On This Day In Alabama History: Yankees Honor Mel Allen

By Alabama NewsCenter Staff

August 27, 1950

The New York Yankees honored Mel Allen, who delivered the baseball team’s radio play-by-play, with Mel Allen Day on this day in 1950. Allen was in the midst of 25 years of broadcasting team games during the height of the Yankees’ success. Across six decades, he became one of the most recognizable voices in sportscasting. Allen was born Melvin Israel in Johns, Jefferson County on Feb. 14, 1913. After several moves, his family moved to Tuscaloosa, where Allen enrolled at the University of Alabama at the age of 15. He wrote for The Crimson White, was a public-address announcer for Crimson Tide football games, and went to work for a local radio station as a play-by-play announcer. After broadcasting University of Alabama and Auburn University football games over a radio station network in the mid-1930s, he left for CBS in New York and took his father’s middle name as his new on-air last name. Allen took the job that made him famous – with the Yankees – in 1939.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.

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