Batter Up by Twist Phelan

A Stanford graduate and former plaintiff's trial lawyer (her specialty was suing middle-aged white guys who stole other people's money), Twist Phelan writes critically-acclaimed and award- winning (including the ITW Thriller Award) short stories and the legal-themed Pinnacle Peak mystery series (Poisoned Pen Press). She is currently at work on a suspense novel set in the business world.

Batter Up

by Twist Phelan

I changed into my uniform in the umpires’ locker room—the one for players is boys-only. Everything was major league issue, from my cap and sunglasses to my uniform pants and cleats. I was pleased to see “Twist” instead of “Phelan” on the back of my jersey, and my bat had my name engraved on it, too. I even wore official boxer-briefs with the team name stitched on the waistband. I used the athletic cup as a dish to hold my sunflower seeds.

I trotted onto the field across the lush manicured grass as my name flashed on the JumboTron. I high-fived my teammates and stood on the first baseline for the National Anthem. Then it was fly ball drills, followed by fielding, pitching, and hitting.

When I received the invitation to attend batting practice this summer with the Colorado Rockies, I was over the moon. I’ve been a baseball fan since high school, when I cut class for the first and only time to see the Oakland A’s play in the World Series. When I lived in Arizona I followed the Diamondbacks, and now that Colorado is home, I root for the Rockies. 

Practice was a humbling experience. Catching fly balls that rocketed skyward from the ball machine like cruise missiles was next to impossible. Despite the help of a fielding coach, I missed every one. I have new respect for the guys who do it while 40,000 fans scream at them. The sun really does get in your eyes.

Playing shortstop went a little better. I dove for a line drive—not only did I stop the ball, but I got my uniform dirty. Pitching was fine. The coach was impressed—okay, surprised—that I had a leg kick and could throw it over the plate.

Hitting was the highpoint. I mashed two balls (out of six) into the outfield off a former pitcher for the SF Giants. Granted he wasn’t throwing heat (lukewarm would be a charitable description; around 70 mph) and I’m sure twenty-five years of playing polo have sharpened my hit-ball-with-stick reflexes, but it was still a heady moment.

I refused to change out of my uniform after practice and stopped for a half-dozen unnecessary errands on the way home. En route, I thought about Marianne Moore’s poem Baseball and Writing. It opens:

Fanaticism? No. Writing is exciting

and baseball is like writing.

              You can never tell with either

                          how it will go

                          or what you will do;

              generating excitement—

              a fever in the victim—

I have been feeling the fever lately as words fly onto pages like balls fly into fielder’s gloves. Like a team manager, I have a game plan for my writing. And as happens in baseball, it doesn’t always work out—plots go into extra innings, a new character is sent in for relief, computers break when you’re at bat, the batting order of projects must be shuffled. Still, I wouldn’t play any other game, on or off the field. And in case you’re wondering, no, I didn’t sleep in my uniform. Well, maybe just the jersey.

 

Keeping up with Twist Phelan

A Stanford graduate and former plaintiff’s trial lawyer, Twist Phelan writes the critically-acclaimed legal-themed Pinnacle Peak mystery series (Poisoned Pen Press). Her short stories appear in anthologies and mystery magazines and have won or been nominated for the Thriller, Ellis, and Derringer awards. A collection of her best--A Stab in the Heart: Collected Crime & Mystery Stories--has just been released as an ebook. Currently, Twist is finishing up a suspense novel set in the business world. Find out more at www.twistphelan.com.

Keeping up with Twist Phelan

I just bought a new Blackberry; my old one didn’t support the Kindle app. Yesterday, I took my skis to the shop to have the new Salomon ProPulse bindings installed. I’m debating between the Campy Super Record 11 and the SRAM Red gruppos for my new road bike.

I’ve always enjoyed owning the latest in technology and athletic equipment. I’m a compulsive adopter. Whatever the new generation gadget, I have to try it.

Remember the Apple Newton? I pre-ordered it as soon as it was announced. When TiVo debuted, I received a letter from the company founder, thanking me for being one of his first 100 customers. (He also sent me a hat with the little TiVo guy on it.) If the guys at Atomic tweaked their skate skis so they were a tad faster, I was at the head of the line to order a pair.

It’s not just tech and sports stuff. I’ve always tried to make sure that everything in my life is the latest and the greatest.
 

Last week I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond with a friend. While she shopped for towels, I checked out the gadgets in the kitchen department. There were things I had never heard of: mushroom brush, bacon press, olive stoner, S’mores maker. I’d put all of them in my basket before my friend grabbed me by the arm and led me into the china section.

“Listen,” she said. “I’d like to introduce you to Twist. You hate to cook. You don’t read cookbooks. You don’t watch cooking shows. You don’t eat pork. The instructions are still taped to the top rack of your oven. You don’t need any of this stuff in your kitchen!”

Of course, she was right. Everything in my life doesn’t have to be the newest gimmick or the latest advancement. I put it all back, except the S’mores maker, which rests on the top shelf of a kitchen cabinet—never used.

Keeping up is often about following someone else's agenda. The bloggers and tweeters who send out news of the latest beta. The marketers, publicists, and journalists who blanket us with coverage about the newest gear. The geniuses who invent the stuff. The producers who make it in vast quantities.

Too many of my priorities were getting sidelined or trampled when I got caught up in keeping up. The endless onslaught of new things met invented needs I readily embraced. They weren’t necessarily the things I really required for happiness and fulfillment. I think if I can stop trying to keep up with all the should-haves and must-haves, I’ll do better at staying current with the things that really matter to me.

Bike and ski stuff? You bet. New dictation software or an improved e-reader? Absolutely. Sunglasses with a built-in MP3 player or an interactive refrigerator? Not.

Is there a Girl Scout leader out there who needs a S’mores maker?       

Twist's Workspace

Twist Phelan

Twist Phelan is a world traveler and endurance athlete. During the past decade she has competed in Ironman triathlons, skate-skied in Scandinavia, team-roped in the American West, paddled outrigger canoe in Australia, rock-climbed in South America, and bicycled from the Pacific to the Atlantic Coast in less than four weeks.

Twist received her bachelor and law degrees from Stanford University, completing her undergraduate studies in two years. Success as a plaintiff's trial attorney suing corporate scoundrels enabled her to retire in her early thirties. She now writes full time.

Her critically-acclaimed and award-winning Pinnacle Peak mystery series includes Family Claims, Spurred Ambition, Heir Apparent, and False Fortune. Twist’s short stories have appeared in anthologies and mystery magazines. She is currently at work on a thriller. Find out more about Twist and her work at www.twistphelan.com.
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Being brave enough . . .

A woman picked up one of my titles at a signing this past spring, stroked the cover, and said, “I wish I had the courage to write a book.” Her comment got me thinking. Was she afraid of writing the way someone (like me) is afraid to skydive? Or was she nervous in the way a person may be if she’s thinking about changing careers?

“Courage” in the former case is the stuff of bravery or perseverance in the face of danger or fear. In the latter, it’s a reference to trying something new and potentially challenging or difficult. My grandmother had a word for it: moxie. Although I’m deficit in many areas, I like to think moxie isn’t one of them.

My parents encouraged—okay, often forced—me to try things I had no interesting in trying. (Remember, these are the same folks who named me Twist.) After I was old enough to ride my bike through our suburban town, my mother made sure I could also navigate the nearby city’s public transit system on my own. At least twice a month, dinner was at a restaurant specializing in foreign cuisine. (I still remember my brother claiming he could hear the raw oyster scream before I swallowed it.) During the summer between fourth and fifth grades, I wanted a place where I could be alone, so my dad helped me build a tree house—and then had the good sense to leave me alone in it. I spent long hours there, immersed in “adult” fiction—Mom said I could check out any book in the library; a raised eyebrow was her only reaction to my selection of Lolita—and biographies, especially of inventors and explorers.

Granted, it was a less fearful time. We didn’t wear helmets when we rode our ponies. We walked home from school by ourselves. But even now that I am old enough to know better, I can’t help trying things that take me out of my comfort zone. In the past decade, I’ve learned to fly a plane, played a variety of new sports, traveled by myself to countries where I don’t speak the language, and written “Chapter One” on a blank piece of paper.

One of the benefits of getting older is that you come to know what you like, and you have the relative freedom to pursue it. But once a year I still take stock of the “new” that I was brave enough to attempt the prior twelve months. Here’s my list for 2009.

-designed and helped make a pair of nightstands and bureau (including bookmatching the veneer)

-rode my bike a thousand miles over the Rockies (Turns out that if you flat fifty miles from your car, out of cell-phone range, and with no money on you, the owner of the town diner will let you use the phone and give you a slice of pie.)

-climbed a Colorado “fourteener” (a peak taller than 14,000 feet)

-ate a radish, parsley, and tomato sandwich (I hadn’t before because I thought I didn’t like radishes. I was right.)

-rode a motorcycle (with a helmet!)

-shot skeet (rather, tried to; many skeet went free that day)

-went to a Country-Western concert

-played in a croquet tournament (I saw a sign for “Wicket and Stick It” and thought it was a rude phrase, so stopped to investigate.)

-made S’mores for the first time since Girl Scouts, using a friend’s outdoor fireplace (and then spent an hour cleaning melted marshmallows off his fake logs)

-planted herbs in small pots (they all died)

-went to a (subtitled) Lithuanian film

-DJ’d a pool party

-rode a roller coaster (but not in the front row)

-volunteered to read for the blind

-won a trip to Prague on a dare

-helped a friend train a puppy (hint: don’t wear shoes you don’t want chewed)

-read contemporary science fiction (including The Human Disguise, by my friend James Born, writing as James O'Neal)

-took golf lessons (a bit too slow for me; will try again in ten—maybe fifteen—years.)

What’s on the list between now and the end of the year? Hosting a dinner party, for starters. I’m someone to whom cook is a noun, not a verb, so the idea of feeding my friends food that I’ve prepared is terrifying (and potentially dangerous, at least for them). But a favorite restaurant is offering cooking classes this fall, and I’ve signed up for a course.

How about you? What new things were you brave enough to attempt this past year?

And what is on this year’s list?