Play Ball

My favorite season arrives at the end of March. Full of hoopla and hype, Major League Baseball takes over the sports channels, bringing crotch-scratching, spit-spewing, dirt-kicking behemoths right into our living rooms.

And I love ‘em all.

My team is the San Francisco Giants—winner of three World Series in five years. The last few years have been a trial, but we die-hard fans stick with our teams hoping for a year of good, injury-free pitching and lots of home runs.

I love AT&T Park, right downtown next to the marina. It’s a landmark when cruising in by boat, the lights of the stadium visible from across the bay on a clear night. I love the sound of a splash ball—a home run that soars over the wall into McCovey Cove where fans in boats and kayaks scurry like ducks after chunks of bread, trying to retrieve the ball before it sinks below the surface.

I haven’t seen too many games in person. You see so much more from your very own couch and if there are other fans watching the game with you, the screeching and swearing can still be done with aplomb. And the beer costs a lot less when you get it out of your own refrigerator.

So now for my squealy confession. My next book (out May 9) is a sports romance. Yes! I had to do one. My hero is a pitcher on injured reserve, house-sitting for his Dad who’s on his honeymoon. My heroine is his new stepsister, a woman in need of a temporary home. They’ve known and loathed each other for a decade…but all that is about to change when they’re suddenly forced to live together.

I had so much fun writing this and of course, my hero plays for a Triple A team affiliated with my favorite. All teams trademark their names and while it would be rare for any of them to beat on a poor, misguided fangirl of a romance author who uses their name in a book, I didn’t use it. I wrote around it.

He plays for the team in San Francisco and has been sent down to play for their Triple A team in Sacramento. Golly, what team could that be? The name of the novella is Safe at Home, and will only available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited. More about that in May.

My only regret about baseball season is that fans no longer sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” or whatever the real name of the song was. Maybe too many people were singing instead of running to the snack bar.

Do you follow baseball? What’s your favorite team?