Where are they now? Marv Albert, Steve Albert and Al Albert
From left: Marv, Al and Steve Albert. Credit: Steve Albert
If you happened to be at a ping pong-centric bar called “SPIN” in Manhattan’s Flatiron District a few years back, you might have noted a trio of senior citizens engaged in intense competition.
That would have been Marv, Al and Steve Albert, continuing a series that began in their parents’ basement in Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, about six decades earlier.
“It brought us back to the early days,” Steve said.
This was in keeping with longstanding Albert brothers tradition.
On one hand, they navigated long, successful careers in sportscasting without succumbing to sibling rivalry, quite an achievement in a cutthroat profession.
But there always was and still is one exception: ping pong.
The table tennis initially was about more than the game itself, though. When the three were aspiring play-by-play men, it was a chance to practice that, too.
“Two would play, the other would announce,” Steve said. “We had commercials and everything.”
Marv, now 83, was in his late teens then. Al, 78, and Steve, 74, were younger but aiming for the same career path. It worked out for all of them.
Now all three are retired, most recently Marv, in 2021. Marv splits time between Florida and Manhattan. Steve lives in Connecticut and Al in Westchester County, so the brothers remain close physically as well as spiritually.
“Every time I call Marv, he says the same thing: ‘How did you get this number?’ ” Steve said. “Seriously, when we do talk, it's fun. We always wind up reminiscing and talking about things that happened to us in the business through the years.
“As kids and during our careers, we always pulled for each other.”
Marv said staying connected is easier in the summer, when he is mostly back in New York. “But we talk a lot on the phone,” he said. “It’s great.”
(Al declined to be interviewed for this article.)
Marv’s retirement after the 2020-21 NBA playoffs on TNT was widely celebrated after one of the most storied careers in sportscasting history.
NBC Sports commentator Marv Albert gives his insight during a playoff game between the Knicks and the Bulls at the Chicago Arena in Chicago on June 16, 1996. Credit: Getty Images/Jonathan Daniel
So, what have the last three years been like for him? He said he is enjoying it. He sees old friends and colleagues such as Golden State coach Steve Kerr and has a “couple of projects” in the works that he is not yet able to discuss publicly.
Beyond that, he said, “Basically, I am ‘Mr. Binge TV’ in terms of screening, which I was never able to do before. I also read a lot.”
Marv said he favors detective shows and imports from Britain and France.
Al retired from calling Pacers games in 2006. Steve retired from Suns games in 2017 and last year moved from Manhattan to Connecticut, where he has been involved in a major house renovation for eight months.
“The one positive is that I found a new hobby: writing checks,” he quipped.
Steve also recently finished writing an anecdote-filled book about his life and career called “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Broadcast Booth” that does not yet have a publication date.
Steve Albert with Mike Tyson at Albert's induction weekend for the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota in 2018. Credit: Steve Albert
While the Albert brothers are retired, Marv’s son, Kenny, 56, has fashioned a prominent announcing career of his own, currently as TNT Sports’ lead hockey play-by-play man, on Fox NFL games and on Rangers radio.
“It's in the DNA, in the blood, but he worked his rear end off and paid his dues,” Steve said of Kenny. “It's paid off, and I couldn't be happier for him.”
Said Kenny, who grew up in Port Washington, “When I was younger and Al and Steve would come over on holidays and special occasions if they were in town, thinking back, it was like I was listening to the first all-sports radio station.
“They would be sitting around a table, I can picture it at our house, telling stories about the various teams that they were working for at the time.”
Sorting out the brothers’ varied sports and team affiliations over decades is complex, but each has prominent New York roles on his resume.
Steve called Nets games during their 1975-76 ABA championship season, Islanders games during the 1979-80 Stanley Cup season and Mets games from 1979-81.
Marv called the Knicks’ two championship seasons, in 1969-70 and ’72-73, and, of course, during the Knicks' 1990s playoff runs as lead voice of the NBA on NBC.
Al called Nets games when they won their first ABA title in 1974. In 1976, while Steve was at the Coliseum on the Nets' side when they clinched the title at Nassau Coliseum, Al was on the Nuggets' side and Marv was covering the game for local news.
Denver Nuggets announcer Al Albert makes a phone call at the broadcast table during an ABA game against the St. Louis Spirits at McNichols Arena on March 21, 1976, in Denver. Credit: Getty Images/Mark Junge
“It was brother against brother,” Steve said of Game 6 of the ‘76 Finals — the last game in ABA history. “Only a few years earlier, we were calling ping pong games in the basement of our house in Brooklyn.
“Here we were, announcing against each other in the ABA championship.”
Decades later, they were at it again, in the basement of a club in Manhattan, the rivalry still going strong but the play-by-play sound turned down.
“If we announced the games today,” Steve said with a laugh, “they would have kicked us out of that ping pong place.”
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.