Marty Glickman: The Life of an American Jewish Sports Legend

by Jeffrey S. Gurock Narrated by Joe Barrett

Overview

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. His vocabulary and method of broadcasting left an indelible mark on the industry, and many of today's most famous sportscasters were Glickman disciples. 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. 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.

Editorial Reviews

Cleveland Jewish News - Jacob Gurvis

"Gurock, a historian and professor at Yeshiva University, recently published “Marty Glickman: The Life of an American Jewish Sports Legend,” a book about the beloved sportscaster who died in 2001 at 83."

Foreword Reviews

"This engrossing, vibrant biography of Marty Glickman also explores the evolving identity of Jewish people in twentieth-century America."

Matthew Goodman

"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."

Marv Albert

"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."

Booklist

"Glickman's story, meticulously conveyed by Gurock, will find resonance with readers far beyond New York ... Gurock offers both a fine portrait of an America roiled in contradictions over race and also a modern-day cautionary tale to those who would abide antisemitism in their midst."

Gerald Eskenazi

"Going beyond the story of an American Jewish athlete kept out of Hitler’s Olympics, this book speaks to the wider world of American sports and culture. It is the story of a kid whose dreams eventually led him all the way up to the announcer’s booth at Madison Square Garden. This is Marty Glickman’s story, but also, in Jeffrey S. Gurock’s superb work, a tale of pride and prejudice, of joy and anger—and the impact that one man has had on the world of sports announcing. His voice is still heard."

International Journal of Sport and Religion - William M. Simons

"Depicting Glickman’s life as representative of the experience of second-generation Jewish Americans, Gurock relates an ethnic history that is both individual and collective...Drilling deep into metropolitan and Jewish newspaper articles about Glickman’s athletic and media prime, Gurock captures granular details, debates, and ambiance of that era."

Stephen Whitfield

"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."

Jewish Book Council

"Gurock’s brief biog­ra­phy of Glick­man is out for big­ger game than mere­ly recount­ing the 1936 Olympics inci­dent and Glickman’s ath­let­ic and broad­cast­ing achieve­ments. He also argues that Glick­man was a sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion Amer­i­can Jew­ish every­man, and his life was ​'arche­typ­al of the life sto­ry of a whole gen­er­a­tion of Jew­ish chil­dren of immi­grants who came of age begin­ning in the 1920s.'"

Hall of Fame Coach Lou Carnesecca

"In the years when college basketball light up Madison Square Garden, Marty Glickman was one of the brightest stars. Coach Lapchick and I knew our St. John’s games were special when we saw the great announcer perched in his broadcast booth. Jeffrey Gurock’s book brings back wonderful memories of a marvelous era in New York sports and will be enjoyed by fans young and old."

New York Almanack

"To this 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."

Kirkus Reviews

2023-06-20
An acclaimed historian chronicles a uniquely significant Jewish American life.

Gurock, a prolific author and professor of Jewish history at Yeshiva University, presents the first detailed biography of Marty Glickman (1917-2001), the undisputed voice of New York City sports during the second half of the 20th century. The author manages to fit an amazing amount of detail into a relatively short book, and he is particularly adept at describing the atmosphere of the New York and Jewish culture in which Glickman was raised and excelled as a multisport star in Brooklyn. He also deftly explains the lasting significance of Glickman's broadcasting career and his influence on his legions of New York listeners. Glickman would intersperse Yiddish words and phrases while vividly broadcasting the likes of the Knicks, Giants, and Jets, trying to adhere to the timeless advice given to him by broadcasting legend Red Barber: "Don’t hurt your vocal cords. Never raise your voice. Never yell." The author examines the vital role Glickman played in the careers of several prominent sportscasters, including Marv Albert and Bob Costas. Glickman also ushered fellow ex-athletes into the broadcast booth, notably basketball great Bill Walton, who credits Glickman with changing his life by helping him overcome a stammer, an affliction that Glickman knew firsthand how to mitigate in part by reciting the poetry of Chaucer and Poe prior to broadcasts. Gurock is at his best in his complete accounting of how Glickman and fellow Jewish American Olympian Sam Stoller were sidelined from the 400-meter relay at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin by American Olympic coaches and officials such as the odious Avery Brundage. Gurock ably examines the events of 1936 and their impact on Glickman's views on antisemitism, and he shows why Glickman shed his evenhanded stance about the vile motivation behind the snub. It’s a fitting coda to a striking story of the all-American life of a quintessential New Yorker.

A fascinating portrait of an important voice in American sports history.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940159609380
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	10/31/2023
Edition description:	Unabridged

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