How About That!; The Life of Mel Allen

Champaign, IL: Sports Publishing L.L.C., 2005. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xii, 257, [3] pages. Illustrations. Index. Stephen Borelli is a sports enthusiast and magazine editor who has worked with USA Today. (Fun fact: he began publishing stories to the Web in the '90s.) He is the author of "How About That! The Life of Mel Allen," the definitive biography of the sportscaster and New York Yankees legend. He specializes in Yankees history, and grew up attending games at Yankee Stadium. Mel Allen (born Melvin Allen Israel; February 14, 1913 - June 16, 1996) was an American sportscaster, best known for his long tenure as the primary play-by-play announcer for the New York Yankees. During the peak of his career in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, Allen was arguably the most prominent member of his profession, his voice familiar to millions. Years after his death, he is still promoted as having been "The Voice of the Yankees." In his later years, Allen was the first host of This Week in Baseball. Allen was used as a color commentator for CBS's radio broadcast of the 1938 World Series. Allen became the Yankees' and Giants' lead announcer, doing double duty for both teams because only their home games were broadcast at that time. Allen was the voice of both the Yankees and the Giants until 1943, when he entered the United States Army during World War II, broadcasting on The Army Hour and Armed Forces Radio. On September 21, 1964—prior to the start of the World Series—the Yankees informed Allen that his contract with the team would not be renewed for 1965. Allen was brought back to the Yankees' on-air team in 1976 as a pre/post-game host telecasts. "There's a fly ball out to right field...that ball is going, going...it is gone!" The voice was unmistakable. From the 1930s until his death in 1996, Mel Allen riveted generations of sports fans with his resonant Southern tones on radio and television. His signature calls of "How about that!" (after a spectacular play) and "Going... going... gone!" (to frame a home run) made him an American icon. How About That! The Life of Mel Allen is the first biography on perhaps the most famous sports broadcaster. Author Stephen Borelli, who, like his father and grandfather, attentively followed Allen's on-air accounts, traces the announcer from tiny towns in Alabama to the glares of Yankee Stadium and the Rose Bowl. You brush shoulders with legendary college football coach Bear Bryant, famous radio host Ralph Edwards, and a lineup of New York Yankees legends that includes Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra and Casey Stengel. Allen had a fan following as frantic as theirs, including legions of female admirers. You experience baseball's glorious radio days, when announcers like Allen and his Brooklyn rival Red Barber gave listeners sight and sound and their depictions made ballplayers seem larger than life. Through Allen's folksy words, you follow a Yankees dynasty at its height, from the intensity on the field during a feverish 1949 pennant race with the Boston Red Sox and numerous "Subway Series" to the camaraderie in the clubhouse and on overnight train rides. You learn about Allen's fade from the national eye after the Yankees mysteriously dismissed him in 1964 and his second broadcasting life in the late 1970s through mid-1990s as host of the groundbreaking television show This Week in Baseball. During this period, a unique friendship with George Steinbrenner allowed Allen to call one last no-hitter as he became the voice of baseball again.
How About That! is the story of the American dream. A boy raised by Russian Jewish immigrants who face Ku Klux Klan persecution and Depression-era hardship rises to national fame with a magical voice and a touch of chance. He stays on top with a relentless drive to succeed that leaves him a lifelong bachelor, though always a devoted family man.