Léo Batista was once called João Baptista Bellinaso Neto. Son of an Italian immigrant couple formed by the bricklayer Antonio and the housewife Maria, he understood from an early age that he needed to work to help a home without any luxury in Cordeirópolis, near Limeira, in the interior of São Paulo. When Dona Maria got a small bar from her husband to supplement the family’s income, it was up to him and his sister Leonilda to deliver, from house to house, the bread that came by train in the cold mornings, before school.
“I once asked my sister shortly before she died: ‘Nilda, on those cold four-degree mornings that we crossed barefoot, you at five, me at seven, bringing bread to people, do you remember anyone? offered us hot coffee?’ Never” – said Léo, harboring a grudge that, at 92 years old, still sounded fresh. “I didn’t have a childhood. I don’t know what it’s like to play.”
While the street children played football, João Baptista, aged 11 to 13, helped his father as a bricklayer. Adolescence would prove to be much more auspicious, even after the young man abandoned the seminary in Campinas to help the family pension, at the age of 15, as a waiter. At that age, he would also begin one of the longest careers in Brazilian sports journalism, which lasted 76 years, dividing himself between radio and TV, where his “marking voice” – an epithet given by colleague and narrator Luís Roberto de Múcio – it would become intimate to generations and generations of fans and spectators.
This Sunday (19), Léo Batista died at the age of 92, after being admitted to the Rios d’Or hospital, in Freguesia, west of Rio de Janeiro, with complications caused by a tumor in the pancreas. He leaves a daughter.
His career in sports began in 1947, when, on the recommendation of a cousin, the young man with the pointy chin tried his luck in the announcer contest for a radio station that spread across 12 loudspeakers in Cordeirópolis. Once approved, he introduced himself as Bellinaso Neto, the name with which he was hired six months later by Rádio Birigui, already with the dream of one day narrating a football game. In 1950, he attended a World Cup final, at Maracanã, representing Rádio Difusora de Piracicaba, but was unable to narrate Ghiggia’s goal, which buried the dream of Brazil’s first title.
“They messed up when distributing the telephone transmission wires, and I couldn’t narrate the game because I couldn’t find my line,” he said in 2019. “Then the game ended, and I cried.”
Two years later, Bellinaso Neto found himself criticized one day by the players of XV de Piracicaba, his favorite team, after a game in which the team, in his words, “won, but was not convincing”. To his surprise, the radio owner approached and proved the players right. The support came from veteran Rio striker Santo Cristo, who invited him to go to Rio and try his career in the city.
He knocked on the doors of Rádio Mayrink Veiga and Rádio Clube do Brasil and ended up hired at Rádio Globo, which had Luiz Mendes, the Wolner brothers Doalcei Camargo and Raul Brunini from São Paulo, who had already heard a game narrated by the boy from Cordeirópolis. It was the time of Café Nice on Avenida Rio Branco, which was frequented by names like Noel Rosa, Lamartine Babo and Ataulfo Alves.
However, Mendes got confused when trying to pronounce “Bellinaso” and, therefore, ordered the young man to change his name urgently. He thought quickly: he borrowed “Léo” from Leonilda – who hated that name – and simplified the Baptista he already carried.
“The funny thing is that, at home, I also became Léo. They never called me João again.”
It was with the name Léo Batista that the announcer became a brand in sports journalism and also starred in important moments: he was the first journalist to announce the suicide of Getúlio Vargas, on August 24, 1954. The following year, he had his first experience in television, presenting the Pirelli newspaper daily and narrating football on TV Rio, where he remained until 1968, when he was succeeded by Cid Moreira. Halfway through, he adopted Botafogo as his favorite team.
His first steps at TV Globo were taken in 1970, as a substitute narrator at the Mexico Cup. On a day when Cid Moreira asked to be released from editing Jornal Nacional, Léo was pleased and ended up being hired. Afterwards, he participated in the debut of Jornal Hoje, in 1971, and in Globo’s first daily sports program, Copa Brasil. In August 1978, he took over the presentation of Globo Esporte, of which he became practically a synonym, joining the staff until 2014. On Sundays, he was the voice of Gols do Fantástico until 2007, when he gave the position to Tadeu Schmidt.
“Doctor Roberto Marinho was a great boss, a great boss. It’s a shame, because I should have already ordered a mass to be said for him,” this anguished Catholic told the reporter last November.
The announcer has suffered severe blows in the last three years. In January 2022, the presenter was at home, in the Jacarepaguá neighborhood (west zone of Rio) when he missed his wife, Leyla. He found her floating in the pool, after a heart attack at the age of 84. It was the tragic end of a marriage that began in a comical way: the bride and groom had to wait for the breathless arrival of Dom Helder Câmara, who was considerably late for the ceremony at the church of Santa Margarida Maria, in Lagoa.
Last year, Léo also lost his friend Cid Moreira, with whom he had crossed paths professionally since 1968, and his perplexity at the wake generated one of the most bittersweet images of 2024. Léo still sparsely attended the Globo sports newsroom until last year , without ever considering himself a retiree. I had a certain fear of losing my job, as if I ignored the symbol it was for the network – in 2024, it was the subject of a four-episode series on Globoplay, directed by Kizzy. Magellan.
