The National Steinbeck Center Announces A Special Talk, Q&A and Signing by Steinbeck's Great, Great Niece

Top Quote John Steinbeck's great, great niece, Molly Knight, has written a blockbuster book about most the expensive and notorious team in major league baseball. End Quote
  • Salinas, CA (1888PressRelease) August 18, 2015 - THE BEST TEAM MONEY CAN BUY : The Los Angeles Dodgers' Wild Struggle to Build a Baseball Powerhouse By Molly Knight
    SALINAS, CA (August 2015) John Steinbeck insisted that his beloved younger sister Mary was a better writer than he. A love of writing is, no doubt, strong in the Steinbeck family. Mary's great granddaughter has hit a home run with her first book, The Best Team Money Can Buy. (Steinbeck also wrote about sports-once-in a little essay called "Then My Arm Glassed up." He admits that his interest in sports is "cool" and yet his wife Elaine was a staunch Dodgers fan: "I guess our family devoted more pure spiritual energy to the Dodgers than to any other religious organization. This, of course, was before they defected to the West." )

    Niece Molly is a fan of the Dodgers in the West, and she will be reading from her new book at the National Steinbeck Center on Sunday, August 23 at 3:00 pm. There will be a members' reception and greeting before the reading at 2:00 pm.

    The National Steinbeck Center is located at One Main Street in Salinas, California, the birthplace of John Steinbeck. It is a museum and cultural institution dedicated to serving the community, the region and the nation, enhancing awareness of Steinbeck's works and ideas. The National Steinbeck Center fosters the arts and promotes discussion of social issues.

    Talk / Q&A / Signing National Steinbeck Center
    · Sunday, August 23rd
    · 3:00 p.m. 2:00 pm Members' reception
    · National Steinbeck Center One Main Street Salinas

    There is no cost. RSVP not required
    · Meet the Author Molly Knight
    · Listen to a talk about Molly Knight's new book THE BEST TEAM MONEY CAN BUY: The Los Angeles Dodgers' Wild

    Struggle to Build a Baseball
    · For more information about this and other events, visit our website at www.steinbeck.org.

    What the critics are saying!
    "A searching portrait of the Los Angeles Dodgers' 2013 season….an exciting season, which Knight chronicles with style and discernment. She knows the science of the game, its strange geometry and freakish physics, as well as its history and etiquette….With acumen, Knight delivers an elegant précis of a baseball team's season, and you don't have to be a Dodgers fan to enjoy it."-Kirkus Reviews

    About the Book
    Over a period of several years, sportswriter Molly Knight gained unprecedented access to the Los Angeles Dodgers organization-the players and their families, the coaching staff, the ownership and the front office. In THE BEST TEAM MONEY CAN BUY: The Los Angeles Dodgers' Wild Struggle to Build a Baseball Powerhouse (July 14, 2015/$26.00 hardcover), she chronicles the tumultuous years when the Dodgers were completely overhauled-from the ownership to management to players on the field-to provide a behind-the-scenes look at the triumphs and chaos of a team under the microscope as it attempts to rebuild. In doing so, she delivers a revelatory look at the inner workings of a major league baseball team, and what it takes to make a team competitive today.

    In 2012 the Dodgers organization was rescued from bankruptcy when Guggenheim Partners, led by NBA legend Magic Johnson, purchased the team for the record sum of $2.15 billion-shattering the previous record for an American sports franchise by a billion dollars. As Knight notes, "What they got was a fixer-upper." But the new owners were genuinely committed to increasing the club's anemic payroll, attracting star players, and winning back disillusioned fans. Within two years, Los Angeles had the highest payroll in U.S. professional sports and a roster loaded with eccentric and expensive superstars.

    In THE BEST TEAM MONEY CAN BUY, Knight tells the whole story of that transformation and the parts played by the likes of manager Don Mattingly, pitcher Clayton Kershaw, outfielders Matt Kemp and Yasiel Puig, general manager Ned Colletti, and many others.

    Her narrative is packed with little-known stories and previously unreported revelations, including:
    · Why owning a baseball team in a big market is the best financial bet in sports-more lucrative than owning any NFL or NBA team.
    · What the Dodgers actually knew in advance about rookie phenom and Cuban defector Puig, how he went from being an unknown to the game's most talked about player in a matter of months, and the circus surrounding his roller-coaster rookie season, from his being pursued by a drug cartel to his relationship with a coach's daughter.

    · Details about the constant infighting that almost derailed the team's 2013 season, including how Kemp and Puig nearly came to blows several times, how Zack Greinke threw Puig's suitcase off the bus onto Michigan Avenue during a road trip to Chicago, and more.

    · How close Mattingly came to getting fired, and how he fought for his job.
    · The truth behind the blockbuster trade with the Red Sox that ended up helping Boston more than LA-and how that deal may yet turn out to be of greater benefit to the Dodgers.

    Knight chronicles the reconfigured Dodgers' early stumbles in the 2013 season, and then the remarkable turnaround in July and August that led to the best fifty-game stretch of baseball (42-8) of any team since World War II-a run that came to an end in the playoffs, in a crushing loss to the St. Louis Cardinals.

    In 2014 the pattern would repeat itself-the Dodgers won their division and went to the playoffs, only to suffer defeat. Yet they remain a team to contend with, driven by a determination to end their twenty-six year World Series championship drought. "No matter how much money they spent or how good they looked on paper or how well they got along in the clubhouse, winning a championship would not be easy," Knight writes. "It never was."

    About the Author
    Molly Knight wrote about baseball for ESPN The Magazine for eight seasons. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Glamour, SELF, Baseball Prospectus, andVariety. A native of Los Angeles and lifelong Dodgers fan, she lives in L.A. Visitwww.MollyKnight.com. Follow ( @ ) Molly_Knight dot

    About the book
    Title: THE BEST TEAM MONEY CAN BUY: The Los Angeles Dodgers' Wild Struggle to Build a Baseball Powerhouse
    Author: Molly Knight
    Pub Date: July 14, 2015
    Price: $26.00 hardcover
    Pages: 336
    ISBN: 978-1-4767-7629-3

    To download high-resolution digital images of Simon & Schuster covers, authors and selected interior illustrations, as well as press releases, author bios, and excerpts of current and recent titles, please visit www.simonandschuster.biz

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