Sports Fiction (Baseball)
Publisher: Acorn Publishing
Date Published: November 11, 2019
Conor Nash has lived his life with a single purpose—to pitch in the Major Leagues. He’s been released from professional baseball contracts ten times over a sixteen-year career, but he’s overcome every obstacle to finally reach The Show when he’s a decade too old.
As he faces the specter of injury-forced retirement, he becomes a man neither he nor his wife recognizes. During his career, Conor avoided the trap of alcohol and drugs because his drug was baseball. And what can an addict do when he realizes he will never get that high again?
Conor climbs treacherous Camelback Mountain, drinks a bottle of Champagne, recalls people and events, and seeks an answer. Who is Conor Nash if he can’t pitch?
The Conman is based on the Life of Keith Comstock. Keith pitched professionally for sixteen years, including Major League time with The Seattle Mariners, the San Diego Padres, the San Francisco Giants and the Minnesota Twins. Following his retirement in 1992, Keith has held minor league coaching and managing positions with several organizations. For the past decade he has served as the rehabilitation instructor for the Texas Rangers.
Interview
Is there a message in your novel you want people to grasp?
One of
the themes running through The Conman is the price to paid for single-minded
purpose. And there is a price in terms of friends and family. I wanted to write
a book that would entertain baseball fans and take a look at the struggle so
many professional players go through just to get to the cusp of the Major
Leagues.
Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your
writing?
Everything
about writing is challenging. I feel like I’ve worked hard to learn the craft
of fiction, but none of it comes easily. It’s difficult to grind something out
on days when you don’t feel very inspired, but you have to do it. You must set
a schedule for your writing—a minimum number of words for five days a week,
say—and maintain it no matter what.
How many books have you written, and which is your favorite?
I am
working on my sixth book. Each is a labor of love and I feel a paternalistic
pride in all of them. I want them to succeed, but writing, like baseball, has
much to do with failure. I think, though, that my first published book, Section
Roads—The Conman is my second published work—will always be closest
to my heart because its based on the time and place where I grew up and borrows
from the lives and loves of several childhood friends.
If you
had the chance to cast your main character from Hollywood today, who would you
pick and why?
The
Conman is based on a true story, the 16-year professional pitching career
of my friend Keith Comstock. The main character, Conor Nash, climbs a mountain
and drinks a bottle of champagne as he reflects back on his career and
struggles with questions about the future.
I’d like to see Billy Bob Thornton play the senior Conor Nash because
Keith knows Billy Bob, and Billy Bob is a baseball guy. He loves the game.
Casting the younger Conor Nash would be difficult because he’d have to be
left-handed, athletic, and know enough about pitching to be convincing in the
role.
When did you begin writing?
I was a
newspaper reporter and editor for almost thirty years. I have always been an
avid reader, but when I wrote news stories for a living, I didn’t have time to
do much writing for myself. All I could manage were a few short stories. I was
convinced I didn’t have the genetic makeup to write a novel. The summer after I
turned sixty, I took an idea that had been percolating in my head for probably
twenty years—a sci-fi time travel story. I decided I would sit at my computer
and force myself to write 500 words a day. From that, my first novel emerged,
but I didn’t know much about the craft of writing fiction, so it wasn’t very
good. And that spurred me to go to writers’ conferences and read some books to
try and master the craft.
Did you have an author who inspired you to become a writer?
First
and foremost, Mark Twain. A New Mexico
writer named Richard Bradford had a huge influence on me wanting to become a
novelist. My style role models are Tom Robbins, Douglas Adams and Christopher
Moore.
What is your favorite part of the writing process?
The
satisfaction of reading through a final draft and knowing in your heart that
it’s good.
Describe your latest book in four words.
The
beauty of baseball
Can you share a little bit about your current work or what
is in the future for your writing?
My
current project is a non-fiction book called The Trio. It’s about The
Chad Mitchell Trio and the 60’s era of folk music. Chad Mitchell and Mike
Kobluk, the two surviving members of The Trio, have spent many hours with me in
interviews and research. I’ve also spent a couple of years listening to the
music I grew up with in the 60’s and still love. They have a very entertaining
and powerful story to tell. The are two guys who haven’t particularly liked
each other much for many years but keep getting thrown together by fate on the
same stage. And when together, they’ve been at their best professionally.
I also
have a three-book humorous sci-fi time travel series that I think is finally
ready and I hope to get those books on the market over the next eighteen or
twenty-four months.
About the Author
Mike Murphey is a native of eastern New Mexico and spent almost thirty years as an award-winning newspaper journalist in the Southwest and Pacific Northwest. Following his retirement from the newspaper business, he and his wife Nancy entered in a seventeen-year partnership with the late Dave Henderson, all-star centerfielder for the Oakland Athletics, Boston Red Sox and Seattle Mariners. Their company produced the A’s and Mariners adult baseball Fantasy Camps. They also have a partnership with the Roy Hobbs adult baseball organization in Fort Myers, Florida. Mike loves fiction, cats, baseball and sailing. He splits his time between Spokane, Washington, and Phoenix, Arizona, where he enjoys life as a writer and old-man baseball player.
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thanks for hosting
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