Steve Cuden: On today’s Story Beat,

Mike Bodayle: Just sit down and start writing. It sounds so simple, but it’s so profound. That’s what you need to do. I don’t like writing. I like editing and rewriting. That’s where you really love it. And so realize what you throw down is not going to be what’s going to be very unlikely. That’s going to be what’s in your printed version. Let your imagination take over. If you’re writing fiction, get down and start writing. Remember, it’s not going to be your final piece. And you’re going to, you’ll get to love editing and reshaping words, moving things around. That, that becomes to me, that’s the love.

Announcer: This is Story Beat with Steve Cuden, a podcast for the creative mind. Storybeat explores how masters of creativity develop and produce brilliant works that people everywhere love and admire. So join us as we discover how talented creators find success in the worlds of imagination and entertainment. Here now is your host, Steve Cuden

Steve Cuden: Thanks for joining us on Story Beat. We’re coming to you from the steel City, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My guest today, Mike Bodale, is a semi retired insurance company executive. His favorite things in life are proudly displayed in the images on the four luggage tags found on his suitcase. That the Yankees logo, a, uh, cassette, mixtape, a slice of pizza, and the Starbucks logo. In the mid-1970s, Mike wrote about music for his college newspaper. From 1995 to 2001, Mike published Beyond Belief, an Elvis Costello international fanzine. In 2016, he left printed media for two blogs, the Pizza Snob and Music City. Mike. In 2025, Mike published a League of His Own, the family memoir he’d long dreamed of writing. I’ve read A League of His Own and can tell you it’s a highly detailed personal accounting of his family focused largely on his beloved father’s adventures with softball, baseball and life. This led Mike to develop his seminar how and why to Write a Memoir, which has returned him to his love of public speaking. Mike’s first work of fiction, Music Leads to Murder, is soon to be published. It was inspired by his passion for rock music and his love of murder mysteries, New York City and London. So for all those reasons and many more, I’m delighted to welcome the writer and speaker Mike Bodale to story be today. Mike, I’m so glad to have you join me on the show.

Mike Bodayle: Well, thank you, Steve. I’m so honored to be asked and invited to do this. It’s gonna be great.

Steve Cuden: Well, the honor is all mine. So let’s go back in time, just a little bit. When you were a young boy, which came first? Thinking about baseball or writing?

Mike Bodayle: Oh, gosh, baseball. It was baseball everything. And, uh, you know, I guess that’s all we did when we were kids. I mean, in the summer, you know, all the time, you wake up in the morning, played baseball until it got too hot. Then you played baseball games in the inside where it was cooler. But, uh, you know, if anybody reads the book, I go into great detail of why I gave up baseball at 12. Uh, I was, you know, the expression of baseball, the yips. You know, they. When somebody gets, you know, they’ll throw the ball into the stands rather than to the first baseman. I was just too nervous as a baseball player. I had the skills, but I was just so nervous. And I. And I kind of in the book, tried to talk about where that may have came from, and I don’t know exactly where, but eventually got over it. Had a decent softball career. But, uh, yeah, baseball before writing.

Steve Cuden: Well, if you’re going to be a professional ball player, you have to have certain skills. And then something beyond, I think, uh,

Mike Bodayle: yeah, I mean, it’s like less than 1% of probably anybody. People that make the minor leagues even get to the major leagues. It’s. It’s that tough.

Steve Cuden: Yeah, it’s that the pros of almost any sport are ridiculously hard to get to. And if you’re good enough to get there, then good on you. But most people cannot. And that’s okay as long as you enjoy the game. So how old were you when you first started to think about words and writing? Were you a reader as a kid?

Mike Bodayle: No, and I still am a terrible reader today. It’s kind of funny. I don’t know what it. You know, that’s a really good question, Steve, that I, uh, really hadn’t thought about when I first started thinking about it. But I just always thought maybe it was from watching tv, you know, and seeing somebody sit down with a typewriter and create. I said, wow, that’s. That looks like a pretty neat job to have. I’d like to do that, you know, not have a boss or any responsibilities and just be creative. So. And then when I got to finally writing, I just always. Was always, just always fascinated. The fact that you can start with a blank sheet of paper and create something, it just was a remarkable thing to me. And that’s how the love sort of developed from just the process of creating something. Nothing.

Steve Cuden: Well, a lot of people, myself included, have long thought about the process of being a writer. Alone with no boss in a room, um, to actually be daunting because it’s very difficult. In fact, there’s a wonderful phrase for it. It’s called the tyranny of the blank page or the blank screen, whatever it is.

Mike Bodayle: Right, right. But, you know, when am I starting my writing career? When I’m retired and I got my 401k already. Right. I didn’t have the guts to do it when I was younger. And I, you know, I had a successful career in business as an accountant. I wanted. I wanted a paycheck.

Steve Cuden: Well, that’s, uh, I mean, that’s an important part of life. If you have, uh, a need to put a roof over your head and food on the table, then having a job can be very important.

Mike Bodayle: And in my case was I just couldn’t, is what I did with my first paycheck because I bought a stereo system. I wanted to go to work so I could buy a new stereo.

Steve Cuden: Well, that was your motivation. Um, so you didn’t start to really write seriously until after you retired, Is that what you’re saying?

Mike Bodayle: Well, you know, let me. You know. And it’s funny, I really kind of almost lost track of this one one day. One. You know, I’m a kind of guy, like, kind of guy likes to make lists of things. And. And I used to be really into trivia. And one day I put together, I think I sat down at a typewriter because that’s what I had to do back. This would have been like 74 or something like that.

Steve Cuden: Tell me about it.

Mike Bodayle: And I put together a whole bunch of music trivia questions. And I brought it to the cafeteria. This was when I was going to Seton Hall University. And, uh, all my friends said, this is pretty cool. Why don’t you take it to the school newspaper? And I brought it up to the school newspaper, and the guy, the editor, you know, he said, this is pretty cool. He says, did you ever try to write something about music? And I had. And he said, why don’t you try to write something about music? And I wrote a review for the. For the school newspaper. So that was actually the first thing I ever wrote. I wrote about a dozen or so, um, uh, you know, stories. For. It was to call a suitonian the Seton hall newspaper. And I think I put them on my website. If I did, I shouldn’t tell anybody because they’re terrible. No, I’ve got scans of them. Um, um. And I’m glad I didn’t put them up there, because I was terrible. I Was a terrible writer.

Steve Cuden: So you didn’t take writing classes or anything like that? You just started to write?

Mike Bodayle: Never took a writing class. But, you know, where my writing skills really developed was as a businessman, as a business writer. You know, I worked for a, uh, CPA firm. I worked for one of the big eight accounting firms, if you know what I mean, what that means. And I used to have to write financial reports, and I. And I just got good at it. And that’s something I did most of my career was write financial reports and. And I don’t know, just somewhere I just got. Got this love for writing and. And I enjoyed it professionally. You know, when my kids. My. Both of my boys were homeschooled by my wife and. And I don’t know, I just watched her teach him how to write, and I kind of just tagged along and listened. And, um, that’s where sort of that love came from, I think.

Steve Cuden: You know, most people would think of, uh, writing, um, some kind of a report for an accounting firm or for a large agency or whatever to be rather dry and dull and boring. Uh, but were you able to make it at least a little interesting? Was that the job?

Mike Bodayle: That’s a great question. Because you really can’t, because you’ve got, you know, you got these professional boundaries. You know, you can’t be creative. You know, there’s only. Sometimes there’s only one way to say something in. In an accounting report. But you know what it was. I think I just became fascinated with words and constructing words and never, uh, fascinated with punctuation. My wife just. She hates all my writing because she says I can’t punk. My punctuation is so bad. I have no patience with it.

Steve Cuden: Does she edit for you?

Mike Bodayle: Well, she. I’m not supposed to say that she does because she doesn’t want, you know, she’s just. But she. She’s a she on the league of his own. She did a good rough edit, but, you know, we’re kind of leaving a lot of that to, uh, Grammarly these days. I don’t know if you’re aware of Grammarly.

Steve Cuden: I am aware of Grammarly. Well, so what if you. If you don’t think you’re a great writer, what compels you to write?

Mike Bodayle: Oh, I didn’t say I think. I think I became a better writer. I don’t want to ever say I’m a great writer, but, um, working on when I started the blog. Well, we’re skipping over. I really. You know, the first thing I did after those horrible writings in school was I. I became a huge fan of Elvis Costello. And, you know, I mean, I’ve seen him several hundred times in concert. And, you know, I had. There was a whole bunch of us. We travel and everything, and. And I just said, I’m gonna do a fanzine. And. And I’m. I can remember that day. I. I’m sitting as. I’m a chief financial officer of a publicly traded New York stock exchange company, right? Literally. And I sit down at my desk one day and I. And I start this fanzine, you know, And I’m saying, probably not what I’m supposed to be doing today, but I just didn’t resist it. And I remember creating the title and the logo and everything, and it just took off. And I had a lot of friends help me, and that’s where I really honed my writing skills. And, you know, we had a good collective where there’s like four of us, where we read each other’s stuff and. But, God, I mean, it was. Oh, gosh, how you had to do it back then, you know, fax machines, and you couldn’t even send a document via email back back then.

Steve Cuden: Well, there’s nothing better than passion to make you do something.

Mike Bodayle: I mean, that’s. It’s. It’s all about passion, Steve. It’s all about passion. And that’s what did it. And, you know, that fanzine, you know, I didn’t lose any money on it. I might have made money, but if I made money, I spent it on records and traveling to go to concerts, you know, God, we had. I had several thousand subscribers all around the. All around the world. It was fun.

Steve Cuden: Did you ever meet Elvis?

Mike Bodayle: Oh, yeah, And Elvis. Elvis read it. He knew about it. We knew each other. He was just a little too snarky about it, you know, he didn’t, uh. You know, when. If some. But I often said my reply to that was if somebody did the Mike Bodale fanzine, I’d kind of feel, take a step back, you know, you know, why would somebody want to do this? You know? But, you know, I know, you know, we’ve met and talked several times, but he used to read it, and I got feedback from the office sometimes when I maybe stepped over a line. Hey, you should. Those lyrics aren’t published yet. Don’t print the light. You know, you’re right. I won’t. I’m sorry I did that, things like that. But. But it was a good fanzine, and it’s all. It’s at, uh, Music City. Mike. I pretty much Got those issues out there. People want to read them. It’s good stuff.

Steve Cuden: And so it’s all available on Music City Mike.

Mike Bodayle: Yeah, I put it up there for free. I think most of all, I scanned him and put them in there. You can read them. Yeah, it’s really good. Was very well received, very well respected. A lot of people said it was their. The best music fanzine they ever read. And I. And I. I really appreciated that. It was mean to me.

Steve Cuden: Do you think of yourself as a people watcher?

Mike Bodayle: No. Um, m. My observation skills are my worst thing. My worst thing. I don’t notice a lot of things. I’m not. Uh, that’s very.

Steve Cuden: I’m going to disagree with you. I’ve read your book, and I think you notice a lot of things.

Mike Bodayle: Yeah, you know, I guess you’re. I see what you’re saying, because I did have a lot of really good memories about all the characters in that book. That’s a good point. Maybe I just kind of grew up.

Steve Cuden: Did the book complete. Come completely out of your memory or did you take notes as a kid or something like that?

Mike Bodayle: No. Um, if we get into the book, the book started one day, you know, and this was. I kind of. Was. I kind of got. We can talk about the blogs at some point if you want to, but just to skip over for now, I got burnt out on the blogs. The blogs just started to feel like work, you know. They really did. I don’t know why I was ready for something new.

Steve Cuden: It’s because you’re repeating yourself, that’s why.

Mike Bodayle: Yeah. You know, exactly. And, um, you know, I did that. Uh, if you looked at the Music City Mike deal, I had this very popular column called 11 Questions to a Nashville Musician that was very successful. And I got maybe 3, 400 interviews of Nashville people. And I mean, but then the, you know, all the PR people started sending to me. I had an inbox of, you know, all these, and I’m like, oh, my God, it was a job.

Steve Cuden: You know, it is a job. This podcast has grown into something like a job. When I did it as a lark in the beginning, I’ve been doing it for a long time now, and it’s become more of an occupation than just a lark.

Mike Bodayle: Yep. And we love jobs that don’t make any money or we don’t make much money, you know, whatever.

Steve Cuden: We try to make money, but it is a challenge, there’s no question about it, especially in a world where there are so many distractions.

Mike Bodayle: But, you know, I gotta be honest with you, you know, writing that first book, League of Is. I don’t think I’ve done a greater thing in my entire. I think it was the greatest thing, my greatest accomplishment in life. It meant so much to me.

Steve Cuden: Well, sorry. Tell the listeners what A League of His Own is really all about.

Mike Bodayle: You know, my. The title tells a lot. And you know, my dad was a great softball player. He was a really great softball player. And I followed his career and in. I grew up in Bayonne, New Jersey, and I tell, I like to tell people to put it in perspective. My bedroom window is three miles from the Statue of Liberty. Maybe it’s four miles, whatever, you know, as the crow flies. And you know, and like we said, baseball was everything. And uh, like I said, dad worked. You know, Bayonne was a very. It’s a very blue collar town. And I like to say, as I say in the book, in the summer the guys played softball, and in the winter they bowled. And then after both, they went to the bar and drank beers. You know, that was their lives and they loved it. That was, that was very important to everybody. That was how they got their fun. And there used to be in town, uh, well, in Bayonne you had Exxon refinery, Texaco refinery. My dad worked for Best Foods or Corn Products. You know, they made Hellman’s mayonnaise. Um, and there’s made in form Bra was in Bayonne. There was a couple of other chemical companies and refineries. And back in the, uh, maybe the 40s and 50s, they had an industrial league where those teams, you know, played. And the league fell apart. And in 1968, my dad got the idea of reforming that league and he formed the league. He was league president, he managed his team, and he was the star player on his team. So a league of his own is where the title came from. And, you know, I often thought about, you know, writing something about it. And especially because, um, I thought I had. I thought I had what I call a Hollywood ending, you know, there. And the book ends with this famous all star game between the rival league. It was a real Davey and Goliath type thing. You know, my dad’s upstart league with the real traditional league. And the game is exciting. It has a pretty, uh, interesting ending. And I thought about. My first thought was to fictionalize it. I was going to kind of, you know, dramatize it. And I said, no, I like the story as it is. Uh, and then. And, and started with that. And, um, my dad kept a scrapbook, which I’ve got Right here in my desk of the newspaper clippings, which is very helpful in writing the book. And my dad. My dad tried to write, and my dad wanted to be a writer, too. Maybe I got some inspiration there. But my dad could not. He was. Oh, God, his writing is horrible. It’s really bad. Really, really, really bad.

Steve Cuden: So your dad was not a celebrity, except perhaps locally. Um, he was not known nationally or even in the state of New York. He was known locally in Bayonne. Uh, my question is, what motivated you to want to write more or less his story? I know you got your mom in there, too, and your relatives and your grandparents, but, uh, what about him made you feel compelled to write a story about him, a book about him?

Mike Bodayle: He had, you know, we talked about passion, and he had a passion for softball. He had a passion for baseball. And. And I. And I just. The more I thought about. There were just a lot of interesting stories that, you know, that I. That sort of, you know, I talk about this book. It’s, you know, it started with that Hollywood ending thing and then about the league, but then there was this. All these building blocks, you know, to show dad’s development. And you’ll see in the book, I contrast it with my five years of Little League. You read that, and I thought that was nice and threw a couple of stories, and I even threw a couple of things in there that people say, well, I’m really surprised. That wasn’t very flattering for your dad. I said, no, it wasn’t, but it was true. And, you know, and he learned from some of the mistakes he made in life, uh, as a father and as a. He was a great father. Uh, but, you know, we all make mistakes. Dad had a temper and just told some things that maybe weren’t so flattering.

Steve Cuden: Did you find it difficult to write those unflattering things?

Mike Bodayle: No, I didn’t, because I think. I think they were all really strong character lessons for him. And, you know, he never made. He didn’t. He didn’t make. Repeat his flow, you know, when he. When he. When he did something that wasn’t right, he didn’t repeat it. He learned from it. Like, I learned a lot of things like that as a father, too, you know, that wasn’t the right thing to do, and I’ll never do that again, you know.

Steve Cuden: So do you think that your years of working in a disciplined field, that being a CFO of a major insurance company, which I have to imagine is a fairly buttoned down job, that you have a lot of responsibility um, do you think that your discipline in that job helped you to sit down and then write in a disciplined manner?

Mike Bodayle: Yeah, I think so. I think I’m a very disciplined, organized guy. Uh, yeah, I mean, organization, you know, my organization makes people sick, you know. Yeah. And that’s the way I am. And then also the passion, you know, overtook it. You know, uh, famous. A famous line heard around this house was, um, do we have to talk about your book today?

Steve Cuden: How long did it take you to write it?

Mike Bodayle: That’s something I really didn’t keep track of. I wrote it 10 years ago. I started it and left it for no good reason. And, uh, I say when I really put the commitment to get it done, Maybe it took nine months, 10 months, something like that. And one thing I want to say, one thing that was really important and I just thank God for this. I did sit down and interview dad for about two hours before he passed. Now, sadly, dad passed before the book ever came out. He never got to see it. Um, but I did get a two hour interview that really, um, really helped. And. Oh, and just to backtrack a little bit, I said dad was a bad writer. Well, I have all his writings and you’ll. In the book, as you know, I probably had six or seven, you know, dad reflects that were things in dad’s handwriting. You know, I put them in italics to make them look different format wise. But I had, I had. I obviously had to, you know, do a lot of editing on it. But the spirit of the spirit and, uh, facts are there and they’re great stories. You know, growing up during the Depression, how he found baseball and all those kind of things were really good to have.

Steve Cuden: So you. The book is pretty much in chronological order of life. It doesn’t bounce around too much, if at all a little.

Mike Bodayle: No, I think there’s a little bit, um, you know, and it’s one. It’s funny you say that because I did a little research on. On memoirs and one of the things that people said is it shouldn’t be. Worst thing you could be is chronological. You know, I was born, but, you know, and, you know, I had an introduction and an epilogue. You know, we kind of. Yeah, but it is a little bit chronological, but not, not completely.

Steve Cuden: Well, there are some memoirs and biographies and books of that kind that literally go bounce back and forth, back and forth, back and forth throughout the whole book. Your book is more or less a straight line with some sidebars to the. To the past. And that. That was a decision. Did you make that Relatively early on, or did you wait till you completed a draft before you decided that?

Mike Bodayle: Um, you know, I just kind of wrote as. As I thought of things. And, and when I got to the end, I, um, I moved only a couple of chapters around. So I did. I didn’t change it much. And I had some very, um, very respect. Respected people read it. And one of. One of is a friend of mine, um, who is a television writer. His. He just said. He just asked. He told me I should move one chapter and I decided not to. And in my how to write a memoir thing, I refer to that and I say, listen to people, but remember something. It’s your book.

Steve Cuden: It’s definitely your book. And that is a very, very important point because lots of people, if you give it to enough people, you’re going to get lots of different opinions.

Mike Bodayle: Exactly.

Steve Cuden: And those opinions can be extremely valuable and at the same time they can be very confusing. So, uh, it’s still your book. And you need to write what you know you feel in your heart of hearts works, and that’s the way it is, and that’s for better or worse, it comes out. And, uh, if people think the book stinks, it’s on you. If they think it’s brilliant, it’s on you. So that’s the way, the way that works.

Mike Bodayle: You know, I’m working on this novel now. I’m working on a novel now. And, uh, my wife’s read half of it so far. And, and she’s telling me, you just got to do this. And I’m saying, I’m not going to do that. And she keeps. Every time we bring the book, she goes, but you’re not going to do that. And I said, no, I’m not going to do that. I had too much scenery in one chapter. And I said, well, that’s the purpose of that chapter, is to set the scenery. No. Spread it around. I said, no, I don’t want to spread it.

Steve Cuden: I’ll tell you what. If you have the good fortune at some point to complete the book and get it into the hands of, uh, a really good editor, they may suggest similar things. Then you have. Then you really have a dilemma. You’ve got to decide, do I want to make those changes?

Mike Bodayle: Well, you know, that’s. You just brought up that whole world. I mean, do you know how many memoirs go to publishers?

Steve Cuden: Well, I’m sure it’s tens of thousands.

Mike Bodayle: No, no, it’s. But of the ones that are available, it’s less than 1%. It’s really hard to get, you know, a memoir like this to a real.

Steve Cuden: Oh, uh, a memoir like what? What? Uh, a League of His Own would be very hard to get published.

Mike Bodayle: Yeah, And I’m even. You know, it’s been successful. People love it. And that’s one thing that I’ve kind of been looking into, and I can’t even find a publisher, you know, who. It meets their criteria for type of books they’re looking for.

Steve Cuden: The market is saturated. Um, and with, uh, the world of self publishing, it’s even more saturated than ever. Uh, and so it’s very difficult to get people’s attention, let alone get them to invest money in you and your work. They have to see some way to make money back. Because at the end of the day, you as a CFO know it really, at the end of the day, is all about making money. It’s not about how wonderful you are.

Mike Bodayle: Well, and for me, it was just getting this out there. I want the book. I want people to read the book because I like the book. It’s a good book. It’s a great story. And, you know, I have not had a single person yet tell me they didn’t like the book. And when somebody tells you they like it, there’s a way to tell if they’re patronizing you. And no one’s patronizing. And it’s like when they start quoting from the book and start asking you about to go deeper into a story. No, they liked the book. Uh, I really believe they liked it.

Steve Cuden: So tell us about what kind of research you did, beyond the scrapbook that your father had. Did you do any kind of research going back into the way Bayonne was in its day and those people?

Mike Bodayle: No, that was just really. Just my. I was just really. Observation, I think. I think the only research I recall doing was for the chapter I wrote on the history of softball, you know, which I kind of kick off the book with, just to kind of put that in perspective. But most that stuff is just all from memory.

Steve Cuden: Do you think your memories were in any way skewed by time?

Mike Bodayle: No, I really don’t think so. Well, I don’t think I. You know, Steve, I don’t think I got too into the weeds on anything where, you know, I couldn’t. That might have been an issue. At least. At least that’s the way I saw it.

Steve Cuden: Well, the reason why I ask, uh, and I’m sure that you’re right, but the reason why I ask is you have vivid depictions of many different people from these various leagues and the People your dad worked with and your family and your friends and so on. And so, uh, this is all out of your memory, not from any kind of journaling?

Mike Bodayle: Well, you know, in the book, I really chronicle the one season, which is the inaugural season of the Bayonne Industrial League. And, you know, and from the beginning to end, well, I was the bat boy. You know, I was. I was. How. I guess I was 12. And, you know, I was the bad boy. I knew all the players. I was there every week, and I lived and breathed it. And also having that scrapbook with. Well, and, you know, one thing I talk about in the book in Bayonne, New Jersey, I mean, uh, one of these softball games, it was in the newspaper the next day with pictures, box scores. My dad would write the story. You know, it was. I mean, it was big news. And so reading those scrapbooks brought back a lot of memories. And I just remember, you know, I just. I can go back, close my eyes now and just, like, you know, take myself back to that field and see those guys. And they look. They would. The way they were dressed and all that.

Steve Cuden: So you have a very good memory. You’ve got a. It’s very vivid, too, because you. You paint pictures that give the reader a vivid understanding of what it is we’re looking or. Or reading. Uh, and I think that that’s. That’s not common. I don’t think everybody has that kind of memory. So you’re very fortunate.

Mike Bodayle: No, that’s what a lot of people said now, you know, and that’s what I’m trying to do with. With this novel that I’m writing now. Um, you know. You know, you mentioned my luggage tags. You know, let’s. We’ll switch to the music one right now. I mean, music is. You can see the records behind me in the picture there. But, you know, music’s very important to me. And, um, you know, I grew up in the late 70s and, you know, would go into New York, you know, three, three or four times a week to go hear live music. And that was. That was so important to me. And when I wrote this book, which is a murder mystery set in 1978 in the New York City music scene, I wanted to make you live and feel what it was like then. And I wanted. You know, I. I wanted my memories. I want. You know, like, I used to go to this club called the Bottom Line all the time. Been there hundreds of times. And I wanted people. I wanted to write somewhere what it was like inside that club, which is now torn down. You Know what, What it was like to buy. How did you buy the tickets? What was the food like? What was on the menu? What was the sound like? And I really wanted to get that all in the book. So, you know, very similar to kind of thing showing about League of His Own. I had. I had a field day with, you know, describing that club and a lot of other things in Greenwich Village during those days.

Steve Cuden: But that’s based on fiction. That’s not a real story.

Mike Bodayle: Well, it’s historical. It’s, uh, historical fiction. You know, like our friend Barry Greenfield’s book All youl Needed Courage, where he puts himself. I’m using real. I’m inserting fictional characters into the real setting in that novel.

Steve Cuden: We should tell the listeners that you and. And Barry Greenfield are very good friends. Barry’s been on this show twice. Uh, this is your first time, obviously. Uh, and so, uh, it’s clear that you have an affinity for a similar kind of storytelling.

Mike Bodayle: Well, you know, and I got to give credit to somebody there. There is a book that came out in the 90s by a guy named Lewis Shiner, S H I N E R. And it was called Glimpses. And it’s a great book, and that’s what got me into this. Uh, Barry. Barry and I had Barry read it, and we talked about it. You know, like, the social concept of historical fiction. Like, in this book, this guy interacts with, in his dreams with, like, uh, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, Jim Morrison of the Doors and the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix. And I just love that whole idea. So that’s the book that I’m working, uh, on now. Tentative title is called Music Leads to Murder. It’s all real places and real people, but just with the fictional characters interacting with those real people.

Steve Cuden: Got it. So that, uh, is, um, sometimes called a Romanoklef. That’s sometimes what people refer to those kinds of books as, because you’re fictionalizing reality. Or historical fiction is a very good way to say it as well. Uh, um, so let’s go back to A League of His Own for a moment, because I have a number of questions I want to ask you. Um, tell us some of the ways and philosophies your dad lived by that have influenced you, especially as a storyteller, you know.

Mike Bodayle: Well, it’s hard to talk about the influences on my dad’s life without talking about, you know, that he lived through the Great Depression. You know, that was just such a traumatic experience. And I think it’s something you never. You never get over. You just never get over it. And dad was very, uh, careful with money. He wasn’t cheap, but he was smart with his money, wasn’t foolish with it, and was determined to work hard and to save and buy a home and take care of his family, and he did all of that.

Steve Cuden: Do you think that that eventually influenced you to become an accountant?

Mike Bodayle: Yeah, I think so. I think so too. Well, dad was good with math and I was. We both were good with math and had a love of math. And I never remember going. I used to go to work with him on the weekends when he worked overtime, and I would play with the calculators and do all my baseball stuff, statistics and things like that. Um, so I think that love of baseball and the statistical end of baseball definitely was probably an influence, uh, for being an accountant, you know, keeping, you know, one loss records and batting averages and ERA and all that kind of stuff. I think, I think that definitely, you

Steve Cuden: know, the era, it’s a percentage.

Mike Bodayle: It’s a, uh, It’s a tricky one, too. Yes, it’s a tricky one. You had a, you had to get it to. On a basis of nine, Right. Remember?

Steve Cuden: Yes.

Mike Bodayle: Based on nine average, based on nine innings. So.

Steve Cuden: Yeah, so it is tricky. And so as a kid, if you learn that, you’re already learning math, but you don’t know it.

Mike Bodayle: That’s right. That’s right. You know, it’s so funny, you know, you think of baseball and guys batting.312 and you don’t, you don’t really think that he’s. That’s 31 means 31% of the time, Right?

Steve Cuden: Right.

Mike Bodayle: If he gets a hit 31% of the time, he’s great. If he gets a hit 24% of the time, which doesn’t sound like much at all, he’s not so great.

Steve Cuden: It is amazing.

Mike Bodayle: It is amazing.

Steve Cuden: And they’re, and they’re not getting anywhere, usually at least one out of three times or more.

Mike Bodayle: And I’m sure you’ve seen Bull Durham, right?

Steve Cuden: Yes, of course.

Mike Bodayle: There’s that scene on the bus where Kevin Costner talks about, like, if you got two, one blue pit a week extra, where, you know, he talked about how your average could go up just by. Just by luck.

Steve Cuden: I think I said a moment ago, I said it’s, it’s one. It’s actually you’re not getting on base or you’re not getting anywhere. Two out of three times. Two thirds of the time you’re not doing anything helpful to the team.

Mike Bodayle: Exactly.

Steve Cuden: I mean, that’s seems like you would be fired from that job.

Mike Bodayle: And my favorite line about baseball is, you know, you can’t win every game, but you sure want to. Yeah. Uh, and if you win two, uh, if you win two out of three, you’re going to the World Series.

Steve Cuden: That’s correct. That’s absolutely right. So tell the listeners about the Italian restaurant San Vito. Why was it important to your story?

Mike Bodayle: Oh, gosh. You know, you would have thought we were Italian the way we grew up. I think I mentioned in the book, a lot of times on Thanksgiving or Christmas, we’d have. Instead of ham or turkey, we’d have lasagna. My mother made such a good lasagna. But we, you know. And in Bayonne, you were either Italian, Irish, Polish, or Jewish. And the ethnicity, uh, the Italian ethnicity is, you know, as, you know, it’s so based in food. And we had so many great Italian restaurants, and we just fell in love with this one restaurant, San Vito. It’s still there. And, you know, I talk about them. There’s a chapter in the book. Well, it’s a good section in the book about my dad’s relationship with the owner, uh, of the restaurant, who was an Italian immigrant. They were just best buds, and they got. Had nothing in common, you know, but they just got along and loved talking to each other and laughing, making each other laugh and happy and. And we’d just go there and eat great pizza. Great veal parmesan, chicken parmesan.

Steve Cuden: Was this your introduction, uh, to pizza and your start. Your love of it?

Mike Bodayle: I mean, I think when I was. Well, actually, introduction to pizza. And I think it’s in the book, too. You know, in Bayonne, there’s a tavern on every corner. Literally. That’s not. That’s not an exaggeration. And every one of those taverns makes pizza, and they make good pizza. Some of the best pizza you get in New Jersey still today is in a bar. You know, they call them bar pies. So we would. We would just, uh. My mom would send me down, you know, we’re gonna watch TV show. She’d give me a dollar to go buy a pizza. A large pie was a dollar and a quarter, and a regular pie was a dollar, you know, so. And I’d get the pizza, and we’d have the pizza while we watch television.

Steve Cuden: Not anymore, I bet.

Mike Bodayle: Not anymore.

Steve Cuden: Tell the listeners what the distinction is, what the differences are between softball and baseball.

Mike Bodayle: And it’s very interesting, too. Uh, in the book, I actually found out how the guy invented softball, and it was just kind of just Kind of really to kind of dumb the game down a little bit. You know, for people who maybe didn’t have great baseball stills could still play it and enjoy it, but, but then it somehow morphed into a more advanced game for people maybe who were a little older. Uh, you know, as you got, as you got older, your reflexes aren’t as good. You can’t run the base as fast, but you know, you’re playing with a larger ball and uh, you’re pitching underhand. Uh, there’s no, you know, no stealing bases, uh, you know, that kind of thing. And you know, it’s just, it’s just meant to be a little, little, little gentler form of a game.

Steve Cuden: And um, the ball is bigger so it’s easier to hit than a baseball. Unless you’re being uh, being pitched to by Eddie Fainer, who we’ll talk about in a moment. Uh, it’s coming in a little slower than a baseball would. So it’s a little gentler game. That’s what I think, a little gentler game.

Mike Bodayle: But you know, the level that you know they played at in League of His Own was a, was a pretty highly competitive. Oh, I imagine it was competitive baseball softball. But, but you know that it’s sort. It’s of still but you know, you know when you’re get, when you get to BH40 to hit a 90 mile an hour fastball, baseball fastball, forget, you know, you’re not going to do it.

Steve Cuden: I mean it’s, you don’t have the reflexes for.

Mike Bodayle: You don’t have the reflex. So you’ve dumbed it down a little bit.

Steve Cuden: Is that the, the major difference is just that it’s a bigger ball and slower or is the feel different?

Mike Bodayle: Well, the mount’s shorter, I think and the bases are a little shorter too.

Steve Cuden: Shorter?

Mike Bodayle: Yeah.

Steve Cuden: So all of it is just a little more or a little less challenging than a true baseball field would be. Um, so I just mentioned Eddie Fainer. I knew who Eddie Fainer was when I was a kid. Um, tell the listeners who I bet very few would know who Eddie Fainer was. What about Eddie and the. And he was known as the king in his court. Tell the listeners about him.

Mike Bodayle: Well, he, uh, was just an amazing softball pitcher. He was close to unhittable. You know, he could throw a softball that fast underhand and he played with a, he had, it was a pitcher, catcher and I think he had one fielder or two field. I can’t remember whether it’s one or two.

Steve Cuden: So he really didn’t need many people because nobody could hit him.

Mike Bodayle: Nobody could hit him. And. And that. That was his shtick. And he would, you know, he basically toured as a, uh, you know, as a. Like. Like much like the Harlem Globetrotters, you know, go on tour. And he would go on tour and, you know, and earn his living that way. And in the book, it also gave me a chance. I love. I loved any time I could reminisce about something, you know, from childhood, that people don’t know what they’re talking about. But remember. Did you remember Wide World of Sports?

Steve Cuden: Oh, of course.

Mike Bodayle: That’s where. Yeah, that’s. I saw him. I’ve never. I didn’t see him in person. My dad did. And, um. But I remember seeing him on Wide World of Sports, you know, because Wide World of Sports was just, you know, they just had all these sports oddities. You know, they would have the Muhammad Ali fights, Cassius Blade fights and stuff, you know, on tape a week later, that kind of thing. But there was always, you know, these odd sports, you know, uh, you know, badminton or. I don’t know what they would have. But. But the interesting story is that, you know, and. And this is so remarkable. And I tried to reach out to this fellow, but there’s a guy named Rich Hoppy and who was. Who’s from Bayonne, New Jersey. And when he was a kid, he saw, uh, Eddie Faner pitch and wanted to do the same thing. And I saw Rich Hoppy pitch a lot, and he was an incredibly fast softball pitch. And. And the miracle, uh, the oddity is, is that when Eddie Faner retired, Rich Hoppy took over his position in Kingas Court. And I think he was actually a king. The king longer than Eddie Fainer was.

Steve Cuden: So. So for the listeners who don’t really know what we’re talking about, uh, the, uh. In softball, you pitch underhand. You don’t throw overhand like a professional baseball player does. You pitch underhand. And he could whip a ball behind him and whip it through and nobody could hit him. It was crazy to watch my dad’s league.

Mike Bodayle: They, they, you know, they. They called his a modified slow pitch. Not. I, you know, I don’t know what softball is like in Pittsburgh, but there’s some really bad softball games where they do the lob, the arc pitch and, you know, they have slow pitch and let him hit it. And this what they had in my dad’s league, it was. It’s, uh, called modified slow pitch. It was a competitive pitching. I mean, you couldn’t you couldn’t throw sidearm and you couldn’t do a windmill, you couldn’t whip, but you can throw underhand as fast as you can. And so there was an art to pitching. You know, you were. You can, you know, go for corners, you know, throw a change up, you know, slow pitch, try to fool the guy. That kind of stuff.

Steve Cuden: It’s much harder to do than it sounds like.

Mike Bodayle: Oh, oh, it’s very, it’s very hard. But at least it wasn’t, it wasn’t, it wasn’t like a silly game. Well, and, you know, I’m sure people, uh, I mean, women’s softball is huge now. And I’m sure most of your listeners probably have seen the women’s softball and that’s what they’re throwing, but it’s a little faster than what we had.

Steve Cuden: Well, the women’s softball is brutal. Let’s take no prisoners. That’s really hard stuff. Um, what is the difference then between a good pickup, ah, game and an organized league game? What’s the distinction between the two? Just practice or the players are better? What’s the difference?

Mike Bodayle: Well, I mean, these. The players were serious. I mean, you know, I, I go through all each of the players on my dad’s team, and there were some really great baseball players. Um, and there was one guy on the team, his name was Vinny Caravella. He, My dad, I mean, he was just the most incredible baseball player I’ve ever seen. He played shortstop. I think he, you know, his batting average, like, was like maybe. 670 or something crazy like that, you know, and he was lightning fast and he was such a great fielder. My dad actually got him a tryout with the Mets. I talk about that in the book, and it was a great story. He was, he was too old. He was, I think he was 26 at the time. And he lied and said he was 24. And, you know, that’s, that’s too old to start a baseball career. But I mean, that was really a. Vinnie was a great guy. And, um, and I think it was really a thrill for him to get that tryout, but he was just as a shortstop. I mean, you’re talking about somebody playing shortstop in a softball game, diving for, for balls, you know, and can you imagine diving, Diving on, landing on dirt.

Steve Cuden: Dirt. Yeah.

Mike Bodayle: I’d be in the hospital.

Steve Cuden: You and me both. Um, your dad, in doing the leagues and in organizing things, he turns out he was a really good arbiter. He comes off in the book as if, uh, perhaps he could have been a really good lawyer. I mean, that’s the feeling that one gets when you’re reading the book. That he was good at at, um, arbitrating things. Arbitrating arguments and pulling people together. How important do you think that, uh, your dad was in terms of having you become a good arbiter?

Mike Bodayle: Well, yeah, I mean, my wife says I get more like my dad every day. And I think she’s right. And yeah, I did see. I did see that. Him. Dad. Dad. You know, I think both dad and I. I think I mentioned in the book, but one of my friends at work used to call me Switzerland.

Steve Cuden: Yes, you’re neutral.

Mike Bodayle: And, you know, I can remember working in companies where you had one company I worked at, the president and the CEO just hated each other and wouldn’t talk to one another. They would talk to each each other through me.

Steve Cuden: How did they function? How did the company function?

Mike Bodayle: No, they. It didn’t last very long, but. But, you know, uh. And I think I got that from dad. You know, I think both dad and I could get along with just about anybody.

Steve Cuden: He was a neutral guy.

Mike Bodayle: He was a neutral guy, too. Yeah. But I think to a point, sometimes dad avoided. Well, we both. I do too. Neither one of us like confrontation. You’re conflict averse, conflict adverse. Yeah. And there’s a couple of neighborhood stories in the book, you know, about some of those things where dad, you know, just kind of looked, you know, couldn’t deal with reality of a neighbor taking advantage of him, that kind of thing.

Steve Cuden: So you, your mom. We’ll talk about her for a moment. She was, as you write in the book, you have a whole chapter on it. She was a worrier. And you’re a little bit of a worrier. That’s an inherited trait. Yeah.

Mike Bodayle: Yes, sir. Worrying is thinking about the future and assuming the worst possible event. You know, like whatever you think it’s like the worst possible thing’s gonna happen.

Steve Cuden: I call that perseverating.

Mike Bodayle: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Cuden: Because I am a bit of a worrier myself, and so I get it.

Mike Bodayle: And the worst thing is the things you can’t control. You know, when it’s something beyond your control, it drives you nuts.

Steve Cuden: Well, that is pretty much everything except a little teeny slice of life. Everything else is outside of your control, but you worry about it anyway. Do, uh, you think there are advantages to being a warrior? Are there advantages in business or in life?

Mike Bodayle: Well, you know, you just made me think. Is it a good question? Is it a byproduct of being very passionate? It could be.

Steve Cuden: I think it is.

Mike Bodayle: It’s a byproduct of being passionate. You want, you want to, you want to, you want it to succeed and you want to succeed and you’re just impatient.

Steve Cuden: It means you care. The question is, is whether you take it to a point where it becomes a problem for you, where it gets in your way.

Mike Bodayle: What? Yeah, that, that’s, that’s the thing you need to avoid is because it can make you unproductive, you know, because, uh, yeah, sometimes, you know, I’ve worried about things and I’ve gotten a lot better over the years where, you know, you just wake up and you’re kind of depressed, you don’t want to do anything and you hyper focus on something and, and really you just need to be patient and wait because sometimes there’s nothing you can do but wait.

Steve Cuden: Many things will blow over with just a little patience.

Mike Bodayle: We really haven’t talked about the world of self publishing much, but the world of self publishing has a lot of benefits, but it has a lot of challenges. But you’re dealing with robots and AI and computers and you’re not dealing with people. Well, this is the second time this has happened to me. Now one of the benefits that they say of self publishing is, you know, you can make a correction to your book because it’s only printed. And I discovered, I think we talked about, I discovered Grammarly and, and I ran grammar, I went back and ran Grammarly on League of His Own on the copy you read and I found some typos, so I corrected them and, and I’m real happy that I did it. You know, some of them, I couldn’t believe that they were in there. But. And that’s a whole other story. But. So I reset and I did this once before. I changed one word or something one time. So. And both times I’ve done it. My publisher, you got to submit the whole, there’s four, there’s four pieces to your self publishing. Upload the interior, the COVID and then you got the same for the ebook, the ebook and the ebook cover. So you got these four things you got uploaded each time. If you change. All I did was change the text, didn’t change the number of pages. You got to upload all four things again. Well, both times I did that, they rejected my coverage. They said it doesn’t meet specifications.

Steve Cuden: Same, same cover, same cover.

Mike Bodayle: I didn’t change it. And here’s the funny part of it. The message I get is that your cover doesn’t bleed to the edges. If this is Printed, you will have a white border around the COVID and the spine. That’s my design, to have a white border. So right now you can’t buy my book. And I’m waiting for customer service to reply. And they are slow.

Steve Cuden: That’s the nature of where we are today.

Mike Bodayle: You know, the computer kicks it out, but I just need to get a person to go in there and say, oh, I understand what you’re saying, like they did last time, but for the last 10 days you can’t buy my book. So it drives me crazy. And I said, well, we talked about worrying about something you can’t control, right?

Steve Cuden: But if you are passionate about it and you care about it, you’re going to make it, uh, work or be right as quickly as you can within whatever the system is. So you required a little bit of worry. But what happens to people that are worriers is sometimes it, it you go way beyond the need and not check

Mike Bodayle: the email every, every 30 seconds, see if they’re going to write you back,

Steve Cuden: you know, tell the story of the contribution your dad made to the Baseball hall of Fame.

Mike Bodayle: Oh, God. You know, and that’s just the coincidence behind that is just so crazy. Um, my dad, you know, he, he saved his vacation time to watch the World Series on tv. And as a passionate Yankee fan, you know, in the early 60s that was just, you know, the Yankees were there every year. So late 50s, early 60s.

Steve Cuden: I, um, I will not apologize for 1960.

Mike Bodayle: Oh, Bill Mazarowski. Can we do that? Let’s do a little sidebar on that before I forget, but did you ever watch the, the Baseball hall of Fame deal about that?

Steve Cuden: No.

Mike Bodayle: You’ve got to watch it. You know, Bill. Matt, what Steve is talking about, Bill Mazeroski hit a game winning home run in the game seven, bottom of the seventh inning to win. But did you, did you know, in the bottom of the eighth, some other guy hit a home run to give the Pirates the lead?

Steve Cuden: I thought Mazeroski hit it in the bottom of the ninth.

Mike Bodayle: Well, he did. No, but in the bottom the Yankees were winning. And in the bottom of the eighth, this other guy in the Pirates hit a home run to give him the lead. Well, the Yankees took the lead again in the top of the ninth. So if the Yankees didn’t do that, they were teasing. This other year you would have been on the COVID of Sports Illustrated not being Bill Mazeroski. So had the Yankees not taking the lead in the ninth, Bill Mazeroski wouldn’t have been a hero. This other guy I can’t even remember his name.

Steve Cuden: That’s true, that’s true. Yeah.

Mike Bodayle: But anyway, we digress. But so what my dad started doing was got an old, he had an old reel to reel tape recorder. And he taped the audio of the other World Series games off of the, um, uh, off of the radio. You know, you got a better play by playing the radio rather than the tv. And he built up this nice collection. Well, we had a, he had a friend, uh, I mentioned a friend who was the baseball scout, the same guy that gave the. Vinnie the tryout with the Mets. He was a Yankee scout at the time and he knew my dad’s tape collection and he said, hey, you know, um, uh, Whitey Ford, uh, would love a copy of the tapes because Whitey Ford has the World Series record. He pitched 33⅜ consecutive scoreless innings in the World Series. So my dad made Whitey Ford a tape, uh, set of those tapes. And then, then I got taken to Yankee Stadium. We went to give the tapes to Whitey Ford. My first time at Yankee Stadium. And I like to say about that is me and Billy, I steal this comment from Billy Crystal. He made me realize that the first time he ever saw a baseball game in color was when he went to Yankee Stadium. And that was the same thing for me because it was all the black and white tv. So I know. Well, I’m kind of getting the long way to the story. But, uh, so we gave Whitey Ford the tapes over the railing before the game. And you know, Whitey Ford, hall of Famer. And he said, is there anything I could do for you? My dad. And he said, can you take my son to meet Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris? So he took me down to the clubhouse and I got to meet my two heroes. And I grew up Mickey, um, so to see Mickey Mantle. And I go, as you know, in the book, I go through the full detail on that. But strangely enough, um, I, uh, I used to read USA Today newspaper at my lunch every day when I used to go to lunch by myself, read the paper and I read this story about this guy who collected World Series tapes just like my dad. And he’s, and he, um, he was looking for seventh game of the 1952 World Series. And I said, of course, my dad’s got that. So I, I, you know, somehow, I don’t know how I got in touch with the guy. Back in those days. I had found, somehow found his phone number and I called him and he couldn’t believe it. And he got the Tape. And this guy donated his collection to the Baseball hall of Fame. So my dad. My dad’s tape got on the Baseball hall of Fame. He was real excited about that.

Steve Cuden: Wow. Isn’t that cool? Did he get to go to the hall of Fame and see it there?

Mike Bodayle: No, he never got to. But we, uh, we had went when I was a kid, and we went. He never. He never got back to go, so. But that’s kind of neat in the special that, you know, that chance reading that story in the newspaper led, uh, to that.

Steve Cuden: So I’m interested. You write in the book that writing about your family. And this is a quote. I’m quoting. Writing about your family can be a source of constant regret. Why? Explain.

Mike Bodayle: Because you. Because all the things you didn’t ask. Ask him about. You know, I just. Because I kept coming up with questions, you know, why. Why didn’t I ask more questions? And they’re not around. Like, you know, I talk about my dad. My, uh, dad. My dad spent a couple of years in Korea in the army just before the war. And all I never heard about was baseball. And, you know, and, uh, that’s where he learned how to drive. He learned. He played softball in Korea, and he learned how to drive a car there. I just. Why didn’t I ask him more about that? You know, why didn’t I do that? Why didn’t. Why did. You know? Why didn’t. I just kept thinking of things I should have asked mom and I should have asked dad that I wanted to

Steve Cuden: know, well, what do you think the reason is? You didn’t.

Mike Bodayle: I don’t know. I just don’t know. You know, life moves so fast. I guess, um, you know, and I guess my wife talks about, um. She come up with this great term. She should be a writer. She’d be a great writer. But, you know, we were talking about how there’s a period in your life, probably from about age 25 to 35, that you kind of don’t pay as much attention to your parents because you’re busy with your career. My wife goes, yep, you’re launching. And I just think about those launching years. I just. You know, I miss my brother growing up, because my brother’s, like, nine years younger than me because I was launching and didn’t talk to dad. And then finally, you know, I. You know, I really. In the later years, we really got. I lived in Nashville and I lived in Texas, and they were in New Jersey. But we did spend a lot of good quality time together. But still, I just kept Thinking about things I really would have wanted to learn more about that went on in their lives.

Steve Cuden: And that’s your regret?

Mike Bodayle: That’s my regret, yeah.

Steve Cuden: So let’s talk about your seminars for a moment. What is your motivation for doing seminars?

Mike Bodayle: You know, I love public speaking. Uh, and I did a lot of teaching. I taught CPA review class and, uh, taught when I was with the big eight accounting firm. I taught a lot. I like getting in front of people and doing it. Um, I’m always the guy at the funeral. I give the eulogies. You know, I did it for my wife’s. My wife’s parents. I did it for my mom. I didn’t get to do it for my dad. And they always. I’m always the guy at the family. They say, get up and say something, Mike, you know, and. And I just like it. I wanted to promote this book because I want people to read it. I, you know, and I’ve donated most of the proceeds that I’ve made from this book to Alzheimer’s, which Dad died of. But, um, you know, I said, I just don’t want to be out there talking a book, you know, And I said, what can I make it into? So I turned. I made a presentation called how to Write a How and why to Write a Memoir. And, um, I’ve only done it once so far. I did it a couple weeks ago. It took a while to prepare and get people on people’s calendar. But I’m a member of the Rotary Club here in Franklin. I did it at the Rotary Club. And people loved it. They really did. And my point was just to encourage you to do it, how much you’ll enjoy it. Um, you know, how you’re going to disappear someday and these memories are going to go with you. They’re going to, you know, you. You need to get these down for the posterity. And you’ll really enjoy doing it. It brings your family back to life and just really try to encourage them to do it. Give them a lot of the do’s and the don’ts and. And, you know, and kind of incorporate it with what I did and tell them a little about the book along the way. And I’ve got, um. I’ve got. I’ve got two. Two more. Two, maybe three more schedule up later in the year. So I’m looking forward to that.

Steve Cuden: You enjoy it then. That’s the Hulk.

Mike Bodayle: It was really fun. And people. People really enjoyed it. Come up and m. Make bought some books. I signed some books. I am learning something people don’t read anymore.

Steve Cuden: What? I had no idea.

Mike Bodayle: Well, a lot of the people I’m associating with, they don’t read anymore. I get people that bought this book and, oh, it’s on the nightstand. I’ll get to it. You know, and I think. I think. I think though the Internet and telephone thing, I think people. People’s reading habits are not as good as they used to be.

Steve Cuden: It’s. It’s become, uh. It’s amazing. There are more books sold than ever before in history. And fewer, fewer, fewer and fewer people are reading. It’s strange. I mean, it’s. You’d think it’d go the other way. You think that with nobody reading that there’d be less and less books, but there are more and more books being sold, so it’s a bit of a mystery. So what is Music City Mike?

Mike Bodayle: Well, um, I just wanted to write about music. And that’s what that. That’s. That’s what that website was.

Steve Cuden: All genres, specific genres.

Mike Bodayle: Pretty. Pretty much stuff I like, which is. Stuff I like, which is. You know, I, I like rock music. I like. I. I grew up a country rock kid. Became a big Springsteen fan when I lived in Jersey. Big Costello fan. I, uh, like power pop. And if, you know, power pop is. I’m a big power pop fan. Um, you know, just a lot of different things. And so I, I kind of made it an amalgamation of things. I would write reviews of concerts that I went to in Nashville or when I traveled. Wrote about classic concerts, you know, concerts that I went to, you know, back. Back in the 70s, uh, and 80s, did, uh, the little, little thing called 11 questions to Nashville Musicians and just. And just kind of things that I’ve written now, something I might do. I, I was on vacation. I like to write on vacation. And we were in Costa Rica for. For a couple of weeks. And I, uh, put together the Best of music, Best of Music City Mike, as if it were a book and I might publish that at some point. Yeah, it’s. It’s there. It just needs to be formatted and, you know, all that good stuff and get a cover and deal with all the self publishing, so.

Steve Cuden: Well, you. Yeah, I was going to say, you know, uh, at this point, how to self publish.

Mike Bodayle: No border, no white border on the COVID That’s correct.

Steve Cuden: It’s got to bleed all the way out.

Mike Bodayle: Right.

Steve Cuden: Uh, and it’s something you’re ongoing with. You keep plugging articles in there?

Mike Bodayle: No, I stopped both blogs for a while. They’re on, uh, sabbatical. I Say they’re on sabbatical.

Steve Cuden: They’re on sabbatical.

Mike Bodayle: They’re on sabbatical.

Steve Cuden: But they’re still available for people to find. Both.

Mike Bodayle: Oh, yeah. And I told my son, please, just when I leave this planet, you know, just keep paying them. Keep paying so this stuff stays out there, you know.

Steve Cuden: And do you have a loyal following?

Mike Bodayle: I did. I mean, you know, I. Both that and the pizza snub. I had a lot of, you know, the number hits were good. I was very pleased with it. I mean, obviously it slowed down when you don’t have new stuff, but I still get, you know, still get comments and stuff and. Oh, you’re a jerk. It’s a great pizza place, you know?

Steve Cuden: What’s your favorite pizza place in the world?

Mike Bodayle: Well, have you been in Manhattan?

Steve Cuden: I have been to Manhattan, but I haven’t eaten too much pizza there.

Mike Bodayle: Joe’s Pizza in Manhattan is the classic, textbook best, uh, New York slice.

Steve Cuden: Is that a chain or is that one place?

Mike Bodayle: It’s. Well, it was one place, but they have four locations in, um, in Manhattan now. I’ll tell you, I’ve eaten pizza in Pittsburgh. Um, what’s the begins with it? Mineos is great, and it’s a great record store two doors down.

Steve Cuden: Jerry’s Records.

Mike Bodayle: Jerry, I love. Oh, that’s, you know, my son. My connection with Pittsburgh is. I think I told you earlier, before we started, our son got his, uh, masters from Duquesne. So we would go there and my wife would drop me off at Jerry’s and Maneo, and I go to Mineos.

Steve Cuden: I love Mineos.

Mike Bodayle: Mineos. Mine. We have one in Nashville. That’s Mineos. It’s Mineos, Yeah.

Steve Cuden: Anybody that I know that grew up on Mineos pizza, it’s their favorite pizza. But as I understand it, and you’re the pizza snob, so you’ll tell me, uh, isn’t it true that pretty much anybody that grew up on a pizza from a place, they will tell you that’s the best pizza ever?

Mike Bodayle: Oh, yeah, Yeah, I think so, too. And. And don’t get me started on New York and Chicago. I like Chicago style pizza. I love it, but it’s different. It’s a different food. Don’t. Don’t compare. There’s no. You shouldn’t compare them.

Steve Cuden: It’s deep dish. It’s thicker.

Mike Bodayle: It’s like a quiche, you know, and it’s good. I love it. Don’t get me wrong. But it’s just. No need to compare it. But I like good, thin, crispy, New York crust.

Steve Cuden: You like a thin, crispy crust?

Mike Bodayle: Yep. And cheese only. I don’t want anything on my pizza.

Steve Cuden: Just cheese.

Mike Bodayle: Just cheese.

Steve Cuden: That’s interesting. Bread, sauce and cheese.

Mike Bodayle: Bread, sauce and cheese.

Steve Cuden: Well, I’ve been having a really fun conversation with Mike, uh, Bodale, and we’re going to wind, uh, the show down just a little bit. And you’ve told us a lot of really great funny stories here already. But I’m wondering if you can share with us a, uh, story through all your experiences that’s either weird, quirky, offbeat, strange, or just plain funny.

Mike Bodayle: Uh, I was working in my office in Nashville, and I stayed late one day and it was about 6 o’ clock, and it was the day I launched the Pizza Snob blog. So I said, I’m ready. I’m gonna put this out there right now. So I stayed between 5 and 6. Used to do that a lot to not to drive in traffic. I had my logo designed, I had, you know, the whole layout on I use WordPress. And I had the first story I was gonna publish and hit the button and sent it, right. And for some reason I brought my lunch that day, and I can’t remember why I did. And my lunch was a little red thermal bag. You know what I’m talking, You know, like a little thermal thing. Very little, short little thermal bag. And, uh, so I carried that at my briefcase and I walked out and our office is right next, literally right next to a movie theater. And I walked out the door, and as I walked out, right in front of me was a little boy and his parents going to the movies. And the little boy saw me in that red thing and he said, mommy, look, it’s the pizza man.

Steve Cuden: Wow.

Mike Bodayle: You know how I like. They would deliver a pizza with a red. Yes, you’ve seen him with that red, you know, uh, insulated thing. And, and this thing was tiny. But I mean, the coincidence of that,

Steve Cuden: Steve, come on, that’s weird. That’s the universe saying something to you.

Mike Bodayle: And then, so last weekend, and I guess I kind of knew I was going to be, you know, I had that question to come up with. Uh, I went to Houston to see the Yankees. Every year I go to an away series and I went to see the Yankees play three games with the Astros. And going to an away baseball game, uh, as a Yankee fan, is really great because you stay downtown, you stay at the hotel, and Yankee fans are just like, everywhere. All you do is talk baseball for the whole weekend, you know, So I went into a coffee shop right Next to my hotel, and I met a young guy who came down from New York to see the game. He was much younger than me, and he was meeting his dad there because he was from Texas. And we started talking about baseball and how we got into baseball, and it led to talking about my book, and he seemed very interested, and I told him all the stories about my dad, and it kind of put dad in my brain. And I hadn’t been thinking about that for a while, and I just started thinking about that. Oh, I’m at a Yankee game. I wish dad was here. I wish we could. You know, my dad doesn’t even know who Aaron Judge is, You know, that kind of thing. So Dad’s on my brain, and I’m walking back to my hotel, and I walk and I walk past. I walk past, uh, a man, and he was with a walker. And I’m not sure if he was homeless, handicapped, or both. I couldn’t really tell. And he had an Astros jersey on. And he’s saying, sir, sir. And I. And I just kept walking. And, you know, I have a real heart for people, you know, in need like that. But, uh. And I confirmed this later, but the cities tell you not to support the panhandlers because there’s programs for them. They don’t want them to get dependent on that. And so I respect that. But so I kept walking away, and he kept going, sir, sir, no, no, sir, please, I need to talk to you. I need to talk to you. Okay. Something brought me back. So I go back to him, and he spoke very articulately. I was so impressed. And he said, sir, he said, I look at your face. You are a man of character. You just look like to be such a strong man of character. He said, are your parents still alive? And I said, no. He said. He said, I can just tell by looking at your face. You had a great, wonderful father, didn’t you? I, uh. I mean, I was just, like. I was just floored, you know, because walking back with just dad on my heart, for somebody to come up me, like, again, you know, the universe talking to me again, it was just. It wasn’t funny, but it was. It was certainly unusual.

Steve Cuden: It’s a thing that some people would call synchronicity.

Mike Bodayle: Yeah.

Steve Cuden: And it just. You know, the universe is. That energy is right there at that moment.

Mike Bodayle: A kiss from God, you know, whatever.

Steve Cuden: Did it weird you out at all?

Mike Bodayle: No, it got me. Got me.

Steve Cuden: I don’t know.

Mike Bodayle: It just kind of inspired me. It really did. It really did. But, I mean, both of these just really, I just really inspired me that I was, that I was doing the right thing both times. And I think that’s, we look for that in life. And to get it, um, in a strange way even really makes it more special, doesn’t it?

Steve Cuden: Yes, I think it does. It’s a little, um, tap on the shoulder that says you’re doing the right things.

Mike Bodayle: Yep. And I took it that way.

Steve Cuden: Very nice. So, last question for you today, Mike. Um, you’ve shared with us a huge amount of, um, information that’s very helpful to people throughout this entire show. I’m just wondering, do you have a solid piece of advice or a tip that you can lend, uh, to us that’s either, you know, useful to anyone that’s starting out to learn how to write, or maybe they’re in a little bit trying to get to that next level where they can get published.

Mike Bodayle: You know, one of the frustrating things about being a passionate writer is that, you know, we strive for perfection. You know, you don’t want to have any typos or mistakes in the book. And when you write 250 pages and that’s, that’s 80,000 words, man, that’s hard. That’s a real, real challenge. And, you know, I don’t care how many times you read the book, the more you read it, the harder it gets to notice things. As you get so used to it, you read it quicker. And you’re going to let other people read it. They do. Sometimes they’ll find things, sometimes they won’t because they’ll read it quick too. And they’ll read it in, they’ll read it in, uh, bits and pieces, you know, rather than reading it all the way through. And I’ve learned something. You know, I grew up, I use Microsoft Word, which is a great software software, and it’s got the, the spell check and it’s got the grammar check. But when you, when you put a document with 80, 000 words, it’s not very, it’s not totally effective. You gotta, I’m warning you. And I, I beat that to death and had had a perfect hundred score on it and there were still typos in there. And that’s where I discovered this Grammarly software. It’s amazing. It really is amazing. And it just found a. And there’s different levels of Grammarly and you know, it can take you into the AI world. You don’t want to do that. You don’t want to change your writing. You’re not there to change your writing style. There’s like different sections and all I did was what’s called punctuation and it tells you all your commas. And I learned how to use who versus whom and you know better than I was using it. And um, you know, it found typos, misspellings. It’s a really neat little tool to, to run through your book.

Steve Cuden: Well, the, part of, the, part of the problem, certainly not all of it, is that there are many words that sound similar that are spelled differently, and a spell checker won’t pick those up at all.

Mike Bodayle: Right, exactly, exactly. So I, I really. And it’s free. And Grammarly is free. But I, I had, I had this instinct that I didn’t want to go further. And you know, you had to pay for the pro to get the AI and you can even try it free. And I said, should I try it? No. You don’t want to change your writing style. And that’s what will wind up happening if you do it.

Steve Cuden: You’re afraid that it will affect or change your voice as a writer.

Mike Bodayle: Exactly. And if you Google and ah, that’s sort of the consensus that people say, don’t use it, don’t use it for fiction.

Steve Cuden: It flattens everything out.

Mike Bodayle: Um, so that’s that. Now the other thing. And um, 35, 40 years ago, I had a friend who I traveled with on business trips quite often. His name was Joe Cantu. And I’d be walking around with Joe and he’d be looking, he’d see something, he’d write some notes. And I said, what are you doing? He said, well, I’m writing a book. And he would just like see scenery and write little notes for himself. And so I started talking to him and I told him, you know, I started saying, yeah, I’ve been interested in writing and I never, you know, never really took it. And he told me something so simple and I could just hear him saying it. He goes, mike, just start writing. And that is the worst. Just start writing. As I tell people, just sit down and start writing. It sounds so simple, but it’s so profound. That’s what you need to do. And in this day and age too, it’s not like you’re the guy in the old movies where he’s typing it so you can’t change it. No. And I always tell people too that I don’t like writing. I like editing and rewriting. That’s where you really love it. And so realize what you throw down is not going to be what’s going to be very unlikely. That’s going to be what’s in your printed version. So get something down. You know, start thinking. Let your imagination take over. If you’re writing fiction, and that was the one thing writing this novel. I can’t believe how sometimes your imagination just comes up with some wild stuff and like, wow, that’s really good. But where in the world did that come from? You know, you weren’t even thinking of it, and it just kind of gets there. But just get down and start writing. Remember, it’s not going to be your final piece, and you’re going to. You’ll get to love editing and reshaping words, moving things around. That becomes, to me, that’s the real love.

Steve Cuden: So I agree with you wholeheartedly that I am a great proponent of, uh, the act of, uh, writing is the craft. And the act of editing winds up being the art. And so that you. You. I’m a proponent of purge drafts, get it out quickly and then craft it, uh, quickly, and then tell the story in an artistic way after that. And that’s all about editorial and drafts and revisions. And that’s what makes it sing.

Mike Bodayle: Yep. You know, um, my son, when he read my book, he told me. He told me two things, uh, three things on the novel. And I’m rereading it, concentrating on those three things. He said, make your dialogue more realistic. He said, sometimes your dialogue is too simple. Wow. That was a good observation. It’s a murder mystery. As much foreshadowing you can put in there, the better. I. Huh, said, good point. And the third thing he says, create tension. Sometimes things go too easy. Wow. Uh, and that was really good. And I kind of thought, yeah, you’re right. You know, that part went too easy there. You know, put a. And that. I have that discussion with Barry a lot too. Barry, when Barry’s first version of all you need encourage, he’s like, barry, you need some conflict. Everything is just too good.

Steve Cuden: All about conflict.

Mike Bodayle: It’s all conflict. Conflict makes things interesting. And he really got. He couldn’t take it too far, though.

Steve Cuden: It’s actually, uh, not that it makes it more interesting, which it does. It’s that readers tend not to want to read stuff beyond, uh, where the conflict is. They don’t want nice. They want to go outside of their own mundane lives or their difficult lives or whatever their lives are like. And they want to live vicariously through these characters. And they want to be able to have some kind of catharsis at the end. And the only way to get there is through conflict.

Mike Bodayle: I think you’re right. Yep. Absolutely.

Steve Cuden: I’m convinced of it now.

Mike Bodayle: I got one last thing to say about League of Zone. I didn’t think I was going to mention this, but I just got to, because if it does happen, it’ll be pretty amazing. My, uh, my brother, my younger brother, his best friend, uh, when he grew up, is now is a Hollywood film writer.

Steve Cuden: Nice.

Mike Bodayle: I don’t want to, I don’t want to out who he is, but I would, you would know the movies that he’s co written and he’s from Bayonne and, and he’s always wanted to do something about our hometown and I sent him the book and he’s reading it

Steve Cuden: so well, knock wood.

Mike Bodayle: That would, wouldn’t that be amazing? You know, I always thought I, I, that’s what I thought about. This would be a movie. That’s why I thought about a fictionalization. Just, you know, just that whole blue collar ethic of how important softball was in a working class town, you know,

Steve Cuden: so well, you know, I wish you well and that perhaps someday I’ll get to see it either in a theater or more likely streaming, which is the way everything is these days. Mike Bodale, this has been an absolutely delightful time with you today, chatting with you about, uh, your, your writing, your career, your family. And I can’t thank you enough for your time, your energy, and for your wisdom in all this.

Mike Bodayle: Wow. I can’t thank you enough. I really had a blast and I hope we can do it again when the novel comes out.

Steve Cuden: And so we’ve come to the end of today’s Story Beat. If you like this episode, won’t you please take a moment to give us a comment, rating, or review on whatever app or platform you’re listening to? Your support helps us bring more great Story Beat episodes to you. Story Beat is available on all major podcast apps and platforms, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and many others. Until next time, I’m Steve Cuden and may all your stories be unforgettable.