{"id":56563,"date":"2025-05-23T06:00:25","date_gmt":"2025-05-23T11:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/?p=56563"},"modified":"2025-04-23T14:10:44","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T19:10:44","slug":"baseball-romances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/baseball-romances\/","title":{"rendered":"Baseball Romances"},"content":{"rendered":"

In November 2023, I wrote about an increase in sports romances<\/a>. While researching new titles to purchase, I kept running across new baseball romances! While I’m no stranger to popular baseball movies (Bull Durham<\/a>, Jerry Maguire<\/a>, For the Love of the Game<\/a>, 42<\/a>, 61*<\/a>, The Rookie<\/a>, A League of their Own<\/a>, Fever Pitch<\/a>, to name a few), I will admit that I can’t name as many baseball books, specifically romances. To remedy this, here is a list of five baseball romances all published in either 2024 or 2025.<\/p>\n

As of this writing, all of these titles are owned by the Davenport Public Library. Descriptions have been provided by the publishers.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>The Art of Catching Feelings<\/a><\/strong><\/em> by Alicia Thompson<\/p>\n

Daphne Brink doesn\u2019t follow baseball, but watching \u201cAmerica\u2019s Snoozefest\u201d certainly beats sitting at home in the days after she signs her divorce papers. After one too many ballpark beers, she heckles Carolina Battery player Chris Kepler, who quickly proves there might actually be a little crying in baseball. Horrified, Daphne reaches out to Chris on social media to apologize . . . but forgets to identify herself as his heckler in her message.<\/em><\/p>\n

Chris doesn\u2019t usually respond to random fans on social media, but he\u2019s grieving and fragile after an emotionally turbulent few months. When a DM from \u201cDuckie\u201d catches his eye, he impulsively messages back. Duckie is sweet, funny, and seems to understand him in a way no one else does.<\/em><\/p>\n

Daphne isn\u2019t sure how much longer she can keep lying to Chris, especially as she starts working with the team in real life and their feelings for each other deepen. When he finds out the truth, will it be three strikes, she\u2019s out?<\/em> – Berkley<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>Heavy Hitter<\/a><\/strong><\/em> by Katie Cotugno<\/p>\n

Taylor and Travis. Jennifer and A-Rod. Marilyn and Joe. When a professional athlete and a megawatt star fall in love, the world is obsessed . . .<\/em><\/p>\n

With four chart-topping albums, Lacey Logan is a superstar whose life no longer feels like her own. Her every move is photographed, videoed, and dissected online, and her carefully curated Instagram feed studied by fans worldwide. To maintain her privacy, Lacey skillfully controls her narrative, showing fans and paparazzi what she wants them to see.<\/em><\/p>\n

But when Lacey discovers her boyfriend is hiding two devastating secrets\u2014a bad cocaine habit and a pregnant girlfriend\u2014she begins to lose confidence and control of her own story. Then big-shouldered baseball player Jimmy Hodges, a former Rookie of the Year when Lacey was in high school, walks into the bar where she\u2019s venting to a friend. With his shaggy beard and unfashionable button-down, Jimmy is the opposite of the picture-perfect guy Lacey thinks she wants. Soon, sparks fly and inhibitions go out the window when Lacey dares to take some chances.<\/em><\/p>\n

Lacey and Jimmy are polar opposites. But could this be the forever after they both need?<\/em> – Harper Perennial<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>No Ordinary Love<\/a><\/strong><\/em> by Myah Ariel<\/p>\n

Ella Simone\u2019s popstar life is what dreams are made of. Her eight year marriage to renowned music producer, Elliot Majors, has helped garner the hits, awards, and adoring fans to prove it. But when Ella tires of Elliot\u2019s many infidelities, she decides to fight for her independence despite the ironclad prenup that threatens her career.<\/em><\/p>\n

To help her case, Ella is under strict orders to stick to The Plan: no headlines, no rumors, no rocking the boat. But this strategy is thrown a curveball after an awards show wardrobe snafu and quick rescue by Miles Westbrook, MLB\u2019s most eligible player, sends the tabloids into a frenzy. Amid tricky divorce proceedings, Ella\u2019s magnetic connection with the charismatic pitcher might just be her downfall.<\/em><\/p>\n

Now the pressure is on to turn a scandal into an opportunity and give their teams what they want: a picture-perfect performance that will shore up both Ella and Miles\u2019 reputations. But as the lines between reality and PR begin to blur, Ella will either stick to the choreographed life she knows so well, or surrender to a love that could set her free.<\/em> – Berkley<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>The Prospects <\/a><\/strong><\/em>by KT Hoffman<\/p>\n

Minor leagues. Major chemistry.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hope is familiar territory for Gene Ionescu. He has always loved baseball, a sport made for underdogs and optimists like him. He also loves his team, the minor league Beaverton Beavers, and, for the most part, he loves the career he\u2019s built. As the first openly trans player in professional baseball, Gene has nearly everything he\u2019s ever let himself dream of\u2014that is, until Luis Estrada, Gene\u2019s former teammate and current rival, gets traded to the Beavers, destroying the careful equilibrium of Gene\u2019s life.<\/em><\/p>\n

Gene and Luis can\u2019t manage a civil conversation off the field or a competent play on it, but in the close confines of dugout benches and roadie buses, they begrudgingly rediscover a comfortable rhythm. As the two grow closer, the tension between them turns electric, and their chemistry spills past the confines of the stadium. For every tight double play they execute, there\u2019s also a glance at summer-tan shoulders or a secret shared, each one a breathless moment of possibility that ignites in Gene the visceral, terrifying kind of desire he\u2019s never allowed himself. Soon, Gene has to reconcile the quiet, minor-league-sized life he used to find fulfilling with the major-league dreams Luis inspires.<\/em><\/p>\n

This triumphant debut romance reveals what\u2019s possible when we allow ourselves to want something enough to swing for the fences.<\/em> – Dial Press Trade Paperback<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>You Should Be So Lucky <\/a><\/strong><\/em>by Cat Sebastian<\/p>\n

An emotional, slow-burn, grumpy\/sunshine, queer mid-century romance for fans of Evvie Drake Starts Over, about grief and found family, between the new star shortstop stuck in a batting slump and the reporter assigned to (reluctantly) cover his first season\u2014set in the same universe as We Could Be So Good<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The 1960 baseball season is shaping up to be the worst year of Eddie O\u2019Leary\u2019s life. He can\u2019t manage to hit the ball, his new teammates hate him, he\u2019s living out of a suitcase, and he\u2019s homesick. When the team\u2019s owner orders him to give a bunch of interviews to some snobby reporter, he\u2019s ready to call it quits. He can barely manage to behave himself for the length of a game, let alone an entire season. But he\u2019s already on thin ice, so he has no choice but to agree.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mark Bailey is not a sports reporter. He writes for the arts page, and these days he\u2019s barely even managing to do that much. He\u2019s had a rough year and just wants to be left alone in his too-empty apartment, mourning a partner he\u2019d never been able to be public about. The last thing he needs is to spend a season writing about New York\u2019s obnoxious new shortstop in a stunt to get the struggling newspaper more readers.<\/em><\/p>\n

Isolated together within the crush of an anonymous city, these two lonely souls orbit each other as they slowly give in to the inevitable gravity of their attraction. But Mark has vowed that he\u2019ll never be someone\u2019s secret ever again, and Eddie can\u2019t be out as a professional athlete. It\u2019s just them against the world, and they\u2019ll both have to decide if that\u2019s enough.<\/em> – Avon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In November 2023, I wrote about an increase in sports romances. While researching new titles to purchase, I kept running across new baseball romances! While I’m no stranger to popular baseball movies (Bull Durham, Jerry Maguire, For the Love of the Game, 42, 61*, The Rookie, A League of their[Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[361,10,5,1,8],"tags":[6479,91,10160,10153,10154,10158,10156,10155,408,10152,10157,10159],"class_list":["post-56563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio-books","category-books","category-read-a-likes","category-reference","category-staff-picks","tag-alicia-thompson","tag-baseball","tag-cat-sebastian","tag-heavy-hitter","tag-katie-cotugno","tag-kt-hoffman","tag-myah-ariel","tag-no-ordinary-love","tag-romance","tag-the-art-of-catching-feelings","tag-the-prospects","tag-you-should-be-so-lucky"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXx-eIj","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56563"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56579,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56563\/revisions\/56579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}