In the book, Big D is the Boston Red Sox’s star slugger. He’s reminds me of the Red Sox current designated hitter, David Ortiz, and he just seems like a fun and happy person to get to know. I would also hope that he’d give me some batting tips!
If you could sit down for a chat with any baseball player, past or present, who would you choose? What would you want to talk about?
Back in the early days of baseball, many teams used the same baseball throughout the game, and even over multiple games. While players would have liked to use new baseballs, there was a problem. The leather on new baseballs was shiny and a bit glossy—they were too slippery for pitchers and they could be hard for batters to see in the bright sunlight. So teams just keep using the old balls rather than taking a chance on a new one. That’s where Lena Blackburne came in.
Russell Aubrery “Lena” Blackburne played major league baseball for eight years, mostly for the Chicago White Sox. He also played short periods for the Cincinnati Reds, the Boston Braves, and the Philadelphia Phillies. Blackburne was a rather ordinary infielder. But he was good enough to become a coach.
The Philadelphia Athletics hired Lena to be their third base coach in 1933. It was during this time that an umpire complained about the messy, soggy balls they had to use for games, and it set Lena off on a quest to discover something that would enable baseball teams to use brand new baseballs instead of mushy, old ones.
Lena discovered some special mud near his home in New Jersey, along the banks of the Delaware River. He would cover a brand-new baseball with mud, wipe it off, and the ball was perfect—the shine was gone and players loved it!
He started selling it in 1938. At first, Lena only sold the mud to American League teams because he was an American League fan. By the 1950s, he was selling it to National League teams as well. It’s the only substance allowed on major league baseballs, and all the teams continue to use Lena Blackburne Rubbing Mud to this day!
If I could meet him, I’d love to learn more about his discovery and how he thought of using the special mud on the baseballs. I’d also like to know if he did anything “special” to the mud to get it to work!
The path to publication varies from author to author. Every author has a unique story and one that other authors can learn from. Can you tell us a little bit about your path to publication or do you have any advice for new authors?
Once I came up with the idea for the Ballpark Mysteries, I needed to figure out how to write them. To get started, I spent a lot of time analyzing successful children's books—looking at how the chapters were put together, how the sentences were written, and the mechanics of the chapters. I worked on a draft of my first mystery and then found a book group to help me with the editing and critiquing. Getting other people to read your work and provide feedback is really, really valuable.
Once I had a draft that I felt was good, I worked to get an agent or find a publisher. After many months of trying, I got lucky and connected directly with an editor at Random House, who agreed to take a look at the manuscript. Unfortunately, the response was quick and unequivocal: my work was awful! However, the editor did provide some great feedback and suggestions of things to work on. It took me a year, but eventually I sent in a revision. That one didn’t make it either, but again they were willing to take another look. Luckily, the third time was a charm: the editor liked my writing and asked me to work on a book for them!
Overall, it’s been a fair amount of work, but it’s really fun to be working on something creative. In one sense, writing a children's book turned out to be the easy part. Getting a children’s book published is a bit harder. It takes dedication, some good writing, and lots of patience and persistence. It’s not something that happened quickly for me, but with luck and persistence, it did.
My advice to aspiring authors is to always continue to look for ways to learn. Learn about the market, learn how to understand different levels and reading requirements, learn how to develop a creative social network that can help nurture you, learn how to revise, revise, revise, and learn how adjust your goals and expectations to what's possible.
If you could have been at one baseball game in history, which game would you choose? Why?
That’s easy. Game 3 of the 1932 World Series. Yankees vs. the Chicago Cubs, at Wrigley. It’s the game where Babe Ruth made his famous “called shot” play, where he supposedly made a pointing gesture to indicate where he was going to hit a home run, which he promptly did on the next pitch. Although people still argue over whether or not Ruth was actually pointing out the location of his home run, it’s a topic that baseball fans still love to discuss.
Are you currently working on a book? If so, can you tell us a little bit about it?
I’m currently working on five books! I’m finishing Ballpark Mysteries #13, which is going to be a World Series super edition, so it’s longer and a bit more complicated than the other Ballpark Mysteries that I’ve written. But I’m also working on a brand-new series of chapter books for Random House. They’re going to be similar to the Ballpark Mysteries books, but focused on other sports: Olympics, soccer, football, etc. the new series will follow a group of elementary school boys and girls who play different sports and get involved in mysteries, problems, and adventures. As a writer, it’s fun for me to stretch out beyond baseball. It’s also interesting to work with a bigger group of main characters. I decided to go with a larger cast (compared to just Kate and Mike in the Ballpark Mysteries) for this series so I could have different characters interact with different sports.
