Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Marshall Adesman will always have one leg in the North. But having spent more than half his life below the Mason-Dixon line, the other leg is most definitely planted in the South. He spent a dozen years in minor league baseball, working as an assistant general manager, general manager and business manager for teams located in St. Petersburg, Florida; Amarillo, Texas; Waterloo, Iowa; Utica, New York; Pulaski, Virginia; and three cities in the State of North Carolina-Durham, Greensboro and Raleigh. Many of the incidents found in The Mountain Empire League are based on things he experienced, either directly or indirectly, during his time in the game, and many of the characters found in the book are based on people he knew and worked with in those towns. He is also the co-author of an historical book, The 25 Greatest Baseball Teams of the 20th Century Ranked, contributed to two other nonfiction works, and served as an associate editor on the two-volume history, Baseball's Business: The Winter Meetings. After 21 years at Duke University, he and his wife retired to the beautiful mountains of Northeast Tennessee in 2009.