Health crisis for Mary Lou Retton

Earl Weaver was in there at some point.

 

Marv and "the czar of the Telestrator" ?

 

I go back to a drunken Cosell working with Michaels and Palmer in the 1984 ALCS. Michaels was a consummate pro that night, he had to be.

Game 1 or 2 of that series, can't recall, was one of the worst baseball broadcasts I've ever seen, thanks to the blitzed Howard.

 

Al absolutely ripped Cosell in his book. Esiason as well I believe.

 

Keith Jackson has the p x p on Game 6 of the 1977 Series, when Reggie hits the three home runs. Cosell steps on his homer call every single time.

 

The primary 3rd in that booth was McCarver.

 

I bow in your general direction.

 

Some good excerpts here. I like this one best:

Two months after the Olympics, Cosell, Palmer and I were in Kansas City to call Game 1 of the American League Championship Series between the Royals and the Tigers. Cosell came to town dark and brooding. The second game of the series was a four-hour affair, going 11 innings before the Tigers won. At one point late in the game Cosell called for a bunt. So what else was new? To make matters worse, he’d been in the bar at the Alameda Plaza for a couple of hours before we’d left for the ballpark. And he had a big plastic cup that he kept refilling during the game. It wasn’t unusual for Cosell to drink during a game, but this may have been a record.

Palmer and I tried to keep him from looking like a fool by calling for a bunt in a situation in which no manager would ever bunt. We worked the edges, so as not to embarrass him on the air. The game ended, and I was disgusted. The telecast had been awful, sabotaged by Cosell’s incessant and often incoherent rambling. After we went off the air, Cosell started to tell me that he knew far more baseball strategy than anyone else, and he was who he was because he always took a stand. Then he said -- obviously in reference to the fact that I wasn’t in agreement with him on the air -- “You need to learn to take a stand.”

“Excuse me?” I shouted. “We’re protecting your ass. You’re sitting here drinking all night, and you’ve ruined the damn telecast. I’ll take a stand right now, Howard: The next time you’re in this shape when we’re doing a game, either you’re not going to be there or I’m not going to be there. Is that a good enough stand for you?”

He said nothing and walked away.

I went back to the pressroom behind the broadcast booth at Royals Stadium. I was standing there with Palmer, alternately commiserating and venting, when a sportswriter asked the bartender for a vodka. She poured him about three drops, and he said, “I’ll need a lot more than that.” She held up an empty quart bottle of Smirnoff and said, “I’m sorry, sir, Mr. Cosell drank the rest.”

Book excerpt: Al Michaels reflects on his time with Howard Cosell

 

Al's a dick, but Esiason is worse.

 

Reggie Jackson, whom you can hilariously see trying to chase down Dane Iorg after Iorg's game-winning hit in Game 6.

 

Dick Young had Howard pegged from the get-go.

A number of former radio colleagues confirmed that Cosell was particularly difficult (OK, a total ass) on Speaking Of Sports. His producers would call and plead for sound bites and news items, to which Cosell would neither credit or offer payment. It got to the point where people working for the ABC affiliates would tell Cosell's staff to stick it, except they were still obligated to run his show.

If you think the Kasey Kasam "dead dog" interaction is funny, there are a number of non-aired Cosell f-bomb reels out there.

 

In other news, Mary Lou is doing better.