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Marty Appel founded the agency bearing his name in 1998 after 30 years serving as spokesman and public relations counselor for major organizations.
He was schooled by the legendary New York Yankees public relations director Robert O. Fishel, and even educated by the man considered to be the founder of the profession, Edward Bernays.
His interest in communications began while serving as a sports editor, then editor-in-chief, for school newspapers. Even while in high school, he was a by-lined reporter for the local Gannett newspaper in Rockland County, NY., and wrote a page one news feature in addition to his sports reporting.
He went right from college to the New York Yankees. At 19, he was responsible for handling Mickey Mantle’s fan mail. At 21, he was named Assistant Director of Public Relations, and three years later, was George Steinbrenner’s first hire as Public Relations Director. He was only the third in the franchise’s history, and the youngest to ever hold that title in major league history. He is now a recognized Yankees historian, particularly during this final year of Yankee Stadium.
He spent nine seasons in the Yankee’s front office, and after a stint in the Baseball Commissioner’s Office, took over PR for Tribune Broadcasting’s WPIX in New York, where he went on to become an Emmy award-winning producer of New York Yankees baseball, along with Giants and Jets pre-season football.
He was hired by the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games to help establish the organization’s communications needs for the 1996 Olympics, involving community relations, special interest groups transportation, housing, the look of the games, special projects, publications, construction, the Cultural Olympics, language services, international broadcasting, ceremonies, and of course, sports.
In additional to a wide range of sports clients in Marty Appel Public Relations, he has led his company into the PR fields of health and education. His sports clients have included the Yankees, the Baseball Hall of Fame, The Topps Company, the Seton Hall Sports Poll, Lelands.com, EA Sports, The Sporting News, the Yogi Berra Museum, Major League Baseball, the New York City D.A.R.E. program, Mickey Mantle’s Restaurant, New York City Health and Hospitals Corp., The ALS Association of Greater New York, Jewish Major Leaguer baseball cards, the Israel Baseball League, NY Academy of Medicine, and The Boys and Girls Clubs of America.
Appel is the author of 16 books, including “Now Pitching for the Yankees,” a widely-acclaimed PR and marketing adventure. Other collaborations include books with Larry King, Tom Seaver, Thurman Munson, Bowie Kuhn, and umpire Eric Gregg. His book “Slide, Kelly, Slide,” a biography of 19th century star King Kelly, was named the best baseball book of 1996. His new biography of Munson will be published by Doubleday in the spring of 2009. He was a consultant to Billy Crystal’s HBO special “61*”, consulting producer for ESPN’s “The Bronx is Burning,” (playing himself in Part One), and earned a Gold Record for a spoken word history of Yankee Stadium. He is a frequent guest on sports documentaries (YES Network, ESPN, HBO,) and live panels, and an entertaining after-dinner speaker.
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