February 9, 2005 For more information: Frank R. Scatoni 619-807-1887 frank@ventureliterary.com "No Kill Date" Venture Literary Sells Baseball Hall of Fame Narrative to Carroll & Graf On February 9, 2005, Greg Dinkin and Frank R. Scatoni, representing Jim Reisler, sold North American rights to A Great Day in Cooperstown to Nate Knaebel at Carroll & Graf. In A Great Day in Cooperstown, Reisler provides a brilliant historical account of the early days of baseball and the creation of the most iconic sports museum in history—the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Not only does he re-create a lost era of American sports history, but he also brings to life an incredible cast of characters—the first eleven players inducted into the Hall—who make this story so compelling: Connie Mack, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Walter Johnson, Cy Young, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Tris Speaker, Napoleon Lajoie, Eddie Collins, George Sisler, and Ty Cobb, who, in typical Cobb fashion, showed up late to the proceedings. Reisler’s jumping off point for the narrative is a memorable photograph of all of the original inductees, which was taken during the Hall’s opening-day festivities. It’s reminiscent of the brilliant Art Kane photograph of jazz musicians, taken in 1958, which was explored in an Academy Award–winning documentary called A Great Day in Harlem, when dozens of the world’s most famous jazz musicians gathered outside an apartment building in Harlem. Nineteen years before, in 1939, the greatest baseball players America had ever known, gathered together and were photographed in Cooperstown—and the famous photo of the players has become a classic. It is among the sport’s most enduring images, a wire-service shot that captures the chiseled faces of the personalities of the game’s first century. Reisler uses that photograph as a springboard to describing not just baseball’s great day, but the story behind the story—what it took to build the world’s first museum dedicated to sports along with detailed profiles of the powerful, legendary personalities that helped make the day such a great success. Jim Reisler, who has written articles for the New York Times, the New York Daily News, and Newsweek, is the author of four baseball books. His most recent book, Babe Ruth: Launching the Legend, was published by McGraw-Hill and received rave reviews. He is also the editor of the anthology Guys, Dolls, and Curveballs: Runyon on Baseball. To learn more about Venture Literary, visit: www.ventureliterary.com. To learn more about Carroll & Graf, visit: www.carrollandgraf.com