Archive for category baseball

five things on friday

Feb 22

Posted by kate in baseball, conventions, five things | No Comments

Weeekly wrap-up! It’s been sort of a slow-news week (personally) but let’s see if I can’t come up with five things to talk about.

I’ve had a lot of coffee today, so this might be a little silly. Also, I’m currently wearing unseasonable Santa socks, because they were clean. I have boots on, no one can tell! So now you know a secret. Shh.

Jock week1. I’ll be participating in Jock Week over at Joyfully Jay’s next week. There’s a huge book giveaway, so definitely go check it out. Here’s a preview. (I think my guest post goes up on Tuesday. I bet you can guess what sport I wrote about.)

2. Speaking of jocks, spring training has started! Baseball is coming! (It’s like “Winter is coming” except the opposite because it’s spring and there’s baseball!)

Hey, let’s get the 2009 World Series Champion New York Yankees to cheer!

The World Series Champion 2009 Yankees

3. If you saw my post on Tuesday, you may be happy to learn that I seem to have gotten past my writing slump/rut/whatever and have been giddily typing away at my WIP all week and it’s going well and makes me happy.

4. I’ve been bogged down with reading stuff that is not for fun, so while I finish that up, I’ve been buying books like they’re going out of style. (I should clarify, I’m judging a contest and am reading books for that contest, and some of them have been quite fun, so it’s not all misery here. Just, because of the sheer volume of stuff I have to read by a certain date, I’m not allowing myself to read purely for fun.) So, I saw a special on TV a couple of weeks ago on the historical origins of Robin Hood and then promptly bought a bunch of books on, like, Medieval European history and the British monarchy. Yes, these are things that I will read for fun! Also, scrolling though my Kindle, I see I also bought a book on sexuality in the Ancient World that looks pretty good as well as 3 m/m novels that I REALLY want to read. (I mean, lord save me from 1-click buying on Amazon, because I just sit there and am like, “Oh, sure, that looks good!” *click* So, yes, folks, a decent cut of my royalties gets recycled right back into the publishing industry. It’s like when I worked retail in college and, like, half of any paycheck would go right back into the store. Being around all those cute clothes all day was too much temptation.)

5. Now is as good a time as any to point you toward my events page, which I just updated since somehow I failed to include RWA in July. I’m still planning on GayRomLit; that will I hope be the capstone on a most excellent year.

baseball eye candy

Apr 24

Posted by kate in baseball, gratuity, out in the field | 2 Comments

I think baseball is not a sport that is usually correlated with hotness. This is my theory on why there are so many m/m romances with football or hockey players—big dudes who like to, uh, tackle each other. But I am here to disabuse you of the notion that baseball is not sexy, because it is! Here is some photographic evidence (click on these to embiggen them!):

Chase Utley

Chase Utley, 2nd base, Phillies
(Chase, I would like you more if you got off the DL and earned my fantasy team some points. You do me no good by sitting on the bench. Please get better soon. Thank you.)

Grady Sizemore

Grady Sizemore, center field, Indians

David Wright

David Wright, 3rd base, Mets

Joe Mauer

Joe Mauer, Catcher, Twins
Can’t leave off my baseball boyfriend. Here’s some more.

And now for the Yankee-centric portion of this blog post:

A-Rod

Alex Rodriguez, 3rd base
A-Rod. Not so much the greatest human being. Totally useless last post-season. Not hard on the eyes.

Robinson Cano

Robinson Cano, 2nd base
This guy’s already a legend.

Nick Swisher

Nick Swisher, right field
Swish always looks thrilled. Happiest guy in baseball right there.

Curtis Granderson

Curtis Granderson, center field
I love this guy. Great ballplayer, seems like a great guy, and he’s adorable.

Mark Texieira

Mark Texieira, 1st base
I mean, do the Yankees have an attractive infield or what?

Derek Jeter

Don’t worry, Derek!

Derek Jeter

Derek Jeter, shortstop
I could never leave you off this list!

So there’s your little bit of baseball hotness for the day. For more, Out in the Field is now available!

Here’s a whole slide show of hot baseball players! Enjoy!

Do you have a favorite player that I egregiously left off the list? Add him in the comments. Pictures encouraged!

one of those times

Apr 22

Posted by kate in baseball, out in the field, vanity | No Comments

I had a pretty intense week. With the upcoming publication of Out in the Field (Tuesday!) and my various other projects, most of my concentration had been on my writing, but then a bunch of stuff came up to my divert my attention. It was one of those weeks that made me sort of reevaluate my priorities—not that anything drastic will be changing, but I think there are things that happen sometimes that make you realize what’s really important.

Brooklyn Bridge The County of Kings (otherwise known as Brooklyn) saw fit to put me on a trial jury this week. That was kind of an interesting experience. The case ultimately settled without input from the jury, but I went to court for two days and sat in the jury box and listened to testimony. It was kind of a fun break in my routine, although man, justice does not move fast. I think I probably spent more time sitting in the deliberation room than I actually did in the court room. I read a lot while I was stuck sitting around, and I’m working on a post about some of my observations. (I was on a historical romance kick and I had some thoughts about why the genre was so popular.) I also liked walking around Downtown Brooklyn. That area maybe holds a special place in my heart because a) it was one of the first places in Brooklyn I got a chance to explore after I moved here, and b) I’m a history nerd (if that wasn’t obvious) and Brooklyn Heights/Downtown Brooklyn has a LOT of interesting history. The courthouses are at the foot of the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge. I had plans with a friend of mine at a place on the Lower East Side Wednesday night, so I decided to just walk there when court let out that afternoon. The weather was a little dreary, but it’s still a nice walk (that’s when/where this photo was taken—click to embiggen; you can see the still-under-construction tower they’re building where the WTC used to be on the left there). I then took a circuitous route up through lower Manhattan and Chinatown and the LES, which I enjoyed.

Some family stuff came up, too, which has been a little bit taxing emotionally. Some of my extended family came to New York to visit/help out, which was really great. My parents are both midwesterners who moved to the Northeast when I was a toddler, so pretty much all of my extended family lives a fair distance away and I don’t see them as often as I’d like. We had dinner Friday night at a seafood restaurant at South Street Seaport, which is a silly touristy thing to do, but the restaurant had a spectacular view up the East River of the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburg Bridges.

Most of yesterday was spent working on the family stuff, and then I went out dancing last night, so I’m pretty tired today. I’m catching up on things, basically.

Final business: Thanks to everyone who has taken the RRW romance reader survey! Your input is really valuable to us. If you haven’t taken it yet, you can find it here.

And, to fulfill my hot baseball player quotient, here’s a video of Yankee outfielder Nick Swisher on How I Met Your Mother a few years ago:

big news, small news

Apr 17

Posted by kate in baseball, out in the field, promo events | 1 Comment

Joe Mauer can't help but be adorable.Lots of things to talk about! Today’s post shall be sponsored by the adorable Twins’ catcher Joe Mauer, because I think all posts for the next couple of weeks should be accompanied by photos of hot baseball players.

• Last week’s Beat Your Winter Blues was over at JP Barnaby’s, and we discussed our favorite first signs of spring. There’s still time to enter to win the grand prize!

• You can head on over to Chris’s blog to win a copy of Out in the Field!

• I’m doing some website tweaking. Thanks to my friends Stacy and Alexis for helping me come up with a tagline, which is something I have been agonizing over for a while. I do sweat the small stuff sometimes, I guess. My writers group has been referring to my books as “baseball and gay sex” since before I was published, which, while accurate, is not the catchiest of taglines.

• I wrote a short story for the Goodreads M/M Group‘s Love Is Always Write event. I believe that will be available for (free!) download in late May or early June.

Out in the Field will be out a week from today! I’ve booked a trip on a mini blog tour, so I’m gonna be all up in your face for the next few weeks. :)

Beat Your Winter Blues this week!

Feb 16

Posted by kate in baseball, out in the field, promo events | No Comments

We are over at JL Merrow’s talking about Valentine’s Day! You can saunter on over there to learn how February 14th is somehow my own personal Bad Luck Day. By some miracle, I manage to escape relatively unscathed this year, although I’m getting over a cold, so that made it maybe not as pleasant as it could have been. (But there was chocolate!)

Actually, things kind of worked out on one front. My 3-year-old Kindle finally gave up the ghost. I called customer service to see if there was anything they could do; my old one was long out of warrantee, but I paid them a surprisingly low amount for a replacement and by whatever voodoo magic Amazon works with UPS, I’ve got that sucker in my hot little hands already. And, since the blue cover I wanted was sold out, I decided to buy a hot pink cover for it, so it’s a couple of sparkly butterfly stickers short of being the girliest e-reader ever.

And it looks like my baseball novel, still titled Out in the Field because I haven’t come up with a better title, will be out at the end of April. Out in the real MLB, pitchers and catchers are reporting for spring training this week, so that thing you smell in the air is the impending baseball season. I, for one, am pretty excited for that.

this and that

Jun 11

Posted by kate in baseball, blind items, reviews | No Comments

Some bullet points!

• Brooklyn Pride is this weekend, although unfortunately, the weather is pretty crappy, gray and rainy. (You may recall that I went to the street fair last year—oddly, this year’s festivities haven’t been advertised hardly at all, so it looks to be a small celebration, though there is a parade tonight I might go watch if it doesn’t get rained out.)

• I’m also hip deep in the second round of edits for my upcoming Dreamspinner novel Blind Items and I’m writing a new novel that I’m really excited about, so that’s also taking up my time this weekend.

• Here’s a really nice review of The Boy Next Door.

• I recently joined the local RWA chapter, and it seems to be a pretty great group of people. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend the national convention in a few weeks, which is a real bummer because it’s in New York.

• And right now I’ve got the Yankees game on, which mostly looks like watching it rain int he Bronx. Well, happy Saturday and happy Pride!

blog posts have I loved

Apr 4

Posted by kate in baseball, conventions, ephemera | No Comments

I probably owe you a blog post.

I’ve been alternately busy and under the weather for the last couple of weeks, but here’s a quickie rundown:

I had a spectacular time at the Rainbow Book Fair in New York a little over a week ago. I met a bunch of other Dreamspinner authors (most of whom came in from out of town!) and I talked to some readers. I was still buzzing from it a few days afterwards, so now I can’t wait for my next event. (There are a couple of conventions I want to attend if I can rub enough pennies together to pay the registration fees. And I will for sure be at GayRomLit in New Orleans in October.)

Baseball’s back! I’ve got my fantasy team all drafted. The regular season has started. The Yankees are hitting lots of home runs. It’s good. (I’m currently watching the Yankees vs Twins game. Non-fans, let me introduce you to Joe Mauer.)

I’ve started a new novel that requires reading a lot of comic books as research, which is a hardship as I’m sure you can imagine. (Over the weekend, I read a Superman series from the mid-90s in which Superman had terrible long hair. Who thought that was a good idea?)

Well, anyway. I keep getting distracted by the game, so I’ll end it here. Hope you all have great weeks!

hodge podge

Aug 24

Posted by kate in baseball, ephemera, meta | No Comments

I’ve been contemplating the relative merits of setting up a mailing list or Yahoo group. If you have opinions, let me know in the comments!

The weather took a weird turn, and it’s been cold and rainy all week, which is making me feel kind of blah, which is not very good for my productivity.

I saw the Yankees play Sunday in the rain. I have Mets tickets for this coming Sunday, and it’ll be my first time at Citifield.

I’m setting up a new workspace in the spare room in my apartment. It’s turning out to be a greater undertaking than I first imagined, but right now I’ve got a desk that faces the window. I have a grand view of… the apartment building across the street. Weirdly, hardly anyone in that building bothered with curtains, and I can see into many of the windows. This is good for making up stories about what the people there are up to. Which I learned on Saturday while I sat at the desk for a few hours to test drive the space.

I’ve got a lot of projects going right now; concrete news and pub dates and things coming up as soon as I know them, so if I don’t create a mailing list, watch this space!

excerpt: baseball

Jul 29

Posted by kate in baseball, excerpt, WIP | No Comments

Babe Ruth!You guys want a taste of my baseball WIP? I wrote this scene this evening.

The dream always started the same way. Matt stepped out of the dugout. He picked up his bat and walked to the on deck circle, where he took a few practice swings. Then it was his turn at bat. He paused to acknowledge the crowd, which gave an uproarious cheer. He walked up to the plate and swung the bat again. Finally, just like Babe fucking Ruth, he pointed. Where he pointed varied, but it was usually towards the left field bleachers.

Anytime he had the dream, he was confident that his bat would connect and he’d drive that ball out of the stadium. Everything from the wind to the velocity of the pitch was under his control. He choked the bat, he lifted it, he saw the pitch, and he swung.

What happened next was a crapshoot. Sometimes he got the home run he expected. He’d run triumphantly around the bases. Best case, the bases were loaded before he got up to bat and he became the hero of the game. That version of the game usually ended when he was hoisted up on the shoulders of his teammates. Sometimes the bat whooshed right over the ball and he woke up just after he heard the slap of the ball hitting the catcher’s glove. Sometimes the bat connected but the ball soared into an outfielder’s glove. Sometimes the ball hit him in the head.

He had the dream the night after Ignacio Rodriguez’s first game. Instead of Cruz or Roger, the person who slapped his back before he got up to stand on deck was the Rodriguez kid. Although, Matt knew even in his dream that Rodriguez was clearly not a kid, he was a man, and a sinfully attractive man at that. His touch was affectionate, supposed to be encouraging, maybe even a promise for something to happen later. It felt a little like a kiss before being sent off to war, only Rodriguez was right there in the trenches with him. More than that, Rodriguez was probably the better player, now that Matt’s knees ached, now that his batting average had plummeted. But in the dream, he was aware of these things, but they didn’t matter, because then he was at bat, then he saw the pitch, then he was swinging.

Slap! Strike 1.

“No,” Matt said. “That’s not how that was supposed to go.”

He choked the bat and held it up. He could see everything as if it were in slow motion. He saw the pitcher spit, his right leg draw up, his glove rise, saw the way his fingers fit around the ball before he threw it, saw that ball flying right for him. He had this one. He could control it. He moved the bat forward slowly, knowing it would connect. Then whoosh! Slap! Strike 2.

Matt cursed. He glanced towards the dugout, where Rodriguez waited expectantly. He could not disappoint this man. He would not. He went through the routine. Practice swing, point to the left field bleachers, Babe fucking Ruth. He had this.

And again, there was the windup. The pitch. The ball hurtling through towards him. The bat slicing through the air. And slap! Strike 3.

Matt fell forward onto his knees. He cried out in anguish. The crowd booed.

He woke up with a start.