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Marty Appel

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Marty Appel
Born
Martin E. Appel

(1948-08-07) August 7, 1948 (age 76)
Brooklyn, New York City, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Alma materState University of New York at Oneonta (1970)
Occupation(s)public relations and sports management executive, television executive producer, and author
Years active1968–present
Known forPublic Relations Director of the New York Yankees
Notable work
  • Casey Stengel: Baseball's Greatest Character
  • Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain
  • Pinstripe Empire: The New York Yankees from Before the Babe to After the Boss
Board member of
SpouseLourdes Appel
Children2
Websiteappelpr.com

Martin E. Appel (born August 7, 1948) is an American public relations and sports management executive, television executive producer, baseball historian and author.[1]

Appel served as Public Relations Director for the New York Yankees from 1973 to 1977. He has written over 20 books, including Pinstripe Empire: The New York Yankees from Before the Babe to After the Boss and Casey Stengel: Baseball’s Greatest Character. Appel is a two-time winner of the Casey Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year, for his biographies of King Kelly and Casey Stengel.

Early life and education

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Appel was born in Brooklyn, New York[1] to Irving and Celia Appel.[2]

He graduated from State University of New York at Oneonta in 1970.[3][4][5] He obtained a degree in political science and journalism.[4][6]

Career

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Sports public relations and management

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Appel began his career in baseball while a student, after writing to then-New York Yankees public relations chief Bob Fishel.[4][7] Appel began his tenure with the Yankees in 1968 at age 19, handling fan mail for Mickey Mantle.[8][9] In 1970, he became at 21 the Yankees Assistant Public Relations Director.[10][11] He was named Public Relations Director of the team in 1973 by Yankee owner George Steinbrenner, becoming at 23 the youngest PR Director in Major League Baseball history, and remained in that position for four years.[12][13]

After resigning in early 1977, and starting a sports management company, Appel handled public relations for the New York Apples of World Team Tennis, a team featuring Billie Jean King and Vitas Gerulaitis.[4][14] When the league folded, he joined the staff of Major League Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn.[11]

In addition, Appel worked for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, The Topps Company, and assisted in handling public relations for the Israel national baseball team in the 2013 World Baseball Classic – Qualifier 1.[1][8][11]

Appel was the president of Marty Appel Public Relations, a New York-based public relations firm specializing in sports that he established in 1998.[1][15] The PR agency included mostly sports clients, but it also had clients in fields such as publishing, medicine, and not-for-profit.[16]

In 2007, Appel led the public relations efforts for the short-lived Israel Baseball League which debuted and shut down that same year.[8]

Television

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While serving as VP for Public Relations for New York City television station WPIX, Appel won an Emmy Award as the executive producer of Yankee telecasts, a position he held for 11 years until 1992.[1][10][11][15][17] He also produced pre-season football telecasts for the New York Giants and New York Jets.[11]

Appel was an adviser to the production of the ESPN miniseries The Bronx is Burning,[18] and a consultant to the 2001 HBO production 61*, directed by Billy Crystal.

Writing career

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Appel has written over 20 books, including a biography of baseball player King Kelly, and children's biographies of Yankees Yogi Berra and Joe DiMaggio.[15][19] He ghostwrote autobiographical books for umpire Eric Gregg, TV and radio talk show host Larry King, baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn, baseball executive Lee MacPhail, and baseball players Thurman Munson (Thurman Munson: An Autobiography) and Tom Seaver, and wrote a biography of Munson (Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain) published in 2009 and became a New York Times bestseller.[17][20] His Now Pitching for the Yankees (2002) was ESPN's best New York baseball book of the year.[17]

Appel's Pinstripe Empire: The New York Yankees from Before the Babe to After the Boss, published in 2012, was the first narrative history of the team since Frank Graham's 1943 book, The New York Yankees: An Informal History.[8] Former Yankee and author Jim Bouton described the book, in The New York Times, as: "good writing ... an insider’s history enlivened by a rich store of carefully researched anecdotes, most of which I’d never heard before ... a marvelous book to take on vacation."[9] Appel also wrote a children's version, Pinstripe Pride.[19]

In 2017, he published Casey Stengel: Baseball’s Greatest Character (Doubleday; 2017), a biography of Hall of Fame player and manager Casey Stengel, nicknamed "The Old Perfessor".[21]

Appel's biographies of King Kelly and Casey Stengel earned him the Casey Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year in 1996 and 2017, respectively.[22]

Appel served as Editor-at-Large for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum's magazine, Memories & Dreams, and helped write the text on the plaques of Hall of Fame inductees.[23] He has contributed to publications including Sports Collectors Digest, Yankees Magazine, and Encyclopedia Americana.[24]

Boards of directors and honors

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Appel served as a member of the Board of Directors for the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center, was a member of the Board of Trustees of the New York Sports Museum and Hall of Fame and New York Transit Museum, and was a member of the Advisory Council to the Israel Baseball League.[8]

In 2008, Appel was inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.[11] In 2015, the Larchmont Historical Society inducted former Larchmonter Appel into Larchmont Luminaries.[19][25]

Personal life

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Appel married Lourdes Appel in June 2009, with the service being performed by Larchmont, New York, Mayor Liz Feld with Rabbi Jeff Sirkman participating.[4][15] He has two children from a prior marriage, Brian and Deborah.[1] He is Jewish.[26]

Appel lived in Larchmont for 20 years, and also lived in Spring Valley, in Riverdale, and in Manhattan.[19][27][20]

Bibliography

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  • Thurman Munson, with Thurman Munson, 1978, ISBN 978-0698109179
  • Baseball's Best, The Hall of Fame Gallery, with Burt Goldblatt, 1980, ISBN 978-0070021488
  • Batting Secrets of the Major Leaguers, 1981, ISBN 978-0671413156
  • Tom Seaver's All Time Baseball Greats, with Tom Seaver, 1984, ISBN 978-0671495244
  • The First Book of Baseball, 1988, ISBN 978-0517567265
  • My Nine Innings, editor, with Lee MacPhail, 1989, ISBN 978-0887363870
  • Working the Plate: The Eric Gregg Story, collaborator, 1990, ISBN 978-0688090890
  • When You're from Brooklyn, Everything Else Is Tokyo, with Larry King, 1992, ISBN 978-0316493567
  • Joe DiMaggio, 1990, ISBN 978-1438142005
  • Yogi Berra, 1992, ISBN 978-0791011690
  • Great Moments in Baseball, with Tom Seaver, 1995, ISBN 978-0806516110
  • Hardball: The Education of a Baseball Commissioner, with Bowie Kuhn, 1997, ISBN 978-0803277847
  • Yesterday's Heroes: Revisiting the Old-Time Baseball Stars, 1998, ISBN 978-0688075163
  • Slide, Kelly, Slide: The Wild Life and Times of Mike King Kelly, 1999, ISBN 978-1461671206
  • Baseball: 100 Classic Moments in the History of the Game, with J. E. Wallace, N. A. Hamilton, N. Ryan, 2000, ISBN 978-0789451217
  • Now Pitching for the Yankees, 2001, ISBN 978-1626811218
  • Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain, 2009, ISBN 978-0385522311
  • 162-0: Imagine a Season in Which the Yankees Never Lose, 2010, ISBN 978-1617490729
  • Pinstripe Empire: The New York Yankees from Before the Babe to After the Boss, 2012, ISBN 978-1620406816
  • Pinstripe Pride: The Inside Story of the New York Yankees, 2016, ISBN 978-1481416030
  • Casey Stengel: Baseball's Greatest Character, 2017, ISBN 978-0385540476
  • Pinstripes by the Tale: Half a Century in and Around Yankees Baseball, 2023, ISBN 978-1637272787

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f Society of American Baseball Research (Marty Appel). Turner Publishing Company. 2000. pp. 66–67. ISBN 1563115948.
  2. ^ "Paid Obituaries". Archived from the original on May 18, 2015.
  3. ^ Matthew Silverman (2013). Swinging '73: Baseball's Wildest Season. Globe Pequot. ISBN 9780762780600.
  4. ^ a b c d e Marty Appel (2013). Now Pitching for the Yankees: Spinning the News for Mickey, Billy, and George. Diversion Books. ISBN 9781626811218.
  5. ^ "SUNY-Oneonta Faculty Member and Alumnus to Speak at Cooperstown Program Honoring Hank Greenberg". SUNY Oneonta News. May 13, 2008.
  6. ^ "SUNY Oneonta – Alumni Sorted by Career Field – Communications and Marketing". oneontaalumni.com.
  7. ^ Irwin Cohen (September 10, 2008). "Remembering Bob Fishel". The Jewish Press.
  8. ^ a b c d e Ron Kaplan (June 27, 2012). "Ex-Yankees PR director giving Israel a leg up; Author helping team entering first World Baseball Classic". New Jersey Jewish News.
  9. ^ a b Bouton, Jim (June 1, 2012). "Bronx Tales". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 3, 2023.
  10. ^ a b Irwin Cohen (July 7, 2010). "A Chat With PR Maven Marty Appel". The Jewish Press.
  11. ^ a b c d e f "Marty Appel; Inducted June 8, 2008; Writer; New York Yankees; Public Relations Director"[usurped], The National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame
  12. ^ Favorito, Joseph (2012). Sports Publicity: A Practical Approach. Routledge. ISBN 9780415635004.
  13. ^ Waldstein, David (April 3, 2012). "Yankees and Mets Resuming Rivalry Down South". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 3, 2023.
  14. ^ Brad Wolff (September 8, 2010). "How He Changed Public Relations: Marty Appel Interview". Bleacher Report.
  15. ^ a b c d Marty Appel (2010). 162–0: Imagine a Yankees Perfect Season: The Greatest Wins!. Triumph Books. ISBN 9781617490729.
  16. ^ "SABR member Marty Appel, Lou Gehrig become 'Larchmont Luminaries'". SABR. April 27, 2015.
  17. ^ a b c Pamela Dungee (November 28, 2012). "Pinstripe Empire Speaking Event and Book Signing". shu.edu. Archived from the original on May 19, 2015. Retrieved May 9, 2015.
  18. ^ Sandomir, Richard (October 26, 2006). "ESPN Revisits Tumultuous Time in and Around Yankee Stadium". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
  19. ^ a b c d Alfred Branch (April 13, 2015). "Lou Gehrig, Marty Appel to be Inducted into Larchmont Luminaries". Larchmont-Mamaroneck, New York Patch.
  20. ^ a b Sandomir, Richard (June 29, 2009). "Unleashed at Last, Author Digs Deeper Into Munson's Life". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 3, 2023.
  21. ^ "CASEY STENGEL | Kirkus Reviews".
  22. ^ "Spitball Magazine - CASEY Award: Best Baseball Book". www.spitballmag.com. Retrieved April 27, 2023.
  23. ^ Mike Shannon, Mark Shannon (2000). Tales From the Ballpark: More of the Greatest True Baseball Stories Ever Told. McGraw Hill Professional. ISBN 9780809224845.
  24. ^ Matt Nadel (March 25, 2013). "An Interview with Marty Appel". baseballreflections.com.
  25. ^ Joe Jenkins (April 23, 2015). "Gehrig, Appel Inducted As Larchmont Luminaries". The Mamaroneck Daily Voice.
  26. ^ Jordan D. Robrish (April 16, 2013). "Jewish baseball players, personnel featured in book". Sun-Sentinel. Archived from the original on June 24, 2013.
  27. ^ Appel, Marty (November 12, 2013). Now Pitching for the Yankees: Spinning the News for Mickey, Billy and George. Diversion Books. ISBN 9781626811218.

Further reading

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Ruttman, Larry (2013). "Marty Appel: Former New York Yankees Public Relations Director". American Jews and America's Game: Voices of a Growing Legacy in Baseball. Lincoln, Nebraska and London, England: University of Nebraska Press. pp. 247–255. ISBN 978-0-8032-6475-5. This chapter in Ruttman's history, based on a June 22, 2007 interview with Appel conducted for the book, discusses Appel's American, Jewish, baseball, and life experiences from youth to the present.

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