Kevin McAlpin is leaving the Braves Radio Network and 93.7 and 680/The Fan after 12 years.
He was a game reporter for eight years and hosted pregame and postgame shows for the past five seasons.
“It was all my decision,” McAlpin told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Thursday morning. “I have two kids growing up way too fast. I just felt like it was time to be a dad a bit more.”
McAlpin, 42 and married to Melissa since 2012, has a nine-year-old son Max and a four-year-old daughter Mia.
He has begun work at Marietta-based Impact Partnership, which offers media and marketing services to financial advisers based out of Kennesaw. The hours, he noted, are more normal.
The firm features plenty of former Atlanta radio personalities including Mark Owens (formerly at Star 94, 99X), Doug Turnbull (formerly at WSB Radio), Rob Stadler (former at Star 94), Jessica Forkel (formerly at B98.5) and Heather Branch (formerly at Star 94).
McAlpin said as a host for financial adviser shows, he is learning about money management as he goes, which he admits isn’t his strong suit. “As we help educate the listeners, I hope to get an education as well,” he said.
He grew up a sports fan who interned with the Philadelphia Phillies while attending Temple University and worked in baseball operations there for six years. He landed a job at an AM station owned by Philadelphia Eagles announcer Merrill Reese, then the local sports talk station now known as 95.7/The Fanatic (where former Fan host John Kincade hosts the morning show.)
In 2010, McAlpin landed the job as the Phillies beat reporter for the station after Meredith Marakovits left to cover the New York Yankees. In 2011, he saw an opening for the Atlanta Braves Network and landed the gig as their beat reporter.
From 2012 until 2019, he was with the Braves every single game, from spring training until the end of the season, doing interviews and providing news to the network.
After the pandemic began, Ben Ingram moved to play-by-play duties, leaving the pregame and postgame job open. McAlpin nabbed that role, which meant staying in studio much of the time and no longer going on the road. He did hang in the press box at Truist Park during the games since the Fan studios are only a block from the stadium.
“I’m going to miss the people that I shared a press box with every year,” he said. “Mark Bowman [MLB.com], David O’Brien [The Athletic], Gabe Burns [The AJC]. We became a family, really close.”
McAlpin said he hopes to keep his fingers in baseball part time, either in the podcast world or with the Fan.
“Opening day next year will feel weird,” he said. “I’ve been at 21 of them over my 42 years.”
But on the bright side, he said he plans to spend more time fueling his son’s baseball aspirations. “As corny as it sounds,” he said, “I want to be a full-time head coach for his team.”
Ingram, who had McAlpin’s job for nine years, understood the long hours. “As good as Kevin was on the air and how dependable he was,” Ingram said, “I will miss being around him because he’s simply a good human being.”
The Fan’s operations manager Scott McFarlane praised McAlpin’s “insightful analysis, engaging interviews and deep knowledge of the game” as well as his “hard work and commitment to excellence.”
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