columnist at The Daily News and be working with Breslin, his idol.

In Joe Namath’s 1969 autobiography, which Schapp co-wrote, it was noted that when they bumped into Breslin in Manhattan, he asked for Namath’s endorsement in his bid to win the Democratic primary nomination for President of the New York City Council on a ticket headed by mayor hopeful Norman Mailer.

They ran on a platform of having New York City secede from New York state and become America’s 51st state. However, they finished fourth in the primary.

Perhaps with the severe cutbacks in municipal aid proposed by Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy (D-Stamford) some suburban first selectman may have the convoluted notion that it would be best to secede from the Nutmeg State.

However, the apparent better alternative would be to implore Malloy to send the Connecticut National Guard to The Notch – the area of Connecticut, near Enfield, where the northern border, near Massachusetts, doesn’t run in a straight line. If Connecticut took control of The Notch it would add not only East Longmeadow, but Agawam – which is the home of Six Flags New England. With the revenue from the amusement park, Connecticut would never again have a fiscal deficit.

When asked to provide contact information for additional sources to the profile, Schapp looked through his datebook and said, “I don’t like to give out athletes’ phone numbers.”

He continued, “Oh, I could have you talk with Jerry” – meaning former Green Bay Packers guard Jerry Kramer, whom he had written the 1968 book, “Instant Replay,” which reached number two on The New York Times best-sellers list.

He paused and then said, “Breslin,” with a smile. After hesitating again, he added, “Yeah, we can give it a try with Jimmy,” apparently implying that Breslin would be goofy, which he was.

Days later on the phone with Breslin, it was mentioned that Schapp had been married three times.

“ ‘Oh no,” Breslin said. “Are you sure? I think it is four times.’ ”

“Dick is a people collector,” he said at another point in the conversation. “He’s regularly on the phone with people and stays in contact. I can’t keep a friend.”

Schapp had said, “It was great getting to know Jimmy when I was still in high school and it is still great working with Jimmy. But I think I’m the only friend he’s ever had that was able to stay a friend.”

Maybe Jimmy could have had more friends, but he had a lot of devoted readers.