On Certain Character Portrayals in Fire Season
The character of Reid Giordano heavily evolved as I was writing him—from a Southerner whose last name was Reed to an Italian American from New Jersey, then finally to a Jewish Italian American who is fairly religiously observant. During that last transformation, I was discussing how being Jewish might affect his characterization and was told by my wonderful, hardworking, and endlessly patient book midwife: KD, he was already Jewish.
We have an expression: Every Jewish soul was present at Mount Sinai. Meaning that everyone who is Jewish—by birth or by conversion—has always been Jewish. Reid was therefore Jewish in his approach to the world before I decided to put an evil eye bracelet on him or have him discuss the intricacies of keeping kosher.
The depiction of his Judaism is different from that of Zach Glasser in Unwritten Rules and from my Jewish characters in other books. There are as many ways to be Jewish as grains of sand. No way is inherently better or worse than any other. Jews will sometimes use being “observant” (as in observing certain commandments) as a shorthand. Observance is not a single sliding scale. It is multidimensional and contextual. Reid, therefore, isn’t more Jewish than Zach even if the former keeps kosher and the latter does not. (And keeping kosher isn’t contradictory with, say, swearing or having premarital sex.)
The evil eye is a catchall for inviting bad luck, particularly if you’ve declared that something positive will happen. (“We’re going to win the World Series!” would be a statement that would draw the evil eye.) It’s ritualistically warded off through faux-spitting or wearing protective jewelry such as evil eye bracelets or hamsa pendants, both of which are worn in other cultures as well.
Reid chooses to keep kosher for meals he eats at home. This isn’t unusual: people often have different rules for what they’ll eat at home vs. in restaurants vs. being served as a guest. There are different variations of these kinds of practices and every person/family keeps kosher a little differently.
Reid jokes that relief pitchers can’t believe in a just God. Jewish beliefs in a deity vary: Many Jewish people are agnostic or atheists or go through phases where their beliefs change. Generally, we do not believe in more than one God (and do not believe that a Messiah has come) but may believe in no deity or be unsure. Beyond that, Judaism does not believe in an afterlife that’s similar to those in other religions (ex. no heaven or hell), so belief in God (or lack thereof) does not generally affect Jewish ethical approaches.
It’s generally not appropriate to ask if someone has converted to Judaism. That question is often fraught with preconceived notions about who is (and isn’t) Jewish. Charlie’s approach—of genuine inquiry and wanting to learn more as part of a preexisting friendship/relationship is appropriate. Many resources are available for self-study as well. Rabbis (a title that literally means “teacher”) are often happy to provide answers, readings, and opinions.
Lastly, Judaism is a decentralized religion; there isn’t a hierarchy that oversees multiple denominations. We value debate, disagreement, and discussion. So the answers to a lot of questions about Judaism will be That depends. Which invites more discussion, disagreement, and debate!
Why do catchers wear so much stuff?
Nail Polish
Catchers wear nail polish and other nail adornments like peel-off stickers to help signal to pitchers what pitch type to throw. They usually do this by indicating with the number of fingers they put down but also may indicate location via other movements or gestures. Most catchers wear either white or yellow stickers/tape for for visibility, but some may favor team colors (esp. for manicures) or various neons. Here, Dodgers catcher Will Smith (yes, really) is wearing pink nail polish.
In UNWRITTEN RULES, Zach favors nail stickers, while Eugenio comes to embrace full manicures as a means of self-expression.
Photo credit to Inplay_runs on twitter.
Wrist Bands/Sign Cards
Catchers signal pitch type and location by putting down a set number of fingers (one for a fastball, two for a breaking ball, etc.). However, if there's a player on base who can signal the batter on their own team for what pitch to expect - or the team is engaged in more nefarious forms of sign-stealing - catchers often put down a series of signs and have a pre-determined code for which sign is correct. This code can vary from "the third sign in the series" to the "sign in a series that is equal to the number of outs in the inning minus one." The latter can often get confusing - and can vary even within an inning - so catchers wear the sign codes on their wrist bands (the laminated section of the wrist band). Pitchers keep similar sign cards in their hats/pockets.
This all lead to the tremendous Onion Headline: "Catcher Keeps Signaling 'I Love You'." Which... tells you what you need to know about my book.
Photo credit to Inplay_runs on twitter.
Masks
There are two general kinds of catcher masks: traditional and hockey-style masks. Traditional masks have less protection at the neck and on the sides of the head than hockey-style ones (which is what Buster Posey is wearing in this gif). Hockey-style masks are, however, harder to take off to field pop-flies, as Buster shows here. Catchers can’t just tip them up, but have to remove them completely for visibility in seeing where the ball is (which is often against the clouds/stadium lights/sky).
In UNWRITTEN RULES, Zach wears a traditional mask—with a hat, catcher’s helmet, and mask—in part because he also wears a hearing aid, and the hockey-style masks could cause feedback/distortion. And in part because I like when catchers have to fling off a bunch of gear onto the field.
Stances
This isn’t exactly within the realm of “stuff” catchers wear, but something people may notice is that catchers have moved from more traditional stances (basically, a squat with their thighs resting on their calves) to stances where they have one leg in almost a half-squat and stretch the other leg out, as pictured here.
Why are they doing that? To frame pitches better.
Pitch framing is when a catcher essentially moves a ball thrown outside the strike zone into the strike zone to make it look more like a strike. Having a stance where it’s harder for the umpire to tell if/where the ball moved over home plate allows for easier framing (and somewhat more concealed movements).
The working title of UNWRITTEN RULES was actually “Pitch Framing and Other Lies.” Because framing is about things not being as they appear. It was gently suggested to me that “pitch framing” isn’t super-common terminology (and I came to like UNWRITTEN RULES as a title more).
The book is told in two timelines: past (about three years ago as a set of flashbacks) and present. Part of the “past” scenes involve a character retraining his catching stance to be more similar to what’s pictured. (This is… sweaty as a process.) I took a look at a number of catchers, including Willson Contreras, who has worked to retrain his stance pretty heavily to improve his framing. He is also… not ugly if y’all want to check him out.
Photo credit to Inplay_runs on twitter.
36 Facts About Unwritten Rules
The main character (it's single POV) Zach Glasser is a Jewish catcher from outside Baltimore who plays for the Oakland Elephants baseball team.
Zach is also Hard of Hearing and wears a hearing aid in one ear. I based some of his experiences on Curtis Pride's (who was a Deaf major leaguer), as well as on the book Deaf Players in Major League Baseball, which is a great history.
The working title was "Pitch Framing and Other Lies," which was based on, in part, the Foolish Baseball video where Bailey says "Pitch framing... or lying to umpires." It was gently suggested to me that most people aren't familiar with framing.
The book takes place in Arizona, Oakland, Baltimore, New York, and Miami, and the phrase "at least it's a dry heat" gets used. A lot.
The structure jumps from three years in the past to the present in a series of flashbacks and flash-forwards and I'd never actually written anything with that kind of structure so of course thought... why not for my first professionally published book.
Eugenio Morales, who's Zach's love interest, is not named after Eugenio Suárez (who plays for the Reds), but was named by Laura (my critique partner) separately.
A lot of the book is structured around them getting together, breaking up, and then getting back together. Because I am like... I haven't written a real bleak moment before (third act breakups in romance novels), so why not ... structure a book around them.
Eugenio starts the book as an "old" rookie (he's 28, lol) and then becomes a superstar player. I based this around Willson Contreras learning to frame better - there's a lot written about this.
He's traded to the Elephants from the Seattle Pilots and then later to the New York Gothams (this happens before the beginning of the book so no spoilers), and let me tell you, I had a blast coming up with fake team names.
My absolute favorite fake team name did not make the book, and was not my invention, but instead a friend from Canada naming the "Toronto Jacks" because Jack is another name for a jay (as in the Blue Jays) and also a pun for home runs.
Eugenio is from Indiana and his parents are professors at a small Christian college there that's definitely not based on Goshen College. He is raised going to an ecumenical church and is not particularly religious.
His family immigrated from Venezuela, and Zach's from Russia and this book has some big child/grandchild of immigrants themes/feelings.
There is a lot of cooking in the book, including a thematically relevant babka. If you are only familiar with babka from GBBO, please do not judge it based on that.
Zach likes comic books and has pictures of Hawkeye (because hearing aid) and Bobby Drake (because gay and Jewish) in his apartment.
There is a modest amount of Yiddish in the book including the discussion of the Miami Swordfish stadium as being "farkakte." Opinions of the characters do not match the author's since I had a great time when I was in Miami.
Zach's bff in the book is the Elephants strength and conditioning coach, who is herself a baseball player (pitcher) and whose I based a little on Ayami Sato (particularly the curveball).
There is a good amount of discussion of the Women's Baseball World Cup, which is a baseball tournament held every so many years and is currently slated for this fall/winter (it was postponed due to 'rona).
There are a lot of scenes that take place by the beach/ocean, particularly Rehoboth in Delaware, probably because I want to go to the beach fairly desperately.
I edited the word "guys" out from where it occurred approximately 10,000 times in 300 pages.
There are several secret background parings in the book that I hope get their own sequels/books.
The only active MLB player named in the book is Juan Soto, because I couldn't imagine an alternate universe without him.
There is, and I cannot emphasize this enough, a lot of kissing in this book.
Expressing heat levels in romance novels is difficult, so I'll go with "a slider, but a hard slider.” No, I don't know what this means either.
I very much try not to have the same opinions about minor details as my characters, but Zach also thinks IPAs taste like soap and flowers. We are split on if chili on spaghetti seems like a good idea.
There's a part at the beginning where I was describing (briefly) pitch types and I may have likened it to the part at the beginning of Babysitters' Club books where Ann M Martin introduces the members of the club.
I think of this being set in a universe like our but subtly different, like that episode of Sliders (the show) where the Golden Gate Bridge is blue. So in this universe the Golden Gate Bridge is blue.
Zach's parents sign all their text messages to him as "Love, Mom and Dad" and that's definitely not based on every Jewish parent over the age of 50.
There is an aside in the book about how baseball players never know what day of the week it is. Because they apparently don't.
There is an aloe plant that gets frequent mention. It's based on the plant that a friend left a cutting of on my porch and I've had to repot it like five times because it keeps growing.
Despite being set in Oakland, I did not once spell "Coliseum" correctly without autocorrect in writing the book and also in writing this. Also, Cincinnati.
This book may contain some "Houston is stealing opposing team's signs" jokes. The Houston team is never named, but in my head, they're the Houston Problems.
I wrote the first draft of this entirely in Google Docs. All 95,000 words. (It’s now around 105k but a quick 105k.)
I have a short story (~10k) that's in the same "Elephants" universe called "The Koufax Curse" that will be published at some point in 2021. I am reasonably certain it is the world's only Tu Bishvat-themed queer baseball story.
I also wrote a prequel to UNWRITTEN RULES that's currently in the edits.
Sex scenes are much easier to write than baseball scenes because batting order matters a lot less and you don't have to keep track of the number of strikes. Usually.
I cannot wait for y'all to read this!