Staton Rabin

Staton Rabin (Cutebunion@aol.com) is a freelance sports photographer and an award-winning author. Her latest collaboration is the memoir of baseball's most famous dog: DERBY! My Bodacious Life in Baseball by H.R. Derby (Official Bat Dog of the Trenton Thunder, the Double-A Affiliate Team of the New York Yankees), which features many of the Yankees' greatest rookies who recently broke through to major league stardom.

The lavish, photo-illustrated gift book has hundreds of original color photos, and is a funny and poignant inside-the-dugout peek at young baseball players on the cusp of fame-- told entirely from the point of view of the team's famous golden retriever, Derby, who views himself as the players' chief coach, mentor, best friend, team psychologist-- and the REAL All-Star of the team. DERBY! is ideal for tweens who love baseball and dogs-- if they can just tear it away from YOU long enough to read it!

From the photographer's well right next to the dugout, Staton spent much of two baseball seasons observing and photographing Derby, his adorable puppy (and heir apparent Bat Dog), Rookie, and the wonderful baseball players of the Trenton Thunder at their home games. She was with them in the cold and the rain, and in blazing heat of summer; in victory, and in defeat. For her, it was a privilege to witness these determined young athletes' dedication, optimism and cheerful good spirits, hard work-- and, above all, their unbreakable bonds of brotherly affection for each other-- as they strived to achieve their dreams of making it to the big leagues. And a great many of them-- such as some of the Yankees' biggest young stars, Greg Bird, Gary Sanchez, Rob Refsnyder, and Luis Severino-- did!

She watched Derby the Bat Dog expertly perform his duties, picking up and retrieving bats for the team, and his son, Rookie, studying his father from the stands to learn the job from a master of the art of being a Bat Dog. Derby and Rookie are the latest Bat Dogs in a three-generation dynasty that began with Derby's fondly-remembered father, Chase, the greatest Trenton Thunder Bat Dog of them all.

With a wink, a smile, a fist bump, or an occasional tap on her Rawlings minor league baseball helmet, the Thunder baseball players communicated with Staton, mostly without words (after all, they were all busy working!). She got to the know the players' individual personalities simply by watching them prepare for and play the game and communicate with each other. As the late, great Yogi Berra said, "You can observe a lot by watching."

Staton Rabin's other books include BETSY AND THE EMPEROR (from Simon & Schuster/McElderry Books, and published in 16 languages), THE CURSE OF THE ROMANOVS (Simon & Schuster), MR. LINCOLN'S BOYS (Viking), and others. Among the awards and honors her previous books have received are: starred reviews in "School Library Journal" and "Publishers Weekly", New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age, Westchester Best Book, ABA/Book Sense Pick for Teens, Westchester Best Book, International Reading Association Distinguished Book, Notable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies; etc.

When not writing books or photographing professional sports, she coaches and advises other writers on shaping their books or screenplays into marketable form (www.StatonRabin.com), and she has a BFA in Film from NYU. She's taught writing courses as various institutions, and is also a frequent guest speaker for writing classes at NYU.

Staton Rabin shoots pictures freelance for ZUMA Press Wire Service and her photos are also distributed by the Associated Press (AP Images). She won a 2015 Journalism Award from the New York Press Club for some of her sports images, and a second J-Award for a spot news photo in 2016, and her images appear in TIME Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, New York Daily News, New York Post, at CNN.com and People.com, and many other newspapers and magazines around the world. You can see samples of her work at www.StatonRabinPhotography.com

For her next book, she'd like to ghostwrite or co-write the autobiography of a major league baseball player.