Inside Baseball

So he’s really fa- mous?” Parade magazine senior articles editor Fran Carpentier, Brooklyn Italian to the core, asked her luncheon companion at Dolce in midtown Manhattan last February. “Yeah,” nodded Dee Covey Shoup, promotions wizard for Richards/Ingersoll of Dallas. “Ask anybody in this room.” They started with the waiter. “Best pee-cher in baseball,” he beamed. “Ask those two suits,” Shoup prodded. Same song, different accent.

Hooked but not landed, Carpentier agreed to lug Shoup’s offering, a thick preview manuscript, over to her office to show her editor. Shoup had barely landed back in Dallas when she, in turn, got Carpentier’s urgent message: “We want it-we gotta work fast!”

What they wanted was first excerpt and profile rights for Miracle Man, the new ghosted autobiography of that reasonably famous guy, Texas Ranger pitcher Nolan Ryan. They got it, publishing a cover story on Ryan and his wife, Ruth, in the April 26 issue of Parade. What Shoup got was great publicity for her client, Word Publishing, an Irving-based Christian multimedia giant.

As for Carpentier, she’s now aware of Ryan’s 5,000-plus strikeouts, 314 victories and seven no-hitters, “How can I ever repay you?” she asked Shoup. “All the guys in the office were crazy about it. They gave me a standing ovation.”