Dan Lovallo

Michael Kay, Mel Allen When New York Yankees television broadcaster Michael Kay posted a tweet the other day of him sitting side-by-side with Mel Allen, it evoked memories of the time Allen came to Torrington, Connecticut, my home town. Allen was truly the only "Voice of the Yankees."  First on radio and then on television in the 1940s, 50s and early 60s, Allen got the assignment to call the big events, whether it be the World Series - which the Yankees were almost always in each season - the All-Star Game, the Rose Bowl or the Kentucky Derby for Fox's Movietone reels in theaters. Allen was everywhere.  How many people know, for example, that he and Ronald Reagan teamed up to co-host the Rose Bowl Parade television coverage in 1960?  Or that in the early 60s, that Mel called New York Giants football games on radio? But the New York Yankees were his first and some say only love.  And when the Yankees fired him in 1964 at the still relatively young age of 50 - for reasons the ball club never disclosed - i