Sunday, February 2, 2014

Exclusive Interview With Beat Writer Robert Pimpsner


Yesterday, as a part of Prospects Months here on The Greedy Pinstripes, we shared out interview with Nick Rumbelow of the Staten Island Yankees and today we interview one of the many men covering Nick, Mr. Robert Pimpsner. Robert is a well dressed, good food eating, MLB The Show playing beat writer for the Staten Island Yankees and does a marvelous job covering the team and the players. Check out what the best dressed man in show biz has to say with us in our interview:




The Greedy Pinstripes: Being born and raised in Staten Island were you a Yankees fan growing up? Or were you brainwashed into being a Mets fan like so many at a young age?

Robert Pimpsner: I was always a baseball fan first.  Growing up in a family of Met fans I do have an appreciation for them but I will forever be a Yankees fan first.

TGP: Did you play any sports growing up as a kid?

RP: Growing up I played soccer and Tee-ball, I was not much of an athlete but tried.

TGP: What made you want to cover baseball from this side of the field?

RP: It is something I fell into.  I always had a love for writing and baseball is one of those things where I can get away from the world so it was just a natural fit.

TGP: Do you or do you not have the best job in the world covering baseball every single day? I am going to go with the former over the latter but I would like to hear your thoughts. 

RP: It is a fun job, something I wish I could do full-time.  I have had many great experiences covering the team and have met a lot of great people.  Nothing beats the first week of the season where you are catching up with the regulars whether it be media members or ticket holders at the stadium.

For the most part there is very high turnover year-after-year in the media contingent.  I am the second longest beat writer covering the team, having been around since 2002.  Only the Staten Island Advance beat writers have been there longer.  With that I enjoy helping out the new writers who are getting their first taste of covering a professional team. 

TGP: How did you get involved with baseball and covering the Staten Island Yankees specifically?

RP: It is actually an interesting story.  Back in 2002 I was pretty good friends with two pitchers on the team, Matt Brumitt and Ryan Bicondoa, and one day towards the end of the 2002 season we were talking by the bullpen before a game and they mentioned that their families were having trouble staying up-to-date on their progress.

This is when I was 13 years old and I was experimenting with web design back then so I came up with the idea for a website.  With that Baby-Bombers.com was born.  I ran that website from 2003-2009, I was a junior at St John’s University at the time and decided it was time to move on.  That is when I joined with Gotham Baseball and Going 9 Media who at the time ran BaseballDigest.com.

I was with them until 2011 when I started working full-time in marketing.  I tried to stay away in 2011 but the game called to me and I worked only 6 games that year (4 in Brooklyn, 2 in Staten Island) and I decided that in 2012 I would launch my own site again.  In less than a week I got Pinstriped Prospects up and running and it went well for the first year, that was until I lose everything on the sever and my computer as well as all my backups crashed.

I decided to take 2013 to try to rebuild it slowly, I am still working on the new design and look for the website.  While I was working on that I came up with the idea to use the visual storytelling techniques I love to use in advertising to tell the story of the games so I reached out to my close friend Rob at Bronx Baseball Daily with the idea.  We ran with it for the 2013 season and it was a big success.  As of right now I am not sure if Pinstriped Prospects will be ready for 2014 but I am looking at several options on what I might do this year in regards to baseball.  I say stay tuned to my Twitter account as whatever I decided will be announced there.

TGP: Best/Favorite moment covering the SI Yanks? Doesn't necessarily have to be related to the game itself. 

RP: There are several moments that stand out from my time covering the Staten Island Yankees.  I have been there for all the brawls in team history but the most interesting one was in 2006 when Gaylen Pitts was manager of the team.  On AUgust 21st the Staten Island Yankees were playing the Brooklyn Cyclones at Keyspan Park (now MCU Park).  Early on in the first inning Pitts was ejected from the game but by the eighth inning the Yankees had a 21-6 lead over Brooklyn.  Tempers flared in the eighth and both benches cleared.  With the players dueling on the field out came Pitts in a ripped tank top, shorts and flip flops to fight.  That has always been one of the most entertaining moments in team history.

TGP: Ripped tank top, shorts, and flip flops and ready to fight... I have now officially heard it all in sports, thank you Robert. That literally made me laugh, and the wife thought it was "cute" as well. 


TGP: Did you get to meet and speak with Hideki Matsui when he threw batting practice for the SI Yankees this past season?


RP: I had the chance to speak with him but I did not take the opportunity.  As much of a Yankees fan I am I figure I let him be, the media that follows him around pretty much asks any question I could think of.  But it was cool to watch him take BP before the final home game.

TGP: What current and former Yankees have you seen, spoke with, and covered down in the New York Penn League?

RP: Well this list is pretty long, there are many I have met including Yankees GM Brian Cashman, Gene Michaels, etc.  I have been around the Staten Island Yankees long enough to be around Robinson Cano, Brett Gardner, Adam Warren, David Phelps, Preston Claiborne.  The list is long, it was fun sharing the dugout with Phil Hughes during his rehab as well as the other rehabbing players.


TGP: Are you the best dressed beat writer in the history of beat writing?


RP: Well I do have my own unique style.  As you might be able to tell from my Twitter and Instagram I like suits.  It is something that I always loved since I was a kid (I know I am weird).  I say my style is sort of a mix between classic Rat Pack and Harvey Specter. 

I am always the most overdressed person in the press box, while my colleagues are in jeans and t-shirt I am there in a tailored suit complete with French cuff shirts and vintage cufflinks.  Last season I was in the camera wells for most games so I pretty much stuck to a collared shirt and slacks since it does get hot down there, the only downside is cleaning the clay off my shoes every night. 

TGP: Any other hobbies you enjoy doing besides baseball? 

RP: I work full-time in the marketing/advertising field.  That is something I really love to do and I stay very active in it.  In my free time I am always researching the latest in the field as well as trying to learn more about building websites and applications.

I am also a big believer in giving back to the community and with that in mind I volunteer as the Alumnus Advisor for the chapter of Kappa Sigma Fraternity I founded with my friends in college as well as do a lot of volunteering in the NYC area with them.  I enjoy working the undergraduates a lot as it allows me to teach them some of the things I have learned along the way.

TGP: Scrolling through your Twitter pictures I noticed you made beef wellington and it looks amazing. Are you a foodie?

RP: I would say yes I am a foodie but I am more of a cook.  I love to cook and there is nothing that relaxes me more than coming home after work going to the store to get fresh ingredients and then making something spectacular in my kitchen.  My beef wellington recipe started off as copying Gordon Ramsay’s recipe that I had at his restaurant in Las Vegas but I have since made changes to reflect my tastes and gotten good reviews of it so far.

TGP: How excited are you about this coming season with all the new additions to the Yankees squad?

RP: This is going to be an interesting year for the Yankees on all fronts.  At the major league level I am very excited for spring training and to see what Tanaka can do.  I have yet to see any film of him pitching so I am very interested.  I want to see some more of the young guys get a chance but I also want to win.

TGP: If you were GM for a day, and this doesn't have to necessarily be realistic, what one move would you make?

RP: I want to put together a long-term vision on how to be competitive in the future for years and decades not just individual seasons.  For that I would sacrifice a year or two to build up a competitive minor league system that pumps out quality player after quality player.  But I know that isn’t realistic in New York.  So for a day I would love to see the Yankees use the open spots in the bullpen to let all the young kids pitch.  I want to see Betances in the majors this year and give him a shot out of the pen.

TGP: Most famous person in your cell phone right now?

RP: Ahh I don’t like to reveal that.

TGP: Most embarrassing song in your iPod?

RP: Well I don’t own an iPod (I have a distaste for Apple products) but on my BlackBerry I have some Taylor Swift that some would consider embarrassing.

TGP: Boo! Long live Apple!

TGP: We'll finish with this, where do you want to end up in your career? What is your ultimate goal?

RP: My ultimate goal is to have my own company that is broken down into a sports/entertainment division, a marketing agency division and a publications division.  I am actually starting to put together my business plan for it together and will try to build it slowly.  I invite everyone to check out my personal website/blog at http://www.robertpimpsner.com/


We want to thank Mr. Pimpsner for taking the time out of his schedule to do this interview for us, it is much appreciated from all the writers here as well as our readers. It is appreciated and we hope you have nothing but luck and success in everything you do both on and off the field. You can follow Robert on Twitter by following @RPimpsner.

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