Crasnick, Jerry

PERSONAL: Married; children: two daughters. Education: Graduated from Boston University, 1980.

ADDRESSES: Home—Langhorne, PA. Office—ESPN.com, ESPN Plaza, Bristol, CT 06010.

CAREER: Journalist. ESPN.com, lead "Insider Baseball" reporter. Previously worked for Cincinnati Post, Denver Post, Bloomberg News, Sporting News, Sport magazine, and Baseball America. Frequent guest on Entertainment and Sports Network (ESPN) radio.

WRITINGS:

License to Deal: A Season on the Run with a Maverick Baseball Agent, Rodale Press (Emmaus, PA), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS: In his book License to Deal: A Season on the Run with a Maverick Baseball Agent, sportswriter Jerry Crasnick follows the story of Matt Sosnick, who heads a small agency in California that represents several baseball players. Although decidedly not as powerful as prominent sports agents and agencies, Sosnick does have a star client, baseball pitcher Dontrelle Willis of the Florida Marlins. In the course of his book, Crasnick details the fierce competition Sosnick faces from other agents who wish to represent Willis. In an interview for the Sports Frog Web site, Crasnick noted, "I'm indebted to Matt Sosnick for the access he provided for the book. But more than that, it was his willingness to be portrayed warts and all."

In a Booklist review of License to Deal, Alan Moores noted that the author "paints a portrait of the sports-agent business that is fascinating but far from pretty." As a Publishers Weekly contributor wrote, "This in-depth profile is especially good at capturing the earnest but earthy young agent's contradictions." Additionally, Ram Subramanian noted in a review on the Curled Up with a Good Book Web site that the author "delves deep and hard to profile the life of a baseball agent, and provides quite a telling antithesis to the glamorous life portrayed in the movie Jerry Maguire."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, July, 2005, Alan Moores, review of License to Deal: A Season on the Run with a Maverick Baseball Agent, p. 1889.

Publishers Weekly, May 2, 2005, review of License to Deal, p. 190.

ONLINE

Bostonia (alumni quarterly of Boston University), http://www.bu.edu/alumni/bostonia/ (November 11, 2005), Brian Fitzgerald, review of License to Deal.

Curled Up with a Good Book, http://www.curledup.com/ (November 11, 2005), Ram Subramanian, review of License to Deal.

ESPN Web site, http://sports.espn.go.com/ (November 11, 2005).

Sports Frog, http://www.sportsfrog.com/ (June 10, 2005), interview with author.