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SouthBound

Ryan McGee of ESPN tells stories of his minor-league summer and 'Marty & McGee'

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A mascot brawl, a mountain man who collected varmints as well as old baseballs, a guy named Captain Dynamite: Those are just a few of the wild things Ryan McGee saw, and sometimes did, during his summer as an intern with the Asheville Tourists minor-league baseball team.

Ryan McGee on the 2018 College Football Awards Red Carpet in Atlanta, Georgia.
Phil Ellsworth

Ryan has captured those stories in a new book due out April 4 called “Welcome to the Circus of Baseball.”

McGee is best known these days as the co-host of the SEC Network show “Marty & McGee,” where he and Marty Smith might talk about anything from Saturday’s big college football games to the world’s dumbest crooks.

McGee also spent years covering NASCAR and is a regular at the college baseball World Series in Omaha.

He was one of the first regular ESPN on-air personalities to have a strong Southern accent, and he talks about those early days of standing out from the crowd.

But mostly we talk about the joys of minor league baseball … and the occasional horror of having to fill the Dairy Queen machine.

Music in this episode

  • "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," Nancy Bea (former Dodger Stadium organist)
  • "The Cheap Seats," Alabama
Tommy Tomlinson has hosted the podcast SouthBound for WFAE since 2017. He also does a commentary, On My Mind, which airs every Monday.