{"id":666,"date":"2012-12-10T14:15:11","date_gmt":"2012-12-10T21:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lib.ua.edu\/Alabama_Authors\/?p=666"},"modified":"2016-06-17T12:28:05","modified_gmt":"2016-06-17T19:28:05","slug":"allen-mel-1913","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lib.ua.edu\/Alabama_Authors\/?p=666","title":{"rendered":"ALLEN, MEL, 1913-1996"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Biography:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sportscaster. Born&#8211; February 14, 1913, Birmingham. Parents&#8211; Julius and Anna (Lieb) Israel. (Changed his name legally in 1943). \u00a0Education&#8211; Phillips High School, Birmingham; University of Alabama, A.B., 1932, LL.B., 1936. Pased the bar exam in 1933, but never practiced law. Taught at the University of Alabama, 1932-1937. Began\u00a0his career as a sports announcer in 1935 by broadcasting a University of Alabama football game\u00a0against Tulane; broadcast for the University, 1935-36.\u00a0\u00a0Worked\u00a0for CBS, 1937-43; began as a staff announcer but was promoted to sportscasting by 1939; announced Yankees games, 1939-64.\u00a0 Served in the U.S. Army, 1943-45; broadcast on\u00a0Armed Forces Radio and <em>The Army Hour<\/em>.\u00a0 Head of broadcasting for the New York Yankees,\u00a0 1946-64; returned to work for the Yankees, 1978-86.\u00a0 Host of the syndicated television show &#8220;The Week in Baseball,&#8221; 1977-96. Honors&#8211; Named to the National Sportswriters and Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame, 1972; one of the first winners of the Baseball Hall of Fame Ford C. Frick Award for Broadcasting, 1978; American Sportscasters Hall of Fame, 1985; inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame, 1988.\u00a0Named one of the Top 50 Sportcasters by the American Sportcasters Association, 2009. A plaque was placed in Yankee Stadium in his honor in 1998. Died June 16, 1996.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Who&#8217;s Who in America, 1978; American National Biography online; obituary; bhamwiki<\/p>\n<p><strong>Publication(s):<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You Can&#8217;t Beat the Hours. New York; Harper, 1964.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joint_Publication(s):<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It Takes Heart. New York; Harper, 1959.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Biography: Sportscaster. Born&#8211; February 14, 1913, Birmingham. Parents&#8211; Julius and Anna (Lieb) Israel. (Changed his name legally in 1943). \u00a0Education&#8211; Phillips High School, Birmingham; University of Alabama, A.B., 1932, LL.B., 1936. Pased the bar exam in 1933, but never practiced law. Taught at the University of Alabama, 1932-1937. Began\u00a0his career as a sports announcer in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-c","category-authors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.ua.edu\/Alabama_Authors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.ua.edu\/Alabama_Authors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.ua.edu\/Alabama_Authors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.ua.edu\/Alabama_Authors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.ua.edu\/Alabama_Authors\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=666"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.ua.edu\/Alabama_Authors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5687,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.ua.edu\/Alabama_Authors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666\/revisions\/5687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.ua.edu\/Alabama_Authors\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.ua.edu\/Alabama_Authors\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.ua.edu\/Alabama_Authors\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}