The voice on the other end of the phone sounded almost cartoonish Queens.

“This is Jimmy Breslin from Newsday. Can you tell me what’s on the daybook for tomorrow?”

I was 21 years old and suddenly talking to one of my idols -  a columnist with a long resume of legendary clips from a pile of New York City newspapers and a Pulitzer Prize.  He had run for City Council president, starred in a beer commercial, and was celebrated by a character in “When Harry Met Sally” as a man who leaves  “a wake-up call for the city of New York, you know?”

The calls I would be getting from Breslin were a little less dramatic. As a clerk at the New York City metro desk of The Associated Press, I would sometimes field Saturday-morning queries from Breslin, who was trying to dig up something to write about for his Sunday column by getting an early preview of the AP’s compendium of daily events known at the daybook.

This wasn’t Breslin’s only cross-pollination with the AP. A veteran reporter told me that whenever Breslin was feuding with his bosses when he was at the Daily News, he would storm over to the AP’s offices at 50 Rockefeller Center and file his column from there.

As a college student in New York City, I regularly read Breslin’s Newsday column, inspiring me to buy and read anthologies of his New York Herald Tribune pieces (“The World of Jimmy Breslin”) and his Daily News columns (the not-so-originally titled “The World According to Breslin.”) 

His early books roasted the 1962 Mets (“Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?”) and the Mob (“The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight”) while a beat-down by the Lucchese crime family in 1970 didn’t slow him down.

He had famously interviewed JFK’s gravedigger, become a pen pal with “Son of Sam”, and uncovered a political corruption scandal in his home borough of Queens that likely cost Ed Koch his job. Years ahead of Donald Trump, Breslin would give a nickname to a newsmaker that would devastatingly stick, all but driving Governor Hugh Carey out of office by regularly dubbing him “Society Carey” for his love of the nightlife at Elaine’s and the “21” club.

And now, I was on the phone, shooting the bull with Breslin. There were no bon mots or life-altering words of advice but he could vivisect the news of the day while regularly downplaying his own experiences – including his assault by a mob during the Crown Heights riots in 1991.

I only got a taste of his infamous anger once – after rival columnist Mike McAlary was badly injured in a car accident in 1993. Writing the story for The AP, I thought it could be an ideal time for Breslin to mend fences with his competitor by getting a comment for my story.

Reaching him at home, I asked Breslin if he had any thoughts about McAlary, he snapped: “I’ve got nothing to say about him!”

Ten years later, I got reacquainted with Breslin when I became NY1’s political director. In my first few years on the job, Breslin would come in to talk about the news of the day, sometimes even fielding calls from viewers. It was seat-of-your-pants TV, as Breslin could veer from one subject to another like a character in “Ulysses”, leaving everyone in the dust.

But his hard edges had clearly been sanded down over time and it was a great pleasure to talk with him about his sometimes-overlooked later books – including his gem of a biography of Brooklyn Dodgers owner Branch Rickey.

In a mountain of deserved tributes, people will inevitably ask “Where have all the Breslins gone?” It’s a question that’s not entirely fair given the dramatic transformation of the media landscape over the last 20 years. Newspaper columnists aren’t what they used to be when you board a subway and no one is reading an actual newspaper.

Regardless, Breslin’s legacy will be solidified the moment some young journalistic buck tries to interview his gravedigger and gets the scoop.

As someone else regularly wrote: “Beautiful.”

 

Bob Hardt