McNally book-your input requested
Book authorship requires marketing, so I have a favor to ask. Below is the draft book jacket copy for my next book (Never Give an Inch: How Dave McNally Sparked a Revolution in Major-League Baseball and Professional Sports). I'm trying to get a sense of its appeal to potential readers once the book is published (shooting for 2025). So below the copy I've included a link to a Survey Monkey survey; your responses are welcome. Thanks!
On spring day in June 1951, Dave McNally discovered Little League baseball in his hometown, Billings, Montana. He became a star youth baseball player thanks first to the pioneering efforts of a Billings businessman, Cecil “Cec” Musburger. Cec Musburger, father of famed TV broadcaster Brent Musburger, started the first Little League program in Billings and possibly in Montana. McNally’s journey to the top also got a major lift from Ed Bayne, his coach while he played for Billings’ powerhouse American Legion Post 4 team.
Neither McNally nor his mentors, Musburger and Bayne foremost among them, could foretell the future. If they could have, they would have received this revelation: Sports Illustrated magazine would name McNally the greatest athlete of the 20th Century in Montana, and Baltimore sportswriters would list him as No. 14 among all-time greats for the Baltimore Orioles. Then, after retiring and moving back to Billings, McNally would become one of two players, Andy Messersmith being the other one, whose resistance to the major league’s reserve clause would bring about its fall and usher in the era of free agency.
McNally died from cancer at age 60 in December 2002. But his legacy as someone who stood up to the power of the baseball establishment and helped achieve workplace fairness for professional athletes lives on. Never Give An Inch, by veteran Billings journalist Dennis Gaub, who knew and wrote about McNally, brings the story of a humble yet stalwart southpaw pitcher to life.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/3NB969X
Survey Monkey requires a paid account for surveys with open-ended text responses, so if you have a comment on the content above, please email me at: dennis@treasurestatepress.com
Thanks!