Mel Allen

Mel Allen is as much a part of the national pastime as the squeeze play, hot dogs, and pennants flapping in the breeze. And he never even played in the big leagues. Instead he called the games, and that allowed fans to play the games over and over in their minds. His voice is the voice that millions of fans associate with baseball.

Born Melvin Israel, the son of a traveling textile representative in Birmingham, and raised all over Alabama, he was a spindly student manager of the football team when he got the chance to announce games. While a student at The University of Alabama, he sold shoes, coached speech and debate, and ultimately earned his law degree before winning an audition to announce in New York for CBS Radio.

He was the Voice of the Yankees from 1939 to 1964, the team that aroused more passion than any other in baseball. With his vivid phrases and pleasing Alabama drawl, he called many of the great events in the game: the Babe's good-bye, Larsen's perfect game in the series, Mantle's heroics, Maris's record-shattering summer, Casey's barbs, Yogi's convoluted pronouncements.

In an era before television, millions of radio listeners around the nation saw the game through the descriptions of this thoughtful and articulate Alabamian who prided himself on being both a reporter and a storyteller. He returned as the Voice of the Yankees in the 1970s and began a 19-year association with This Week in Baseball as host of the popular program.

Once he sat next to a weakened Lou Gehrig in the dugout before a game. The Yankee Clipper would soon die from the disease that had forced his emotional, early farewell from the game. "Mel, sometimes your descriptions of the game are the only thing that keeps me going." Mel went into the tunnel and cried like a baby.

How about that?