THE DAILY Goes One-on-One With Biographer David Maraniss

Biographer David Maraniss

Best known for his nuanced biography of BILL CLINTON, veteran Washington Post writer and author DAVID MARANISS has also shown a keen interest in the sports world. He published a well-received VINCE LOMBARDI biography in ‘99, and Simon & Schuster this month will release Maraniss’ portrait of ROBERTO CLEMENTE titled, “Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero.” For Maraniss, the Clemente book carries a personal connection beyond his other works. Like many sons and fathers, David Maraniss and his father, who died while the Clemente book was in progress, spent ample time together musing over bunts and batting averages. And even though Maraniss, a Wisconsin native, grew up a Milwaukee Braves fan (and later adopted the Brewers), his boyhood idol was Clemente, the Pirates’ star right fielder. During a recent interview with correspondent Erik Spanberg, Maraniss reflected on baseball, the Beltway and whether athletes make good politicians.

FAVORITES

Authors: DON DELILLO, ROBERT CARO.

Musician: OTIS REDDING.

City: Madison, Wisconsin.

TV show: I don’t watch sports. Once in a while I’ll watch my pals TONY (KORNHEISER) and (MICHAEL) WILBON (on ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption”).

U.S. President: I hate to pick the traditional ones, but there’s no other choice. I’ll say (THOMAS) JEFFERSON.

Q: What is the best advice you’ve ever received?

Maraniss: Probably from my father, who was also a journalist. One was to believe in myself, the other was not to follow the crowd.

Q: Why did you decide to write a book on Roberto Clemente?
    
Maraniss: Two reasons. One, even though I grew up in Wisconsin loving the Milwaukee Braves -- yes, I’m that old -- Roberto Clemente was my favorite player. I just thought there was something very cool about him. I didn’t really know his whole story at that point. That’s the first reason, something going back to my childhood, a fascination with Clemente. Then when I realized I could write books about anybody I wanted to -- I love sports but that’s not my occupation -- I thought that Clemente and Lombardi, who I’ve also written about, were bigger than just sports. There were a lot of issues I could write about. I could write about baseball, which I love, but I could also write about race and the Latinization of baseball and a lot of other issues that interested me.

Q: One of the fascinating things about your Clemente book is the research you did that shows how unnecessary, and preventable, his death was.(Clemente died in a ‘72 plane crash while on a relief mission to aid earthquake victims in Nicaragua.) You found a number of documented problems with the plane itself, the owner of the plane, the pilot and so forth. Did that information surprise you?
    
Maraniss: Yeah, it did. When I went into it, all I knew was that he died in a plane crash and the plane was probably overloaded. I didn’t really know any of the other material or facts that led into it. The more I got into it, the more surprised I was that this plane was ever allowed to take off. You couldn’t concoct a series of events that could make you think a plane should never fly more than this one. It adds to the tragedy, I didn’t know the fullness of the story.

Q: You have the FAA guys talking about what a joke the plane’s owner was, the pilot who basically had no idea what he was doing. Do you think people of Clemente’s era will be surprised to learn how ill-fated this whole journey was?
    
Maraniss: I think, like me, everybody knows the basic part of the tragedy, which was that he died in a plane crash and the plane was overloaded. Most people don’t know the whole story of that plane and that it never should have happened. And that, among others, the government screwed up (by not grounding the plane at the San Juan airport).

Q: What kind of cooperation, if any, did you receive from the Clemente family?
    
Maraniss: It’s not an authorized biography, but I was able to interview all members of the family. His widow, VERA -- who I interviewed twice and spent a full day with in San Juan at her house -- her sons, Clemente’s older brother; all of them were very good interviews. Then during my two trips to Puerto Rico I interviewed a lot of his baseball contemporaries and friends who came from that same environment. Then on trips to Pittsburgh and other places I interviewed his former teammates.

Q: Since Clemente was your favorite player, did you have any trepidation about exploring his faults as well as his attributes?

Maraniss: Oh, always, there is some trepidation about that. On the other hand, I cover politics and I’ve written biographies before and I know there is no such thing as saints in this world. I found a lot of parts of Clemente that were idiosyncratic, and he wasn’t a saint and that only made him more interesting to me. My perspective on all human beings is that they are all very flawed. So I’m not surprised by whatever I find. And I found that Clemente, for his faults, was a noble guy.

Q: Obviously you’re best known for your political writing. What spurred your interest in writing about sports with both Lombardi and now Clemente?
    
Maraniss: First, I love sports. My first job as a newspaperman was covering high school sports while I was in college. Secondly, sports and politics aren’t all that different. And rather than say that I’m interested in politics or sports, what I’m interested in are people and the forces that shape people and sociology and good narrative stories. I think that you can find all of those things in biographies of sports figures and political figures.  After I wrote the Lombardi book, I got a lot of advice to write books about other coaches. But that wasn’t the point. Lombardi was more than just a coach. He was a way to explore the whole mythology of success in American life.
And I have no interest in writing about any other baseball players. Clemente was a figure that I could write about in a way that transcended sports.

Q: You’ve now written biographies about Lombardi, Clemente and Clinton. Of those three, which do you find most interesting and which do you find most admirable?
    
Maraniss: You couldn’t imagine three more different people and yet they have several traits in common. The most important trait being enormous willpower and the will to prevail and succeed. All of them came out of nowhere, in a sense. Clinton out of rural Arkansas, Clemente out of rural Puerto Rico and growing up in a time when there were no blacks or Puerto Ricans in baseball, Lombardi sort of struggling for years as an assistant coach before he got his shot. So in all three cases you see the willingness to overcome the odds and succeed. All three of them had trouble with the press when they became successful (laughs). You see that with Clemente, Lombardi and Clinton. They think they’re being misinterpreted; they have that level of pride. And all of them are good on race. Obviously, Clemente had to deal with it most as a black Puerto Rican, but he was pretty strong in the early-1960s, not backing down to the prevailing culture. And Lombardi and Clinton were also good as white men with some power; that issue is where they were the best. I found all three fascinating. I would say that in terms of one I can connect with, Clinton is more my contemporary, Lombardi was more like a father figure and Clemente was the one who I felt the deepest soulful connection to.

Q: You mentioned you go into your books viewing people as flawed, which we all are. Do you see a difference between, say, Roberto Clemente’s extramarital affairs and those of Bill Clinton?
    
Maraniss: I think Clinton’s personal life was important only to the extent that it affected public policy. And I would say that’s true of any person. Clemente’s personal life doesn’t affect any public policy.

Q: Is that why it’s less of an issue in the Clemente book than it is in the Clinton book?
    
Maraniss: It’s not a huge issue even in my Clinton book, except as I explain where it affected political decisions or governmental decisions.

Q: Which is more corrupt: Washington politics or professional sports?
    
Maraniss: The stakes are enormously much higher in politics and they affect more people. But unfortunately it is human nature to take short cuts and for some people to do whatever they think it takes to prevail over others or benefit themselves and that leads to enormous corruption in business, politics and sports and anything else. I don’t believe in the innocence of sports any more than the innocence of any other human endeavor.

Q: Can you even begin to hazard a guess as to how Clemente may have dealt with baseball’s steroids era?
    
Maraniss: I think that’s a great question. I don’t know the answer. I admire MIKE SCHMIDT for saying he didn’t take them, but he’s not sure what he would have done if he had had the opportunity. I’m agnostic on that for most people. I know that Clemente had a reverence for his body which might have mitigated him against doing anything like that. On the other hand, he was sort of experimental and that was an era before people knew the harm steroids could do. So I’m not going to portray him as a saint who wouldn’t have done it. I’m not going to say that about anybody. But he never lifted weights. He had a fabulous body without having to do any of that stuff.

Q: Do you think being a bit removed from the sports world has helped your books, made them better in some way?
    
Maraniss: I admire sportswriters and I think a lot of very fabulous stories and books (that are written by sportswriters). I’m not trying to present myself as anything different. I approach every story in any realm the same way and part of that is when I’m doing a book, I start by saying, “I know nothing.” And I think that’s a healthy attitude to take when you’re trying to get to the bottom of any human being or issue. I try to approach it that way and build from primary sources.

Q: How hard is it to go into something saying “I know nothing” since the people you’ve written about are well-known and their images are constantly being re-shaped?
    
Maraniss: Yeah, there are a lot of myths you have to deal with. Each of my books, mythology is one of the subjects that interests me. I have my own biases and feelings like any human being. With Clemente, I had the bias of someone who, as a child, I wouldn’t say “hero” -- I only use hero (in the book title) because of the way he died, I think that the classic definition of a hero is someone who gives his life for the betterment of others and that’s what he did, but he wasn’t a hero as a player, he was just a great player. I certainly have my own personal feelings about each of the people I’ve written about, but what fascinates me and what drives me as a journalist and as an author and as a historian is to understand why people are the way they are. So the real focus of my Clemente book is to try to explain him from the inside out: from Puerto Rico out, not an American looking at him.

Q: Would GEORGE W. BUSH make a good baseball commissioner?
    
Maraniss: I knew Bush before he ever got into politics and I thought baseball was about where he belonged. (laughs) Even though he made some lousy trades when he owned the Rangers.

Q: What about CONDI (RICE) -- do you think she is serious when she says her dream job is NFL Commissioner?
    
Maraniss: She’s kind of a Renaissance woman. I might not agree with her politically, but I have nothing against her love of sports. I don’t know whether she wants to run for office or not. If she does, she may have a hard time.
But I wouldn’t be surprised if a woman is a commissioner of one of the major sports. I think it would be great.

Maraniss Happy To See MLB's Return To DC

Q: What do you make of baseball’s return to DC?
    
Maraniss: I love it (laughs). It’s been a classic Washington story where almost everything that could go wrong almost went wrong. But it looks like they’re going to actually keep the team and build the stadium. I’m just glad baseball’s here. (Nationals manager) FRANK ROBINSON is also one of my favorite all-time baseball figures and it will be fun to see how he deals with (recent acquisition ALFONSO) SORIANO (laughs). Even in Baltimore, when they built (Camden Yards), there were a lot of Washington types who would drive up there and leave in the fifth inning. There is a little bit even more of that with the Nationals, a park being used by people for alternate purposes than old-fashioned baseball fans.  You know, I like going to a game in Detroit or Cincinnati or places like that. I’m part of a consortium of Washington Post people who have season tickets -- I think I went to four Nationals games last year. I’m also in Wisconsin during the summer and I go to a lot of Brewers games. The Brewers are my team, pathetically enough, but I think they’re going to be pretty good in a few years.

Q: You note in the book your father’s love of baseball. Did working on “Clemente” conjure childhood memories?
    
Maraniss: Absolutely. My dad died while I was working on the book so I thought of him all the time. Some of the poetry of fathers and sons and baseball is cliché, but it’s all basically true. It’s one of the great ways fathers and sons connect in America. God bless it for that.

Q: You’ve written extensively about Bill Clinton already. Any interest in a profile or book on HILLARY CLINTON as she looks more and more likely to run for president in ‘08?
    
Maraniss: I was exhausted by the Clintons for years (laughs), although I do find them fascinating. I don’t think I’ll ever write a book about Hillary, but I’ll probably write about her again, yes.

Q: Is there another sports subject you would like to explore down the road?
    
Maraniss: My next book is a combination of politics and sports. It’s about the 1960 Olympics in Rome and how the whole modern world exploded right there. It has great sports characters like CASSIUS CLAY and WILMA RUDOLPH and RAFER JOHNSON but also the issues of U.S. versus USSR and East and West Germany and Taiwan and China and black West Africa. Television for the first time, the first doping scandal and all the sociology I love.

Q: Since you’re already blending sports and politics, which sports figures do you think would make the best political candidates?
    
Maraniss: I’ve covered some athletes who have gone into politics -- they’re not the worst politicians, from JACK KEMP to the Oklahoma quarterback (J.C. WATTS). I guess GERALD FORD was a college athlete. But I don’t know who would be interested in it.