Carlos Gomez Not Traded; Brewers Nation Shakes its Head

Carlos Gomez remains a Brewer.

This may not seem very surprising, if you weren’t following MLB Network last night. They, among others, had reported that the Milwaukee Brewers were about to trade Carlos Gomez to the New York Mets in exchange for pitcher Zack Wheeler and infielder Wilmer Flores. (Wheeler is on the disabled list with Tommy John surgery, and Flores is playing out of position at shortstop; he’s projected to be a power hitter in the major leagues, possibly at the third base position.) The deal was reported as all but done, pending physicals…

Then Sandy Alderson, GM of the Mets, said this: “The deal will not transpire.”

Huh?

After all that, there are now conflicting reports saying that the Mets did not like Carlos Gomez’s health issues of the past season. And that the Brewers didn’t like the extensive arm surgery Wheeler endured.

Whatever the truth is, the only thing this Brewers fan knows is that Gomez remains in a Brewers uniform. Which is, on balance, a good thing.

Look. I get annoyed sometimes with Gomez because of his baserunning blunders and his propensity to strike out. But he’s an outstanding outfielder, and his defense makes up for a lot.

This trade, from my perspective, made very little sense for two reasons.

First, if you trade Gomez and then trade Gerardo Parra (long rumored to be on his way out of town due to his contact being up at the end of the year), who is going to play center field?

I mean, look at who’s left on the team. You have Ryan Braun, Shane Peterson, and Khris Davis left. Braun is the fastest of them, but he’s not a center fielder and has been dealing with back spasms lately. Peterson is a decent left fielder who possibly would be better off at first base, long-term. And Davis, while he does have some speed in the outfield, cannot throw to save his life.

None of them are well-suited to playing center field. Which means the Brewers would either have to trade for someone, or they’d have to bring up the only pure center fielder in the Brewers organization: Logan Schafer.

And Schafer has had multiple opportunities to show he can hit major league pitching…and hasn’t managed to convince me or anyone else that he can.

Second, Zack Wheeler is on the DL and can’t help anyone for at least another full year. (I’m sure Brewers fans remember just how long it took Chris Capuano and Ben Sheets to recover from arm surgery; well, we’re looking at a similar time-frame for Wheeler.) Even if Wheeler comes back fully from his Tommy John procedure, he’ll have to relearn his arm mechanics and possibly have to reinvent himself as a pitcher. (Stephen Strasburg is struggling with doing just that right now, which shows that recovery from Tommy John is not as automatic as some make it out to be.)

So here’s where we stand, Brewers fans:

Carlos Gomez remains on the team, meaning Milwaukee continues to have a solid-to-better center fielder patrolling the outfield.

And both the Brewers and Mets have leaked conflicting information regarding the proposed trade, so no one’s completely sure exactly why this proposed trade was nixed.

What a mess.

Five Star Treatment – To Survive the Maelstrom – by Barb Caffrey

I’d meant to get this up a few days ago when the sale was still ongoing…but my computer upped and died.

(It took a few days for me to get back up and running, but here I am again.)

Thanks much to Sally Cronin, who let people know about “To Survive the Maelstrom” being out there — and about Pat Patterson’s wonderful review!

New Author Feature/Interview up at Nicholas Rossis’s Blog

Just a brief, drive-by bloglet…

My newest author interview/feature is up at Nicholas Rossis’s busy blog. Nicholas said some very kind things about me, which I appreciated; in addition, he seems to understand just why I’ve worked so hard to keep at least some of Michael’s work alive.

Here’s a bit from that featured interview, where I talk about my favorite writers:

I enjoy Rosemary Edghill’s work because she can write anything. Whether it’s a mystery, a romance, science fiction, fantasy, anything at all, she tells a compelling and well-researched story.

I enjoy Katharine Eliska Kimbriel’s work because she, too, can write anything. Her stories about Alfreda Sorenssen are inspired; they’re YA “frontier fiction,” and she predated the market for this by about fifteen years. Her first two in this series were written in the 1990s, I believe; her third was written last year. And her stories about Nuala, a world dealing with severe radiation issues and massive infertility among the population, are incredible.

I also truly enjoy Stephanie Osborn’s work. My goodness, can that woman write. She has a series out called the Displaced Detective, about Sherlock Holmes brought to the modern-day via the World of Myth hypothesis and some rather nifty hyperspatial physics. Because Stephanie is a former rocket scientist, she knows her science and she’s able to convey it to the layman in such a way that you don’t feel like you’re being talked down to – she even finds a way for Holmes to meet a woman who’s worthy of him! (And that’s not easy.)

There are many other authors I admire, including Andre Norton, Lois McMaster Bujold, Orson Scott Card, David Weber, David Drake, Ryk Spoor, Eric Flint… and I keep an eye on my fellow book reviewer Jason Cordova’s career, too.  Jason has a number of very solid short stories, plus he’s making a name for himself in the relatively new genre of kaiju.

And that doesn’t even go into the romance writers I read, or the nonfiction writers – there are so many, and I feel terrible that I have to name just a few.

And that doesn’t even name folks I will seek out and buy immediately, like Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, Deborah J. Ross, Julia London, Elizabeth Moon…it’s really impossible for me to name every last writer I enjoy, so if I left your name off this list, please do not take it personally. (Oh, yes — how could I have forgotten Kate Paulk? My goodness, her book about Vlad the Impaler is wonderful, and she writes funny fantasy, too. Or Sarah A. Hoyt — yet another fine writer who didn’t immediately come to mind here, though I did mention I read her blog often and find it of immense value.)

Anyway, there’s some stuff in here you may not know about me. So please do go over to Nicholas’s blog, will you? And be sure to say “hi” — also, give his books a good, solid lookover and see if anything interests you! (Hint, hint: he has a new release out called INFINITE WATERS that contains a number of intriguing short stories that might just get you started.)

Don’t forget — Novella Promos Start #Today!

As promised, folks, I have two novellas that are on discounted promotions starting today (I think at eight a.m. Pacific Daylight Time — don’t ask me why Kindle did this, ’cause I really don’t know) and ending on Monday morning at roughly the same time.

So for the next five days, you can get my novella “To Survive the Maelstrom” for just ninety-nine cents, and you can get my late husband Michael’s novella “A Dark and Stormy Night” for free.

(Yes, I said “free.”)

A quick check shows that “Dark and Stormy” is already available for free. But “Maelstrom” is still listing at $2.99 — since I did both at the same time, I find this bizarre. But hopefully within an hour, this will have corrected itself…

“But Barb,” you ask, “both of your names are on both stories. What’s going on there?”

Ah, you must be new to my blog.

But to answer this question: “A Dark and Stormy Night” was written by my late husband Michael before he died. I added about 1500 words to it to make it a legal collaboration, and sold it in 2007 to an online magazine (which was not archived). I sold it again to the now-defunct E-Quill Publishing in 2010, withdrew it from E-Quill in early 2012, and offered it again in 2013 independently as an e-book via Amazon Kindle. (Thus why I’m credited second, and also why I took an editing credit there.)

And before you ask again, I wrote “To Survive the Maelstrom” based off 2000 words of Michael’s about how Peter met his weremouse companion. But I knew there had to be more to that story, so I decided I had to write the story for myself. It is a true posthumous collaboration, but I wrote over three-quarters of the story, which is why I’m credited first.

Both are military science fiction stories, of a sort.

I say “of a sort” because “Dark and Stormy” deals with Ensign Joey Maverick’s “low-tech” sailing adventures while on leave before he ships out for space. (His low-tech sailing equals roughly late 20th Century or early 21st Century tech. So if you love sailing, you will not be thrown by anything in this novel despite it being a futuristic piece.) And “Maelstrom” deals with space marine Peter Welmsley’s struggles with PTSD after losing nearly everyone he cared about during the battle of Hunin, including his fiancée and best friend. (Peter does meet up with his weremouse companion, as Michael had envisioned, though I changed a few of the steps to get there.)

Anyway, I truly hope you will enjoy these stories! (Come back and let me know, OK?)

My Guest Post at Chris the Story-Reading Ape’s Blog Is Up…

Folks, as promised, here’s the link to the guest post I did for Chris the Story-Reading Ape’s very busy blog. Here’s a bit from that blog post, to whet your interest:

So I wrote for my graduate collegiate newspaper as well, the Daily Nebraskan. I wrote more poetry. And I started, haltingly, writing a bodyswitch story I called CHANGING FACES; it quickly morphed into a transgender romance, with aliens who may as well be angels…I’d anticipated the market about fourteen years too early. (Quite literally, as the story will be coming out later this year…but I digress.)

Something good happened while I was writing this first draft. I met my husband Michael, who was already an accomplished writer and editor. He loved what he saw of CHANGING FACES, and he was encouraging. I was making all sorts of mistakes in fiction – you name it, I probably made it. But he gave me excellent feedback (not all of it was positive, but all of it was constructive), and I learned.

I also fell in love with him, which changed me as a writer. It gave me depth, and resonance, and made me believe love was possible. (After two failed marriages behind me, I’d kind of lost sight of all that.) And because Michael and I laughed often, I wanted to make other people laugh, too…so I wrote a huge cross-genre book called ELFY. (And I do mean cross-genre: it’s young adult comic fantasy/mystery/romance with alternate universes and Shakespearean allusions. Say that five times fast.)

Now, if I had this to write over again, I’d say “college newspaper” rather than collegiate. (Ah, Editor Voice never shuts up.) But otherwise, I’m happy with what I said here.

Because Chris likes a different sort of approach than other guest blogs, I tried to give his audience an introduction to who I am along with what I do. I found it very difficult to do this; as I said at the top of this blog post, I’d rather hide behind my saxophone than talk about myself (at least in this way).

It’s far, far easier for me to talk about ideas. Things that matter to me. Or better yet, the people who have mattered most to me — my husband Michael, and my best friend Jeff Wilson first among them.

It’s very hard to explain why I do anything, other than that I find it important and I hope others will like what I’m doing as well.

Anyway, I do hope you’ll enjoy my guest blog over at Chris’s busy web establishment. Let me know what you think.

A Quick Wednesday Round-up

Folks, I’m busy writing and editing. Plus, I’m working on a book review for Thursday and perhaps another one for Saturday…lots to get done, and very little time to do it in.

So I figured I’d give you a quick, “drive-by” blog, just to give you an idea of what I’m up to this week.

I’m working right now on a short story plus the rewrite of CHANGING FACES, plus I have two edits in train. (One will finish by the end of this week. The other I hope will finish the second pass by the end of this week; it’s for a relatively new writer, so I agreed to do three passes for him. Most professional editors tend to do two.)

But I have some exciting news…want to know what it is?

OK, I’ll tell you.

Chris the Story-Reading Ape’s blog is going to feature a guest blog, from me, sometime tomorrow. As Chris is a few hours ahead of me, time-wise, I can’t tell for certain when my guest blog will show up. But once it does, I’ll skedaddle and get something up over here, so you all can meander over and read it.

What’s it about? Well, Chris’s website is a little different from other blogs, in that Chris wants you to introduce yourself as if you’re speaking to a room where you know not one, single soul. So I called my piece “An Intro to Barb Caffrey,” figuring that might make some sense…that means most of you will know everything there, but maybe the way I’m putting it will still intrigue you?

For the record, it’s because I’m going to be featured at Chris’s blog that I decided to put “A Dark and Stormy Night” up as a free e-book for five days starting on the 23rd (tomorrow), and it’s also why I decided to drop the price of “To Survive the Maelstrom” to ninety-nine cents for five days, starting again on the 23rd. Chris’s blog is very well-read, so maybe I’ll find some new readers.

In addition, Nicholas Rossis asked me to do a guest blog for him as well. I’m not exactly sure when this will come out. But when it does, of course I will let you know about it, soonest…as always.

Aside from that, the Racine Concert Band will be playing again on Sunday out at the Racine Zoo, and it’s absolutely free (don’t you just love that word, free?) If you’re anywhere within reasonable driving distance, do come and check us out.

So that’s about it.

Have a great rest of your week, folks!

Book Promotions Coming from July 23 to July 27, 2015

Before I forget — and I’ve got so much going on right now, that’s a real possibility! — I will have two book promotions going on starting on July 23 and ending on July 27, 2015.

First, I’ve put my military SF story “To Survive the Maelstrom” on a ninety-nine cents deal. (It’s normally priced at $2.99.) It is set in my late husband Michael’s Atlantean Union universe, and thus he is credited second.

What is “To Survive the Maelstrom” about, you ask?

Here’s the blurb:

Command Sergeant-Major Sir Peter Welmsley of the Atlantean Union has lost everything he holds dear. He wonders why he lived, when so many others died at Hunin — including his fiancée, Lydia, and his best friend Chet.

Into his life comes Grasshunter’s Cub, an empathic, sentient creature known to those on Heligoland as a “weremouse.”

Weremice are known for their ability to help their bond-mates. But how can this young weremouse find a way to bring Peter back from the brink of despair and start living again?

Next, I’ve decided to offer Michael’s “A Dark and Stormy Night” story for free during July 23 to July 27, 2015.

What’s “A Dark and Stormy Night” about, you ask?

Here’s the blurb:

Joey Maverick, a young Ensign in the Atlantean Union, takes part in a low-tech sailing regatta right before he’s supposed to ship out for space. A storm hits, causing Maverick to take command of his ship and mount a rescue mission. Along the way he picks up stranded nurse Belinda Simpson, along with many others. Sparks fly while the tension mounts . . . what will be the outcome of this dark and stormy night?

Note that both are novellas. I added about a thousand, maybe 1500 words to finish off “A Dark and Stormy Night,” but it is substantially Michael’s story.

Anyway, I figured I’d give you all a heads-up about these book promotions — otherwise, why bother running them? — and now, I have.

Enjoy your Monday, folks!

Sunday Inspiration: Schroeder and Favre Have Their Days

Folks, over the last two days, I saw a couple of inspiring things that I wanted to share with you.

On Friday night, the Milwaukee Brewers honored long-time television announcer Bill Schroeder before the game at Miller Park, as Schroeder was enshrined on the Brewers Wall of Honor. Schroeder started his big league career with the club, and has now been a TV announcer for twenty-one years.

“But why is this inspiring?” you ask.

It’s simple. Schroeder thanked everyone he’d ever worked with in the TV booth, mentioned something specific about his former partners (starting with Jim Paschke, and ending with his current partner Brian Anderson), and said that he’d learned from every last one of them.

You see, Schroeder had a fair-to-middling career as a big-league catcher. He caught the Brewers’ only no-hitter (thrown by Juan Nieves), hit .332 in 1987, and finished up his career in 1990 with the then-California Angels.

He played eight years in the majors. And for some, that would be enough of a legacy.

But Schroeder was still a young man. He wanted to do more. And he became a broadcaster, starting his second career in 1994.

Starting over probably wasn’t easy. As Schroeder has said many times during Fox Sports Wisconsin broadcasts, it’s easier to play and stay in the moment than it is to be upstairs and have to critique everything that’s going on.

But Schroeder swallowed his pride, and learned. That was his first step in being a successful broadcaster.

What’s kept him on the air for twenty-one years? Other than the fact that Schroeder knows his stuff cold and always comes prepared (his colleague Anderson more or less pointed this out during Friday night’s broadcast, though I’d understood this long since), it’s the fact that Schroeder continues to learn and grow as a broadcaster.

By this point, Schroeder has become a consummate professional. Yet the players still see him as one of them, because of Schroeder’s eight years in the bigs.

My guess is that when Schroeder started his broadcasting career, he had no idea just where his path would lead him. He stayed within himself and learned — or, to put it perhaps a better way, he stayed humble. And didn’t insist that he knew it all already, so he had no reason to learn.

Schroeder concluded his day at the park by thanking the Brewers fans, an act that felt surprisingly meaningful. Because Schroeder didn’t just say the words; he was moved by them.

Brett Favre’s induction into the Green Bay Packer Hall of Fame last night was in some ways strikingly similar to Schroeder’s day at Miller Park on Friday. Favre thanked many people, including his former quarterback and strength coaches, people who did security for Lambeau Field, folks in the office…and paid particular attention to the memory of Lee Remmel, long-time Packers historian.

Brett Favre is one of the biggest sports stars the state of Wisconsin has ever had, while Schroeder (as a player) was only fair. Yet like Schroeder, somehow the fans always saw Favre as one of them.

And like Schroeder, Favre went out of his way to thank everyone he possibly could for allowing him to become the best he could possibly be. He especially thanked the Packers fans, and said he knew he had a special relationship with them — this is my best paraphrase, as I don’t have a transcript in front of me — and that considering he’d played elsewhere, he knew full well how to value the people of Green Bay. (The crowd roared.)

Both of these men got standing ovations. (Favre’s lasted longer, but then — who can compete with Brett in the state of Wisconsin?) Both of them admitted they’d had to swallow their pride at various times, stay within themselves, and keep trying — that even though it might’ve looked or seemed easy, it wasn’t.

There was a lot of preparation that went into game days for Brett, despite his good-time guy image.

And there has always been a great deal of preparation that goes into game days for Bill Schroeder, despite his down-home image.

Ultimately, these two men have much more in common than it might seem at first. They’re both hardworking, driven men, who’ve succeeded in difficult fields when perhaps very few gave them much thought at first. (Trust me: Favre fully remembers what it was like to be traded from Atlanta and to be so lightly regarded. The rest of us may see him as an icon, but he definitely doesn’t see himself that way.)

Now, what both of these men’s “days” have taught me is this:

• Work hard.
• Stay humble.
• Learn everything you can. Then learn more.
• Be gracious. (AKA, “Remember that you’re not the only human being on the planet.”) and, finally,
• Never stop improving, in one facet or another.

If you can do all of that, you are a success — whether anyone else knows it or not.

——–

Edited to add: My mother came to WordPress and tried to comment, but something glitched and the whole post re-posted again.

Here is her comment in its entirety:

I enjoyed both events as well…Let us not forget the wives of these men as well…They have made many sacrifices for their men’s love of sport..

Just Reviewed “Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty” at SBR

Folks, I wanted to point your attention toward my latest book review of Charles Leerhsen’s TY COBB: A Terrible Beauty, which is up right now over at Shiny Book Review (SBR for short, as always).

Now, why am I so proud of this review?

I think it has to do with two things. One, Mr. Leerhsen’s baseball scholarship is superb. And two, I was pleased to realize, after reading Leerhsen’s  book, that Cobb was not at all the virulent racist he’d been portrayed to be.

See, all of the stuff I thought I knew about Cobb was wrong — well, except for the actual baseball facts. (I knew Cobb hit .367 as a lifetime batting average, for example, and was the all-time hits leader until Pete Rose moved past him in the mid-1980s.)

Basically, Ty Cobb, since his death in 1961, has been the victim of a shoddy narrative. Apparently his “biographer” Al Stump was no such thing; instead, Stump invented the wildest flights of fancy about Cobb, figuring that as there was almost no film or still pictures or even radio accounts of Cobb’s play, Stump could do as he liked and no one would be the wiser.

Besides, monsters sell. So Stump made Cobb a monster.

Leerhsen proved just how fallacious Stump’s account actually was by going back and reading all of the various newspaper reports, which were readily available in the archives. (Thank goodness for archives, eh?) Stump made so many erroneous assumptions that it’s hard to believe Stump didn’t know what he was writing was dead wrong; in fact, Cobb himself was in the midst of a lawsuit at the time of his death, because he’d gotten wind of what Stump was about to do to him in the guise of Cobb’s “autobiography” (which was ghost-written by Stump), and wanted no part of it.

The most egregious fallacy of Stump’s was to paint Cobb as a racist. Cobb was anything but — in fact, according to Leerhsen, Cobb used to sit in the dugout with players like Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige during Negro League games, and famously remarked that “The Negro (ballplayer) should be accepted, and not grudgingly but wholeheartedly.” And Cobb was a big fan of Roy Campanella’s, plus he enjoyed Willie Mays and Jackie Robinson.

And as far as being a mean, nasty, vicious old cuss — well, how mean, vicious and nasty could Ty Cobb have been if he was willing to help the young Joe DiMaggio out when Joe D. signed with the Yankees? (Cobb understood baseball contracts, and young Joe didn’t.) How mean was Cobb when he helped Campanella and his family out after “Campy” became paralyzed? And how vicious was Cobb when, after his playing days were over and he had nothing at all to gain by it, he and Babe Ruth became fast friends?

Leerhsen has dozens of stories about Cobb, and very few of them depict anything close to the man Stump portrayed (and Tommy Lee Jones later masterfully acted in the movie version, Cobb).

While Cobb was a difficult man to know — he was prickly, quick to anger, and settled things with his fists more than once — he was not a monster.

Instead, Cobb appears to be the victim of one of the worst narrative frames in the history of all narrative-framing.

So do, please, read my review of Charles Leerhsen’s book TY COBB: A Terrible Beauty. Then please, if you have any interest whatsoever in early 1900s to the “Roaring Twenties” Americana, baseball history, or just want to find out what’s actually the truth about Ty Cobb, go read his masterful book for yourself.

Friday Fun! Cover Reveal for CHANGING FACES, Coming in the Fall of 2015

Folks, with all the turmoil going on in the world these days, I wanted to share some good news.

The cover for my contemporary fantasy/romance novel CHANGING FACES is already here! (In other words: Time for a cover reveal.)

Take a look at this cover, courtesy of cover artist Tamian Wood. (Isn’t it great?)

The two faces being depicted are those of Allen Bridgeway, Master’s student in clarinet performance at (fictional) Willa Cather University in Lincoln, Nebraska, and Elaine Foster, Allen’s fiancée and fellow clarinetist at Willa Cather U. (Elaine starts off as an English Master’s student.)

Now, why do I call this book CHANGING FACES? It’s because Allen and Elaine are about to change places with one another…and it comes about because of two aliens who may as well be angels.

Why do these aliens/angels decide that Allen needs to be in Elaine’s body, and Elaine in Allen’s? Well, these two musicians have had a very tough time of it. Elaine, years ago, was brutally raped while still a child in the foster system. (She had another name, then; she chose the name “Elaine Foster” afterward.) She’s been with Allen for years, wants to marry him…but cannot accept her own body or her body’s responses.

Deep inside, she thinks she’d rather be a man. But she loves Allen. If only her body didn’t keep giving her fits…and then she tells Allen something devastating: Even though she loves him, she has to leave. She can’t go on living like this.

So they get in the car. It’s mid-December, and the roads are icy. And they get into a car accident. A bad one.

When Allen wakes up in the hospital, he’s in Elaine’s body (as the aliens/angels performed a body-switch). He’s still male, but now he looks female. And he’s dealing with a multitude of injuries, including a concussion, so he doesn’t really know what to do. But he’s still Allen inside, even though he can’t seem to tell anyone.

And when Elaine “wakes,” she’s actually inside Allen’s body but doesn’t know it. She’s not awake at all, you see; she needs to talk with one of the aliens/angels, but as this particular entity is an Amorphous Mass, it has trouble representing in the physical world. (BTW, Elaine quickly decides to call the Mass “Moe” — for “Mass of Ectoplasm,” out of the Ghostbusters movie).

What will these two lovers do, now that they are in this predicament? Will it actually help Elaine to know she’s now outwardly male — that is, if she can ever wake up from the coma? And how will Allen react, now that the world thinks he’s female?

One thing’s clear, however: When you have found your soulmate, the universe will do almost anything to keep you together. Even change your faces.

———-

Before anyone asks, I still do not have cover art for A LITTLE ELFY IN BIG TROUBLE. The best guesstimate for when the second half of the Elfy duology will come out is early October, whereas the best guesstimate for CHANGING FACES is probably early November.

Happy Friday!