The unexplained, last-minute decision to remove Glickman and Sam Stoller—a fellow Jewish American athlete—from the 100-meter relay at the 1936 Olympics, where they were replaced by Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalfe, who easily won the gold medal, has been widely viewed as an American effort to avoid embarrassing or offending Adolf Hitler, then the Chancellor of Germany, who had been directing anti-Jewish discriminatory policies since 1933.

However, on the morning of the day that they were scheduled to compete, Glickman and Sam Stoller (also Jewish) were replaced on the 4 × 100 m relay team by Ralph Metcalfe and Jesse Owens.

Glickman himself was convinced that their removal was done primarily to avoid embarrassing Adolf Hitler, the chancellor of Germany, and the National Socialist (Nazi) regime he led.

Under Hitler's leadership, Germany had enacted severe anti-Jewish race laws, and the profound prejudice of the National Socialist regime against Jews was obvious by 1936.

With the two Jewish sprinters, an American team's victory in the relay would have been awkward for the German hosts to the games in Berlin, their capital city.

[3] As a testament to Glickman's ability as a sprinter in 1963 (at age 46) he lined up and outran all New York Giants running backs in a race.

Glickman's poetic lilt and slight New York twang made him a favorite in those early years of news production.

Glickman was also the first announcer for the New York Nets before the ABA-NBA merger, when they played in their first home, the Island Garden in Nassau County.

Glickman was often heard on WPIX-11's telecasts of local college basketball during the winter and also called the play-by-play of their broadcasts of the High School Football Game Of The Week, with former NY Yankee Elston Howard providing the color commentary.

As the sports director of WCBS Radio in the 1960s, he briefly resurrected the ancient broadcasting art of re-creation, voicing blind play-by-play accounts of segments of New York Yankees spring training games to the huddled, chilled, baseball-starved masses in the metropolitan area.

In addition to this, Glickman covered track meets, wrestling matches from St. Nicholas Arena, roller derbies, rodeos and even a marbles tournament.

In 1988, Glickman returned to television on NBC as a play-by-play replacement on its NFL telecasts while protégé Marv Albert was in Seoul covering the Olympics.

In 1996, his autobiography, The Fastest Kid on the Block: The Marty Glickman Story, was published; it was co-written by sportswriter Stan Isaacs.

[18] Glickman was portrayed by Jeremy Ferdman in the 2016 biopic Race, about African American Olympic athlete Jesse Owens.

[19] Glickman underwent heart bypass surgery at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, New York, on December 14, 2000, and died of complications on January 3, 2001.