Description

A gloriously funny nostalgic memoir of a popular ESPN reporter who in the summer of 1994 was a freshoutofcollege intern for a minor league baseball team Madness and charm ensue as Ryan McGee spends the seasonsteeped in sweat fertilizer nacho cheese sauce and pure unadulterated joy in North Carolina with the Asheville Tourists

A sweet and funny book that reminds us its not just the game itself that draws us Its also the people Tom Verducci MLB Network Fox amp Sports Illustrated and New York Times bestselling author of The Yankee Years

In the spring of 1994 Ryan McGee new college graduate bombed his coveted interview with ESPNthe only place he ever wanted to work But he did receive one job offer to work for 100 a week for the Asheville Tourists a proud minor league baseball team in the heart of North Carolinas Blue Ridge Mountains McCormick Field home to the Tourists had once been graced by Ty Cobb Lou Gehrig Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson What could go wrong

Welcome to the Circus of Baseball is McGees hilarious charming memoir of his first summer working in the sporting world He has since risen the ESPN ranks to national TV radio and Internet host but his time in Asheville still looms large Among the many jewels of his experience McGee recounts one of the most entertaining onfield brawls youll ever witness between the fourteen league mascots who had assembled for the allstar gamean eightfoottall foamcostumed crustacean a pudgy red fox a giant skunk and they were really fighting as well as the nervous moment he oversaw the gameday entertainer known as Captain Dynamite and His Exploding Coffin of Death Most important McGee details a magical summer of baseball of learning the ropes of the insandouts of running a minor league team and of coming to understand how the pulse of a community can beat gloriously through a minor league ball club

Welcome to the Circus of Baseball is a baseball classic in the making