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{{short description|American sportswriter}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Zander Hollander
| image =Zander Hollander.jpg
| image_size = 275px300px
| birth_name = Alexander Hollander
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1923|03|24}}
| birth_place = [[Brooklyn|Brooklyn, New York]], US
| death_date = {{Death date and age|2014|04|11|1923|03|24}}
| death_place = [[Manhattan|Manhattan, New York]], US
| death_cause = [[Alzheimer's disease]]
| nationality = American
| occupation = [[Sports journalism|Sportswriter]]<br>[[Journalist]]<br>[[Editing|Editor]]<br>[[Archivist]]
| spouse = Phyllis (nee Rosen) Hollander
| children = Peter Hollander<br>Susan Whitman2
| known_for = The Baseball Book of Lists<br>The Book of Sports List<br>The Complete Handbook of Baseball<br>The Complete Handbook of Basketball<br>The Complete Handbook of Pro Football<br>The Complete Handbook of Pro Hockey<br>The Complete Encyclopedia of Hockey<br>The Baseball Book, Complete A-Z Encyclopedia of Baseball<br>The Home Run Story<br>Great American Athletes of the 20th Century<br>Modern Encyclopedia of Tennis<br>NBA Official Encyclopedia of Professional Basketball<br>Strange But True Football Stories
}}
 
'''Zander Hollander''' (March 24, 1923 – April 11, 2014) was an American sportswriter, journalist, editor and archivist.<ref name=NYT>{{cite webnews |url=httphttps://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/15/sports/zander-hollander-sports-trivia-shepherd-dies-at-91.html?_r=0 |titlenewspaper= New York Times – |title=Zander Hollander, Sports Trivia Shepherd, Dies at 91|date= 15 April 2014 |last1= Martin |first1= Douglas }}</ref> He served as a prolific supplier of encyclopedias on every major sport, editing, writing or packaging nearly 300 books over a professional career that spanned 45 years.<ref name=NYTfans>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/sports/for-true-sports-fans-before-the-internet-there-were-the-complete-handbooks.html |newspaper= New York Times |title=For Sports Fans, Before the Internet, There Were the Complete Handbooks|date= 13 August 2013 |last1= Croatto |first1= Pete }}</ref>
 
Many years before the Internet and unfinished cable television system emerged, Hollander served as a prolific supplier of encyclopedias on every major sport. At this point, he edited, wrote or packaged around 300 books over a professional career that spanned 45 years.<ref name=NYTfans>{{cite web |url=http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/sports/for-true-sports-fans-before-the-internet-there-were-the-complete-handbooks.html |title= New York Times – For Sports Fans, Before the Internet, There Were the Complete Handbooks}}</ref>
 
Born as Alexander Hollander in [[Brooklyn|Brooklyn, New York]], he grew up in [[Far Rockaway, Queens]].<ref name=NYT/> At age 14, he found his emerging sports ability writing columns for a neighborhood newspaper, and then in high school, he wrote for the ''[[Long Island Daily Press]]'' and the ''[[New York World-Telegram]]''. He later attended [[Queens College, City University of New York|Queens College]] but left to serve in the [[Army Air Forces]], assigned to an Army newspaper in [[Hawaii]]. After his discharge, he enrolled at [[City College of New York]] but did not graduate.<ref name=NYT/>
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The heavy workload never really ended for Hollander. In 1955 he founded ''Associated Features'', a company which produced booklets that were distributed with assorted promotional products, but it was not a lucrative enterprise. Even when immersed in several editorial projects, he would occasionally take a freelance shift on the ''[[Daily News (New York)|Daily News]]'' sports desk.<ref name=NYTfans/>
 
After a stint with ''[[United Press International]]'' as an editor in New York, Hollander was hired as a sportswriter by the ''[[New York World-Telegram|World-Telegram]]'', originally to cover [[yachting]]. Before he committed full-time to his company in the mid-1960s, his day might consist of visiting potential clients and writing on a freelance basis for magazines, followed by phone calls to [[Western Union]] so he could meet the ''World-Telegram'' midnight deadline.<ref name=NYTfans/> Besides this, he reported for the ''[[Associated Press]]'' about his stay in the [[Soviet Union]].<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20170215220326/http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1708026/%20 IMDb.com – Zander Hollander biography]</ref>
 
Hollander decided to quit newspapers in 1966, when he rejected an offer to work as editor of the ''World-Telegram and Sun'', as it had become after merging with two other New York newspapers, the ''[[New York Herald Tribune|Herald Tribune]]'' and the ''[[New York Journal-American|Journal-American]]''.<ref name=NYT/> He then turned his attention to his ''Associated Features'' business in the years to come.<ref name=NYTfans/>
 
From 1971 through 1997, Hollander found a niche in the bookstores by annually providing career statistics and profiles of players, team rosters, all-time records, articles with photos, scouting reports, schedules and predictions for the upcoming season, in the form of brick-size tomes, 400-plus pages, he titled ''Complete Handbooks''. In them, he showed his experience and deep knowledge of professional [[baseball]], [[basketball]], [[American football|football]], [[Ice hockey|hockey]] and [[tennis]], as well as [[jai alai]], [[Association football|soccer]] and college basketball and football.<ref name=NYT/><ref name=NYTfans/>
 
But the aforementioned yearbooks of Hollander were just one part his multifaceted sports knowledge. He also chronicled sports [[blooper]]s and wrote a history of [[Madison Square Garden]], among other subjects.<ref name=NYT/>
 
During his time as a journalist, he started a lifelong friendship with a then young lawyer, [[Howard Cosell]], who represented the [[Little League Baseball|Little League]] of New York and had been asked by the local radio station [[WABC (AM)|WABC]] to host a show featuring youth ballplayers. Hollander agreed to collaborate by writing scripts and recruiting sports celebrities for the show. Interestingly, theyThey were not paid for their services, but it representedwas the beginning of a successful sports broadcasting career for Cosell.<ref name=NYT/><ref>[httphttps://www.imdb.com/title/tt0285201/?ref_=nm_flmg_slf_1 IMDb.com – Howard Cosell : ''Telling It Like It Is'' (1999 Documentary)]</ref>
 
In a 2001 interview, Hollander explained that as soon as he could hold a pencil and throw a ball, he dreamed of being a sportswriter. At the same time, he remembered that his first journalism effort was writing on a mimeographed newspaper in elementary school.<ref name=NYT/><ref name=NYTfans/>
 
Zander Hollander suffered from [[Alzheimer's disease]] during his later life. He died on April 11, 2014, in [[Manhattan|Manhattan, New York]], at the age of 91.<ref name=NYT/>
 
==Sources==
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==External links==
*[httphttps://www.amazon.com/Zander-Hollander/e/B001HP1X8K Amazon.com]
*[http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?n=zander-hollander&pid=170629969&fhid=2086 Legacy.com]
*[https://openlibrary.org/search?q=zander+hollander Open-Library.org]
 
{{Authority control}}
 
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hollander, Zander}}
[[Category:1923 births]]
[[Category:2014 deaths]]
[[Category:Jewish American Jewsmilitary personnel]]
[[Category:AmericanUnited militaryStates Army Air Forces personnel of World War II]]
[[Category:American sportswriters]]▼
[[Category:Baseball writers]]
[[Category:Deaths from Alzheimer'sdementia diseasein New York (state)]]
[[Category:SportsDeaths journalistsfrom Alzheimer's disease in New York (state)]]
[[Category:Jewish American journalists]]
[[Category:Sportswriters from New York (state)]]
[[Category:Writers from Brooklyn]]
[[Category:21st-century American Jews]]
▲[[Category:Jewish American sportswriters]]
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