DiMaggio biographer to pen A-Rod book

Richard Ben Cramer, author of Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life, is working on a biography of American League MVP Alex Rodriguez.

Last month, he told Publishers Weekly he expected A-Rod, who had declared free agency, to re-sign with his old team. So basically there were only two options: Either he would or he wouldn’t. Cramer had a 50-50 chance of being right. It wasn’t as if there were five or six clubs from which to predict where the superstar would end up. Is that such a big deal that PW needs to crow that he got it right, other than to add an extra promo for the upcoming project?

In a separate article, Cramer told PW he’d been working on the project for “more than a year,” although he had yet to start the actually writing yet, and that it would be “a full biography. It’s also a look at what the modern sports star is. It’s a whole different life than we think of from prior days.” He said would not be “doing a ‘DiMaggio’ on Rodriguez.” The 2000 bio on the Yankee Clipper received mixed reviews and was criticized for its portrayal of the man who was considered the Greatest Living Player as cheap, selfish and misanthropic.

There is no scheduled publication date at this point.

Cramer can be thankful that Rodriguez will be staying in New York. He understood how the change in locale could affect the book’s sales. “I mean if he goes to the Arizona Diamondbacks, that’s different from going to the Dodgers or the Angels,” he told PW.

As for his move from S&S to Twelve, the upstart house that is still in its first year, Cramer said, . “S&S did not want this book, so we took it to Jon Karp and, God bless him, he’s very excited. There’s a second book in the deal. I’m not sure what it is. I guess I’ll have had my say about baseball at that point.”

“We’re thrilled, honored and ecstatic about publishing Richard Ben Cramer,” Jonathan Karp, publisher/editor-in-chief of Twelve told PW. “He’s a singular writer. I’m a bigger Richard Ben Cramer fan than I am an A-Rod fan and this is all about publishing one of America’s greatest literary journalists, that’s what this is about.”

“I didn’t start out [thinking] that it was going to get done quick,” continued Cramer, “so that I could take advantage of the news of the month or the news of the week. Everybody recommends acceleration to me, but I’ve never tried it.” Cramer laughs before adding, “This guy’s news value is not going to diminish. He’s a crossover star.”

In an e-mail to RKsBaseballBookshelf, Cary Goldstein, Twelve’s director of publicity and acquisitions editor, wrote, “Richard Ben Cramer is one of the great writers of our time, and we are proud to be his publisher. His A-Rod book promises to be a classic.”