Maury Allen

Early life

Allen was born in Brooklyn, New York, to parents Harry and Frances Rosenberg. Harry Rosenberg was a coffee salesman and Frances a homemaker. He attended James Madison High School where he covered sports for the school paper.

As a young man, Allen was a Brooklyn Dodgers fanatic. His book, Brooklyn Remembered: The 1955 Days of the Dodgers, recalls the glory days of the team, before they were moved to Los Angeles.

After high school, he attended City College of New York where he majored in journalism and played for the football team. Allen had one older brother. Following college, Allen was drafted into the Army. He served in Japan and in Korea during the Korean War.

Early career

Allen wrote for the City College newspaper, The Campus, covering sports. When he was drafted to the Army, he continued as a reporter, writing for the Pacific Stars and Stripes. After his service, he wrote for papers in Indiana, Pennsylvania and New York.

In 1959, Allen was hired as sports writer at Sports Illustrated. He wrote for Sports Illustrated for two years. His next major magazine job was reporting for the New York Post from 1961-1988. From 1988-2000, he wrote articles for The Journal News, owned by the Gannett Company. Following his retirement from The Journal News, Allen continued to write books and to write articles for Thecolumnists.com.

Radio broadcasts

From 2002-2008, Allen co-hosted a weekly radio show called Talking Sports with Maury and Bill with the owner of Mickey Mantle’s Restaurant, Bill Liederman. The show was broadcast live from Mickey Mantle’s Restaurant, near Central Park in New York City. The one-hour long show featured sports talk and interviews with athletes. Allen was a contributor to a talk show hosted by Dave Cooperman and Bill Liederman called The Sports Buzz which was broadcast originally by WFAS-FM (2003-2004) in Westchester and then WCTC (2005-2007) in Central Jersey. Lori Rubinson from season 1 of ESPN's Dream Job and now a contributor on WFAN replaced Liederman. Cooperman and Rubinson moved the show to the WCTC studios and the show eventually was moved to the 5:00-7:00 time slot. Maury Allen remained a contributor through the life of the show.

Film appearances

Allen was interviewed on numerous occasions in documentary films, such as Toots (2006), Mantle (2006), and Howard Cosell: Telling It Like It Is (1999). He also portrayed a sports journalist in The Odd Couple, and more recently in the TV movie, The Bronx Is Burning.

National Baseball Hall of Fame voter

Allen was a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, and was a voter for the National Baseball Hall of Fame for 35 years. He became eligible to vote in 1973 after more than 10 years as a traveling sports reporter.

Recent work

Allen completed work on a book about Dixie Walker, a right fielder for the Yankees, White Sox, and Brooklyn Dodgers, and controversial figure in baseball in the 1940s for his stance against racial integration in Major League Baseball, scheduled for release in April 2010.

Publications

Personal life

In 1962, Maury Allen married Janet Kelly Allen. They had two children, daughter Jennifer (born 1968), and son Ted (born 1969) and four grandchildren. Prior to retirement, Allen was an avid tennis player. Friends and acquaintances often joked that Allen could be counted on to show up for tennis any day of the year. Allen died of lymphoma at the age of 78.

Awards and honors

Allen was granted a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Society of Silurians, one of the oldest journalistic organizations in existence. He was inducted into the B'nai B'rith Sports Hall of Fame, City College of New York Hall of Fame, the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, the James Madison High Hall of Fame, the Westchester County New York Hall of Fame, and the Brooklyn Dodgers Hall of Fame. On November 9, 2011, he was posthumously awarded the Townsend Harris Medal by the Alumni Association of City College of New York.

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