SSTN Interviews Rudy Lopes

January 23, 2025

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Today we share our interview with Rudy Lopes, a puvlished author, a big Yankees fan, and a terrific person. Rudy has been a friend of SSTN since the start.

Please tell our readers a little about yourself and, of course, your books.

My mom was a grammar school librarian, so I developed a love of reading at a very young age. When I did start school, I found I had a certain talent for the written word in the form of essays and academic papers. It was in my college years, exposed to real fantasy writers for the first time, that I began to entertain the notion of writing. Of course, at the time I told myself writing was too hard and, apart from an occasional short story attempt, it remained a pipe dream.It wasn’t until I moved to Indiana that the idea of writing crystalized. I was sheltering in an office basement against a tornado warning and chatting with coworkers about our bucket lists. After some thought, I realized I wanted to be published and that wasn’t happening unless I started writing. A vivid dream I’d had earlier gave me the beginnings of a story that would eventually become my first published fantasy novel, Mystics of Sonoduhl. It tells the story of a middle-aged nobody who inherits a Mystic ring and must fight his imposter syndrome to become the Mystic his master wanted him to be.

What do you most enjoy about writing?

I like the creative process - coming up with the world, the characters, and the central conflicts. I’m a hybrid planner, so I tend to envision a basic premise and story moments and then start writing immediately, as opposed to outlining the whole story ahead of time. The editing process can be even more fun, because that’s where you can transform an interesting story into a great one. It’s also where you can catch your mistakes. (Great example in my latest book: I ended a chapter with a cliffhanger. The next chapter switched to a different character’s point of view. The next chapter after that returned to the first character, but I found I’d completely forgotten about the cliffhanger!)

Do you have any current writing projects you are working on?  Can you tell us about them?

My first novel introduced readers to a slice of the world of Sonoduhl and some of the Mystics there. I have two followup novels set in different areas of Sonoduhl that delve into other characters and situations. There are some familiar faces (with many new ones), magic, intrigue, and struggles.

Why are people so drawn to baseball and its stories, legends, and people?

Baseball has a long history that intertwines with the culture. Even baseball-illiterates know who Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson are, and what phrases like “bases loaded” and “home run” mean. The basic rules are pretty straightforward and accessible to the average fan, and the reams of statistics appeal to casual fans and numbers geeks alike.

What is your favorite baseball book?

I’m a sucker for baseball biographies and have enjoyed many Yankees ones (like the Babe and Mantle.) Ball Four was also a fun read (although, truth be told, I only just got around to it this past year.) Given how the past 15 years have shaped up, I rely on recaps of the glory years to help me through. As for my favorites, I’d say Tyler Kleppner’s “A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches” and our own Paul Semendinger’s “Roy White: From Compton to the Bronx.”

Outside of baseball, what is your favorite book and/or who is your favorite author?  (You can list as many as you wish.)I read a wide variety of genres but some of my favorites are “Lord of the Rings,” Terry Brooks Shannara series, Isaac Asimov Robots and Foundation series, and Robert Heinlein “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.”

There's a lot of talk about baseball needing to be "fixed."  Is baseball broken?  If you were the Commissioner of Baseball what change(s) (if any) would you make to the current game?

I believe the commissioner role as it now stands is too beholden to the owners and does not have the “spirit of the game” at heart. Not sure how to rectify that, but maybe add representatives from the umpires and players to the voting? As for changes, I’d kill the Manfred man and the limits on pitchers throwing to bases. I might have suggested killing the pitch clocks and forcing the batters to stay in the box (a rule already on the books) but it doesn’t seem too onerous. I’m all for a salary floor, given the multiple income streams teams enjoy. And, speaking of which, I would KILL KILL KILL any and all deals with gambling companies.

I love to talk about the Baseball Hall of Fame.  Which former Yankee most deserves to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame?

Graig Nettles was a classic Yankee. In the absence of Brooks Robinson I think Nettles would already be in the hall with many more Gold Gloves.

What is the greatest baseball movie of all time?  (Yes, you can list a few!)

It’s a tossup between A League of Their Own and Bull Durham, with Sandlot a close third. I’m going with ALoTO because, on the whole, it was funnier.

What is your favorite baseball memory?

I have two great ones. One I bring up often is Bat Day, 22 August 1976 against the California Angels. Frank Tanana was fireballing then, and held us scoreless. We chased Tanana with eight runs in the bottom of the ninth (including a Roy White homer) to tie the game. We lost it in the 11th, but to this day I don’t leave until the last out. You never know! My other great memory is the World Series Game 5, 2001. My brother and I sat in the left field bleachers watching the D-Backs beating up on us, but that bat day memory kept us in our seats in the 9th inning - until, of course, Scott Brosius planted a pitch about ten feet in front of us. I still get chills thinking about that one!

Please share anything else you'd like with our audience.

Mystics of Sonoduhl is available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DM7P8Q5Y. The followup, Legacy of Sonoduhl, will be published early 2025.

On a baseball-related note, I surely hope the Max Fried signing is the first step in a series of (real!) moves that will (for a change) position us to recapture the pennant. No more dumpster diving! Go Yankees!