The first comprehensive biography of the preeminent voice of New York sports For close to half a century after World War II, Marty Glickman was the voice of New York sports. His distinctive style of broadcasting, on television and especially on the radio, garnered for him legions of fans who would not miss his play-by-play accounts. From the 1940s through the 1990s, he was as iconic a sports figure in town as the Yankees' Mickey Mantle, the Knicks' Walt Frazier, or the Jets' Joe Namath. His vocabulary and method of broadcasting left an indelible mark on the industry, and many of today's most famous sportscasters were Glickman disciples. To this very day, many fans who grew up listening to his coverage of Knicks basketball and Giants football games, among the myriad of events that Glickman covered, recall fondly, and can still recite, his descriptions of actions in arenas and stadiums. In Marty Glickman, Jeffrey S. Gurock showcases the life of this important contributor to American popular culture. In addition to the stories of how he became a master of American sports airwaves, Marty Glickman has also been remembered as a Jewish athlete who, a decade before he sat in front of a microphone, was cynically barred from running in a signature track event in the 1936 Olympics by anti-Semitic American Olympic officials. This lively biography details this traumatic event and explores not only how he coped for decades with that painful rejection but also examines how he dealt with other anti-Semitic and cultural obstacles that threatened to stymie his career. Glickman's story underscores the complexities that faced his generation of American Jews as these children of immigrants emerged from their ethnic cocoons and strove to succeed in America amid challenges to their professional and social advancement. Marty Glickman is a story of adversity and triumph, of sports and minority group struggles, told within the context of the prejudicial barriers that were common to thousands, if not millions, of fellow Jews of his generation as they aimed to make it in America.
Jeffrey S. Gurock is the Libby M. Klaperman Professor of Jewish history at Yeshiva University. He has written or edited 25 books, including Jews in Gotham, which in 2012 was honored as Winner, Everett Family Foundation Award, Jewish Book of the Year, Jewish Book Council.
"Marty Glickman was an extraordinary person in so many ways - both as a world-class athlete and as a broadcasting legend. But as Jeffrey Gurock reveals in this book, Glickman's life - notably his exclusion from the 1936 Berlin Olympics - is significant also for what it teaches us about American Jews in the twentieth century. Immigration, anti-Semitism, assimilation - it's all here, and told with a power, snap, and verve that befits its remarkable subject." -- Matthew Goodman, author of The City Game: Triumph,Scandal, and a Legendary Basketball Team "Marty Glickman was one of the greatest sportscasters of all time, a true pioneer in the industry. He was instrumental in guiding me in my career, and he was equally generous in providing advice to young sportscasters throughout the country. His is a unique life story, all captured beautifully by Jeffrey Gurock." -- Marv Albert, Basketball Hall of Fame and inductee of the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame "Jeffrey Gurock belongs on the short list of the most accomplished and prolific historians of American Jewry. Marty Glickman is exhaustively researched and wonderfully written, and brings its subject alive. This book is warmly recommended -- and not to only sports fans." -- Stephen Whitfield, Professor Emeritus of American Studies, Brandeis University
