John Klima
Editor
Klima is the author of Willie’s Boys: The 1948 Birmingham Black Barons, The Last Negro League World Series and The Making of a Baseball Legend (John Wiley & Sons, 2009). His story, Deal of the Century, about Paul Pettit, who in 1950 became baseball’s first $100,000 bonus baby, appeared in the 2007 edition of The Best American Sports Writing.
He has also written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Yahoo! Sports and MLB.com. His writing has been honored by the Associated Press Sports Editors. Klima also wrote Pitched Battle (2002), Scouting the Heart (2005), and a collection of his baseball writing appears at his personal website, www.klimaink.com. He graduated from California State University, Northridge, with a degree in anthropology. As a baseball writer, he has covered several major league games.
As a baseball broadcaster, he covered Pepperdine University for two years and spent 2003 as the radio announcer for the Yakima Bears. He has informally scouted for several seasons, with numerous contacts in baseball scouting and player development throughout baseball.
Jennifer Marder
Communications, webmaster and social media coordinator
In her webmaster and social media coordinator roles at Baseball Beginnings, Ms. Marder is responsible for the site’s search engine optimization, serves as the site’s first copy reader, produces all online video packages and also films in the field, operates the site’s Facebook, YouTube and Twitter pages, produces still photos and photo captioning, maintains all back-up procedures, and knows the difference between a hitter creating gunshots with a wooden bat and a hitter who sounds like he is slapping at the ball with a rolled up newspaper.
In her role as publicist for Baseball Beginnings and Klima’s book, Willie’s Boys, Marder has acquired radio interviews for Klima on KNBR (San Francisco) and The FAN (Toronto). She has placed Baseball Beginnings content links with the Miami Herald and Baltimore Sun, among others. She maintains a nation-wide database of traditional media and new media contacts.
Marder graduated from the University of Southern California Law School and earned a MA in Mass Communication from California State University, Northridge and a BA in Political Science from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. She has worked for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Kings, Los Angeles Avengers and Los Angeles Riptide. She has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and has been published in the Sports Lawyers Journal and several other publications.
