If Your Birthday is February 14th...


 ...you share it with Mel Allen.  The Voice of the Yankees for a quarter-century, he called the action for a parade of legends from DiMaggio to Mantle.  Mysteriously fired after the 1964 season -- not long after CBS took over ownership of the Yankees -- which was followed by an 11 year absence from the post-season.  In one of George Steinbrenner's wisest moves, Mel was brought back to the booth in 1976, when the Yankees began airing a portion of their schedule on cable TV.  And what do you think happened that season?  Of course -- the Yanks won their first AL East title to snap that playoff drought.

Mel Allen also reached an entirely new audience as the longtime narrator of This Week in Baseball until he passed away in 1996.

Fittingly, Mel and Red Barber were the first two recipients of the Baseball Hall of Fame's Ford Frick Award for Broadcasting Excellence in 1978.  And you'll find his plaque displayed in Yankee Stadium's Monument Park alongside so many of the players whose games he called.

How cool is it to be a modern-day baseball broadcaster and share your birthday with Mel Allen?  Remarkably, two of the men in the photo below check off that box:
  • Dave Sims (far left) has called Mariners games since 2007, after earlier stints working baseball for ESPN and pro football for Westwood One radio.  A former New York Daily News sportswriter, Dave has also hosted sports talk shows for WNBC and WFAN radio in New York.
  • Ken Levine (second from right) was part of the Orioles, Padres and Mariners broadcast teams during the '90s.  But the back of his card has several other iimpressive entries.  A onetime disc jockey, he's written and directed such iconic sitcoms as M*A*S*H, Cheers, Frazier and Wings -- and is the co-creator of Almost Perfect.  A student of classic comedy, he's hosted the wraparounds for Neil Simon movies on TCM.



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