For more information:
Frank R. Scatoni
619-807-1887
frank at ventureliterary.com

"No Kill Date"

Venture Literary Sells Sportswriter’s Oral History at the Last Great Era of Baseball to Lyons Press


On August 21, 2009, Frank R. Scatoni of Venture Literary, representing baseball journalist and radio personality George Castle, sold World English rights to an untitled oral history of the 1970s in baseball, a decade that changed the game into what it is today, to Keith Wallman at the Lyons Press.

Castle’s book will concentrate on the personal memories of players, managers, broadcasters, and fans about a decade in which more radical changes emerged than at any other time in baseball’s celebrated history—and more Hall of Fame talent perhaps was on the field at the same time compared to other eras. Despite a lot of sentimental attachment to the 1950s and New York baseball, it was the 1970s that truly was baseball’s golden age. Discounting Astroturf, cookie-cutter multi-purpose stadiums, and wildly colorful uniforms and hairstyles, the decade brought about free agency, the designated hitter, the rise of the bullpen, the first black manager and all-black and Latin lineup, and cable TV coverage of baseball, among other changes and innovations. The book ends in late 1979, when Nolan Ryan was granted the first-ever $1 million annual contract.

George Castle has gotten a twenty-year head tart on the golden-era book through multi-media interviews in radio, newspapers, magazines, and other books thanks to his frequent reporting of the game. Castle has two passions—reporting on the game today and chronicling its rich history that’s unmatched by any other sport. That talent will bring readers back in time almost forty years to an era when Willie Mays, Henry Aaron, and Ernie Banks were being joined in the player ranks by Reggie Jackson, Nolan Ryan, Tom Seaver, Mike Schmidt, and a host of other future Hall of Famers.

Castle is a longtime sportswriter who has covered the Cubs, White Sox, and Major League Baseball since 1994 for The Times of Northwest Indiana, as well as for his hugely popular syndicated radio show, Diamond Gems. He is beginning a baseball blog for the new national site TrueSlant.com. Since 1998, Castle has published nine baseball books with an emphasis on the Cubs. His latest work, published in March, 2009, was entitled Sweet Lou and the Cubs, an inside-out look at how manager Lou Piniella tried to bring a winner to Wrigley Field in 2007-08.



To learn more about Venture Literary, visit: www.ventureliterary.com.
To learn more about Lyons Press, visit: www.lyonspress.com
To learn more about George Castle visit: http://trueslant.com/GeorgeCastle