Julie Cross: Finding inspiration in the love of baseball

Julie Cross, author of Whatever Life Throws at You, shares the inspiration for the premise of her new release: her love of baseball.

Julie: The inspiration behind the setting and premise for Whatever Life Throws at You is an easy question to answer — though I've dreaded this question with all my other novels. For me, love and baseball have always walked hand in hand. Well, at least they have for as long as I've thought about … well, love. I was 13 years old when the movie The Sandlot came out, and needless to say, I had a poster of Mike Vitar in my middle school locker. In fact, my middle school years were splattered with great baseball films — A League of Their Own, Rookie of the Year, Little Big League, Angels in the Outfield — all of which slowly made their way to our local dollar fifty theater in Central Ohio, where I lived at the time.

With Burger King right across the street and payphones in the lobby, the dollar fifty theater was THE Friday/Saturday night hang-out place for my junior high crowd. I participated in a scandalous (and sweaty) hand-holding session with my seventh-grade crush while watching Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez outrun the Beast. The next night, I went back to the theater (spending another $1.50) with my girlfriends to watch the movie again, having decided that Benny Rodriguez, played by Mike Vitar, absolutely did not have sweaty hands and was totally cuter than the seventh-grade boy I'd watched the film with the night before.

My love of baseball is almost always entwined with the compelling characters and storylines included in all the popular baseball movies. I truly believe if you are made to love a character, often you will begin to love what they love. With WLTAY, I wanted to capture that same feeling I had in the dollar fifty theater, sighing over Mike Vitar or later when it was the insubordinate pitcher/lawn boy played by Freddie Prinze Jr., who falls for beautiful rich girl Jessica Biel in the movie Summer Catch. I don't have a MLB team that I follow (though I really want to root for the Royals now), and I don't watch games on a regular basis, but I am a fan of the sport. When I do tune in, just like with any romance novel I pick up, I want to see something amazing happen. I love the roller coaster of emotions. I love how they can be down by two one minute and up by two the next. I love the thrill of it. It's action packed, and those tight uniforms help.

So in short: Baseball + Love story = Home Run.

Find out more about Julie and her books at www.juliecrossbooks.com.