Summary[]
Ben Lindbergh talks to baseball writer and romance novelist KD Casey about Unwritten Rules, her new romance novel about catchers and catcher framing, focusing on her history as a fan and writer, the intersection of sports and romance fiction, fictionalizing MLB teams, delivering details about baseball without alienating readers who aren’t fans, the ethics of dating a teammate, why MLB still hasn’t had a publicly out active player, the legacy of Glenn Burke, whether it’s harder to write baseball scenes or sex scenes, picking the cover model for a baseball romance novel, calibrating readers’ romance expectations, and more. Then (1:08:22) Ben brings on Baseball Prospectus author Gerald Schifman to discuss his latest research into whether shadows creeping across the field actually affect offensive performance.
Topics[]
- Interview with KD Casey
- Using Ben's quote as an epigraph
- Defining the traits of a romance novel
- Sport romances
- KD's interest in baseball
- Deciding how specific to be about the baseball scenes
- Splitting the book into two timelines
- Religion and family
- Gay players in sports
- Elements of the book cover
- Developing new readers and how to get into romance novels
- Gerald's research about the impact of shadows
- Difficulty of studying shadows and revisiting previous work
- High spin pitches in the shadows
- Whiff and chase rates
Notes[]
- KD notes that a romance novel has three key elements: a central love story, characters that end up together at the end (a 'happy for now' ending), and characters that accomplish a central goal. Romance is one of the largest fiction markets.
- Gerald found that during times of games with shadows there was an increase on whiff rate of breaking balls and cutters.
Links[]
- Effectively Wild Episode 1776: How Can You Not Be Romantic About Baseball?
- Link to Unwritten Rules publisher page
- Link to Unwritten Rules Goodreads page
- Link to KD’s website
- Link to all of KD’s books
- Link to KD’s social media landing page
- Link to KD on Jewish families
- Link to vote in Reads Rainbow Awards
- Link to Ben’s 2013 framing piece
- Link to most-read Goodreads baseball books
- Link to Goodreads baseball romance books
- Link to Emma Span on baseball slash fiction
- Link to Billy Beane/Theo Epstein story
- Link to podcast about Pitch
- Link to retrospective Pitch piece
- Link to EW episode with Billy Bean
- Link to story about Burke
- Link to Burke bio Singled Out
- Link to excerpt from Burke bio
- Link to Andrew Maraniss on Burke
- Link to True Blue LA interview about Burke
- Link to The Athletic interview about Burke
- Link to Moneyball “romantic” scene
- Link to Gerald’s first shadows study
- Link to Gerald’s second shadows study
- Link to Stove League teaser video
- Link to Stove League review
- Link to stream Stove League via Kocowa
- Link to stream Stove League via Viki