Marv Albert

Marv Albert will soon be returning to national NBA telecasts. He was hired Monday by Turner Sports and will make his debut on TNT on April 2, when he announces a Laker game at Phoenix. Albert, 58, will work five other regular-season games and some playoff games. His multiyear deal with TNT means it is unlikely he and his trademark "Yessss!" call on impressive baskets will be returning to NBC any time soon.

Proving the public appetite for scandals--and those involved in them--is never satiated, ratings for the Madison Square Garden Network's nightly sports show went up 57% for Marv Albert's first night back on the air after his resignation from MSG and firing by NBC nearly a year ago.

Whether you're angry because someone with a kinky sexual past is back at work, or happy that a beaten man was thrown a bone, there's a greater and more significant issue concerning the resurrection of Marv Albert: Why is his job being confused with that of a Supreme Court justice? Let's see. Albert sits with headphones and a mike at courtside, tells us who's winning and losing the game, then gives us the final score.

A couple of days ago, P.J. Masten says, "I was in a department store [in New York] and I heard that Marv Albert had just been rehired by the Madison Square Garden broadcasting network. "A cold sweat came over me. "I started to feel dizzy. I thought I was going to pass out. "I dropped my merchandise on the floor and looked for the nearest ladies room. And I absolutely threw up. "Then I had to sit down on the floor, because I had an anxiety attack." Marv Albert has this effect on women.

Ten months after his career collapsed in a sex scandal, an apologetic Marv Albert was rehired Wednesday by the Madison Square Garden Network to anchor a nightly sports show and do radio play-by-play of New York Knick games. "What I did was wrong," Albert said at a news conference, speaking of his role in the scandal that cost him his job telecasting NBA and NFL games for NBC. "I hurt many people, including my fiancee, my family, my friends and my employers. For that, I am sorry."

Marv Albert, exiled from sports broadcasting after pleading guilty to assault charges in a sex case, could resurface as the Miami Heat's television play-by-play announcer, his agent said Wednesday. Agent Evan Bell confirmed that the longtime NBC and New York Knicks announcer was talking to Heat officials. "He is interested in talking to them," Bell said in Miami. "There have been discussions."

Not counting the off-camera activity of certain sportscasters, there were three stories in 1997 that had Californians, Americans and indeed the whole wide world of sports wide-eyed with disbelief. One came six days into the new year. Peter O'Malley, whose father had brought major league baseball to Los Angeles, put the Dodgers up for sale. He did so just as baseball was about to pay tribute to two of the truest-blue Dodgers of them all, Jackie Robinson, whose No.

Hugh Downs simply drew the line at Marv Albert. In an exceedingly rare public protest by a top television personality, the veteran "20/20" anchor refused to appear on the ABC program Friday, disassociating himself from the interview with the fallen sportscaster by co-anchor Barbara Walters. Downs had declared on "Larry King Live" last month that he would not interview Albert and, what's more, that "Barbara wouldn't do it."

Marv Albert was spared a jail sentence Friday after a grudging courtroom apology to the woman he bit during a sexual romp. "I'm sorry if she felt she was harmed," the former NBC sportscaster said at a sentencing in Arlington, Va., where he could have gotten a year in jail. Instead, his criminal record will be erased if he stays out of trouble for a year.