When it comes to professional sports, a person’s lineage is often considered very important. However, that’s not always a good thing. Sometimes, a player is drafted because of their last name and then has the burden of living up to unfair expectations. 

The same thing can happen in broadcasting. On the flip side, though, when a player or broadcaster meets or exceeds expectations, it helps create an impressive lineage that is talked about for generations. One such example is the Albert Family.

Marv Albert is a celebrated broadcasting icon. His middle brother Al is, too. Their younger brother Steve is a Hall of Famer. And Marv’s son Kenny is currently carrying on the family tradition as The Voice of The NHL on TNT, the new voice of the NY Rangers on MSG Networks, as well as calling Knicks games and also doing NFL and MLB games for FOX. (We might have missed a few sports, seeing as Kenny does them all.) 

Steve Albert, 73, has recently come out with a new book about his broadcasting experiences, both as a kid growing up in Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn and as a professional, calling games for 13 different teams, across 11 different leagues and seven different sports. The youngest of the Albert brothers was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2018 and has now added the title of “Author” to his expansive skillset.

“A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Broadcast Booth” is a collection of stories from Albert’s life and career that will amuse, instruct and leave many in awe of how he managed to do everything he did. The tome is available on Amazon and Steve Albert was generous enough to chat over the phone, for longer than he probably initially planned, to talk all about his new book. 

*Editor’s Note: Questions and Answers have been lightly edited for clarity.

Q: What was it like growing up in a house in Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, as three sports-crazed brothers, each of whom wanted to become a sports broadcaster? 

Steve Albert: “For me, it was like growing up in a broadcasting school with free room and board. Despite the age differences, we treated each other as equals. My brothers and I, when it came to the practice of broadcasting, Al is four years older than I. Marv is nine years older than I. And at a very young age, we all had the same goals and aspirations: to become sportscasters. Don’t ask me why. 

“It’s very difficult to answer. I think, deep down, we each wanted to be pro athletes, but we realized we’d have a better shot at making it to the Big Leagues as broadcasters. Al came closest, getting a tryout with the (New York) Rangers and playing in the Minor Leagues. But that led to his career behind the mic. 

“Marv and I were schoolyard players and that’s about as far as we could go. Al’s short-lived professional hockey career actually paid off in terms of his broadcasting career, as my book describes. But, my brothers and I would go into this little room in the corner of our house in Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn and we’d set up our makeshift broadcast booth. It consisted of a small black and white TV with a rabbit ear antenna on top. 

“People of a certain age will relate to that. Three rickety old folding chairs. A folding card table that my parents used for card games with their friends. And on top of the table was a large reel-to-reel tape recorder. Again, people of a certain age will remember those. Also, a record player and two large price marking pencils from my father’s grocery store. 

“We would turn the sound down on Yankees games. They were the only team in town. This was the late 1950s. We had nothing against Mel Allen and Red Barber, the announcers. They were great. But we turned the volume down so we could practice our own play-by-play. We’d rotate assignments. One would do the play-by-play. Another would control the sound effects record, which included the sound of a baseball crowd. And the other would simulate the sound of the bat by knocking those two price marking pencils together. Then, we’d switch around so all of us got the chance to do play-by-play. 

“The only tricky part was that darn sound effects record; the crowd noise lasted only about two minutes. So you had to be catlike quick when it ran out, so you could put the handle back in the correct groove to keep the sound of the baseball crowd going, cause there were other sounds on the record. Like the sounds of the city or jungle sounds, etc. Sometimes, for example, Moose Skowron, who was a player for the Yankees, would be up with the bases loaded. The count would be three and two, the pitch would be coming and all of a sudden we’d hear two cars crashing or two dogs barking or some other sound effect. 

“You really had to focus to put it back in the right groove. Incidentally, that was the same bulky tape recorder that Marv used to lug around Ebbets Field when he worked for the Brooklyn Dodgers as an office boy. He’d sit in the stands, do his play-by-play and the fans around him found it pretty annoying. Word got back to team Owner Walter O’Malley and he made Marv stop. 

“Fortunately, we didn’t have unappreciative fans in our little room when we did our play-by-play. But when we weren’t practicing baseball, we’d go down to the basement and announce ping pong games. We basically marched around the house doing play-by-play of almost anything, including dinner. 

“We were not well. We drove our parents crazy. My mother would often say, ‘Hey, can’t we have just one doctor among you? Do all three of you have to be sportscasters?’ But I’ll say this, they never told us to stop. Not once. And for that, I am eternally grateful.”

Q: You and your brothers practiced your play-by-play as kids by doing all sorts of sports, baseball, ping pong, etc. How did doing all those different things help make you a more well-rounded professional broadcaster? 

Stebe Albert: “I think it prepared me very well for 13 teams, 11 leagues and seven sports. I don’t think there’s any question. I wrote about my discovery of out-of-town hockey broadcasts on my parents’ radio set in our dining room. That also was a great influence on my preparation for doing not only hockey, but other sports as well. 

“It also prepared me for the offbeat, out of the ordinary things that I wound up doing later on in life, like the sports competition game show, the MTV Rock N’ Jock. Even doing something as out of the ordinary as Elmo’s Potty Time on a Sesame Street video. All this stuff, the ping pong games, the wrestling, the play-by-play of dinner, it all got me ready for out-of-the-box type situations as I got older. 

“One thing that influenced me greatly was, we got this great signal at night and I could listen to all these broadcasts, particularly hockey. I was just enamored with hockey broadcasters like Foster Hewitt, Lloyd Pettit, Danny Gallivan and even Bob Chase from Fort Wayne, Indiana. They each had distinctive sounds. And I was just mesmerized by the language and the cadence of their play-by-play. 

“Each broadcast, to me, was like a symphony. I would delicately turn the dial, almost like a safe cracker, to be able to hear all the announcers. Then, at night, under the covers, I’d listen to late West Coast games on my transistor radio with the earplug and I would fantasize about someday being in an arena or a stadium doing play-by-play. I just couldn’t get enough of it. But all that stuff certainly contributed to becoming, I hope, a well-rounded broadcaster.”

Q: Why was now the right time to write this book?

Steve Albert: “What made now the right time to tell these stories? In one word, I would say, retirement. For all intents and purposes, I am retired. I started thinking about writing a book over 20 years ago, but I was working two, sometimes three broadcasting jobs at the same time, which seemed to be a family affliction with my brothers, Marv, Al and now, today, with my nephew Kenny. 

“We just can’t seem to do one job. We always wanted to do more. For me, it was almost like I was an actor who couldn’t turn down a part, thinking, ‘Another one might not come along.’ Back then, I would jot down notes on a legal pad while I was on a team plane or a bus. The game notes that I was preparing for the next basketball or boxing broadcast would often win out and my book notes would wind up on the proverbial shelf. 

“I just didn’t have the time to sit down and focus on writing a book, which is, as I found out, a full-time project. Not only that, but I was in the sports announcing business for many years, but I hadn’t accumulated the volume of stories that I ultimately had in my head when I earnestly sat down to start writing the book about six years ago. So, retirement allowed me to finally go full speed ahead on the book. And being retired, I needed a creative outlet. That was probably the biggest reason I wrote the book. 

“I had spent a good portion of my life being creative behind a microphone, announcing live action. It was really satisfying to nail a description of a great pass or an exciting chase-down block or a game-winning three-point shot at the buzzer or a knockout in the final seconds of the 12th round in a championship fight. But just like that, it all stopped. I was searching for another form of creativity and I guess it was filled by typing behind a laptop screen. 

“It wasn’t exactly the same kind of adrenaline rush, but it definitely scratched the itch. Another factor was that I missed telling stories. After 45 years in the business and the years leading up to professional sportscasting, you accumulate a lot of stories. Many are funny. At least I hope they are. 

“Why did I write the book finally? From a self-serving standpoint, I wanted the younger generation of my family to learn how I and to a certain extent, my brothers, were able to achieve our goals and dreams. It really was a passion project. I didn’t really get into it to make a buck or anything like that. I just did it for all those reasons I stated.”

Q: Couldn’t you scratch that “creative itch” by doing a podcast with your brothers? Something like The Albert, Albert and Albert Podcast? 

Steve Albert: “My brothers and I just said, ‘that’s it.’ We’ve kind of done it for many, many years. I know, from Marv’s standpoint, he enjoyed it immensely. He has stated publicly that he wishes he could turn back the clock and start doing it all over again. However, he’s very content right now, binge-watching shows he never got an opportunity to watch because he was always so busy working and catching up on his reading. I’m very content right now. And my brother Al is as well. 

“People have asked us, ‘How come the three of you never did a game together or something?’ My simple answer is, well, we all do the same thing. We’d all be talking over each other at the same time. It wouldn’t make any sense because we all do play-by-play. So, it would be very difficult to do that.”

Q: In your book’s foreword, Bob Costas talks about you occasionally making Honeymooners references during your broadcasts. We take it that you’re a big fan of the show?

Steve Albert: “One of my fondest memories growing up in Brooklyn was being able to sit down in front of the TV, the old black and white TV in our living room, with my father. We’d watch a lot of shows together. And one of the main ones was The Honeymooners. I’ve got most of the lines down from the show without even trying. 

“I have a lot of friends who are also into The Honeymooners and we constantly trade Honeymooners lines. It just comes flowing out. You can’t help yourself, cause we’ve seen just about every episode a hundred times. I still watch it every Sunday night.”

Q: You called “The Bite Fight” and in your book, you wrote how they don’t teach you how to handle something like that in Broadcasting 101. So, what would you tell this generation’s broadcasters about how to handle such a situation?

Steve Albert: “Bring a lot of Rolaids and Tums with you to the fight before your broadcast. But seriously, that’s because I was always on edge leading up to a (Mike) Tyson fight. It’s basically because he was so unpredictable and I was what you would call an over-preparer. I wasn’t a fan of disruption during the broadcast. I was apprehensive enough as it was going into the second Evander Holyfield-Mike Tyson fight. 

“If I can just give you a little history. I just had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that Mike was gonna do something way out of the ordinary. So on the night of the rematch, I seemed to have more butterflies than usual. And perhaps my reasoning was because Tyson was still grousing about Holyfield’s headbutting in the first fight. Nobody likes to get headbutted, even Mike Tyson. So, as it turned out, I was onto something. 

“I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what Tyson was going to do, but I just had this gut feeling. And of course, we all know what happened. In the third round, he bit off the top of Holyfield’s ear. I yelled out something like ‘Holyfield bit by a dirty Mike Tyson.’ There was a lot of blood and I was announcing in what you might call controlled shock. Mills Lane, who was the Referee, deducted two points from Mike. 

“Then, Tyson, if you remember, shoved Holyfield from behind. After a delay, while the authorities got together and conferred on what the heck to do, the fight continued. But then, moments later, Tyson bit Holyfield’s left ear and Mills Lane didn’t see it, so the fight continued to the bell. It was then determined that a second bite had occurred. The fight was delayed again. But then, police, security, everybody ran into the ring. 

“Tyson was swinging at anyone in his path and it was pandemonium. The crowd was going wild. There was mass confusion. They didn’t make an official announcement that Tyson had been disqualified until 25 minutes later. 

“So, getting back to your original point, as an announcer, there’s no way to prepare for something like this. There’s no playbook. And as I said in the book, they didn’t teach you in Broadcasting 101 how to describe a fighter biting off a piece of another fighter’s ear. So you’re winging it. You’re flying by the seat of your pants and somehow I managed to get through the broadcast. 

“But I gotta tell you, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing or saying when it was happening. The good news is that the Pay-Per-View TV audience was nearly 2 million, including the President. 

“I mentioned this in the book. The President was Bill Clinton and amidst all these world events and crises that were going on, the first question to Clinton by a reporter at his Monday press conference was, ‘Mr. President, did you see the fight?’ And the President said, ‘Yes.’ And I was horrified. I remember thinking that I was relieved he wasn’t referring to the broadcast. But that was, without question, the most memorable and challenging event I ever called.”

Having been lucky enough to read Albert’s book, I can assure readers that this tome is well worth the time. I’d say it’s a knockout, but nothing will ever top a fighter biting another fighter’s ear off, so I’ll leave the boxing prose to the Hall of Famer and just say that the lineage of the Albert Family is one that has forever left its mark on the sports broadcasting world and it’s stories like Steve Albert’s that show you just why that is. To check out the book on Amazon, go to https://a.co/d/9jOJO1f.