…in New England. As I sit writing, the temperature outside has reached the 60 degree mark and the sun is shining. It’s such a nice reprieve from another rainy April that we thought would never end. Now, when I watch the Red Sox play, (Boston’s baseball team for anyone not in the know), I see pitchers back to short sleeves and the outfielders no longer wearing neck warmers.
The next few books in my Greenliners baseball series were timed so that I could enjoy watching the boys of summer with a two-pronged purpose: love of the game and to fuel my imagination with play-by-plays.
My first in the series, Thrown for a Curve, was meant to be a stand alone, but as I was writing about Izabella’s brother, I began to envision a life for him, in Boston, as part of the Greenie’s run for a World Series win. League of Her Own is Enrique’s story and I found the perfect woman for him in Fiona Barrows. He thinks she’s staying at his sister’s to house sit and walk her dog Hoover. As she barges into his life, dripping wet from being hit by a puddle, he nicknames her Fifi. He thinks it suits her. That is until he finds out what she really does for a living.
When Fiona begins to keep Rique company in his self-imposed isolation, she is embarrassed by her ignorance about the game he loves. Wanting to learn all she can, she reaches out to a couple of experts who teach her all she wants to know, from the various types of pitches there are, to the lingo that might help her understand the foreign language. (And she doesn’t mean the Portuguese the Brazilian speaks.)
The following is some of the terminology she picked up and words or phrases you’ll find throughout the series.
Error: when a player misplays the ball and allows runners to advance rather than fielding it correctly and getting the out.
Boys of Summer: Baseball players
Farm team: Minor league affiliates
Grapefruit League- teams that play exhibition games during spring training before the season officially begins.
Spring Training: preseason period when baseball players get ready for the big league. (It’s try-out time for those invited to participate.)
Walk-off: when a hit ends a game.
Beanball: a ball pitched at a batter’s head, usually intentionally. (Fiona is stunned that Reid Jackson, Izabella’s husband and male lead in TFAC, has done it on more than one occasion, just because a batter hugged the plate.)