Courtesy Fresno Bee

(June 4, 2009) Former television sportscaster Dan Taylor can’t decide who would play him if a movie is made from his new book “The Rise of the Bulldogs: The Untold Story of One of the Greatest Upsets of All Time” (HarperOne, $25.99). It chronicles Fresno State’s run last year to the NCAA college baseball championship.

Taylor is doing a book signing from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday at the Fig Garden Bookstore, 5084 N. Palm Ave.

“I think Brad Pitt would be too expensive,” Taylor jokes.

The book is no joking matter. It was a key reason Taylor left his job as KFSN (Channel 30) sports director in October. He had held the job since 1984. He says he also wanted to pursue other business opportunities and spend more time with his family.

Taylor says he never thought about writing a book until he talked with his good friend Tom Watt, who ghost wrote the David Beckham autobiography.

“We got together in England in June [2008]. We were just talking sports. I started telling him about the Bulldogs. He said it sounded like a great story for a book,” Taylor says.

Taylor didn’t take the idea seriously until a few weeks later when he got together again with Watt at a soccer match in Los Angeles. Watt had told his literary agent, Jonathan Harris, about the Bulldogs, and Harris agreed it would make a good book.

Harris pitched the idea to HarperOne. Within a few weeks, Taylor started the laborious job of collecting interviews, writing, rewriting and rounding up photos for the book. He found it far different from creating a 30-second television story.

“It took about five months to write and another three months for all of the edits and changes. They handled the cover photo. But at the last moment they needed photos for eight pages of pictures inside,” Taylor says.

“I sent them information on Internet sites where I had seen good photos. They told me that it was the responsibility of the author to get those pictures.”

The experience was enjoyable enough that Taylor is considering subjects for another sports book. This is the second book about the Fresno State baseball team. Former KGPE (Channel 47) sports director Paul Loeffler’s “Underdogs to Wonderdogs: Fresno State’s Road to Omaha and the College World Series Championship” was released in December.

“I believe the books are very different,” Taylor says.

There really are talks going on to make Taylor’s book into a movie. If it’s up to Taylor, it will happen when Pitt’s available.