Sports announcer Marv Albert is 5 ft, 11 inches tall_CERTAIN sports fixtures are ubiquitous in the American home: a suburban driveway without a basketball hoop is as naked as a summer lawn without a sprinkler.

But for some homeowners, sports paraphernalia are not just an addition but an addiction. Chief among them might be the NBC sportscaster Marv Albert, the professional yesssssss! man whose Long Island house is a shrine to sports.

How else to explain his wife, Benita, deciding to build a Brooklyn-style cement stoop so he can play stoop ball in front of the family tennis court?

Or the umpire's chair that enables their son Brian to videotape controversial calls in family tennis matches? Or the seven-foot-high basketball net (three feet lower than regulation height) that gives even a broadcaster 5 feet 11 inches tall the ability to slam-dunk like Dominique Wilkins?

The contemporary 21-room house has doubled in size over the past 15 years. This may be because of the two swimming pools (one outdoors, one indoors), the volleyball court, the whirlpool bath, the sauna, the hot tub, the Ping-Pong table and gizmos like the arcade-style hockey game that plays the national anthem and the roar of a crowd.

source: nytimes