Posted on 04/25/2021 5:45:18 AM PDT by Kaslin
Anyone who grew up watching sports in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and 80s certainly remembers Howard Cosell, the legendary ABC sportscaster, who died twenty-six years ago this week, on April 23, 1995 at the age of 77. The Jewish lawyer turned broadcaster from Brooklyn, with the nasally voice was famous for his polysyllabic vocabulary and known for his memorable lines that he used to revolutionize the industry at a time when sports announcers were mostly predictable and mundane.
To this day, the three words, “Down Goes Frazier,” could very well be one of the most famous sports lines ever uttered.
For thirty plus years, Cosell’s ubiquity, insights, and color commentary drove “ABC’s Wide World of Sports” to the top of the ratings for boxing, baseball, and "Monday Night Football," where he served from 1970 to 1983.
But Cosell who was defined by his trademark phrase, “telling it like it is,” and lived by the credo, “What's right isn't always popular, what's popular isn't always right,” was one of the most polarizing and controversial figures of his era.
The controversy for Cosell began when he was one of the few sports journalists who began referring to Cassius Clay as Muhammad Ali. Cosell was also among the only prominent reporters who defended Ali from the harsh treatment by the press and the boxing commission, after his refusal to serve in the Army during the Vietnam War on April 28, 1967.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
I remember sitting in the Astrodome, Monday night, watching the Oilers vs. Steelers. I looked up at the broadcast booth and could barely make out the ABC crew, with Howard smoking a stogie the size of a log. Those were the days.
How much less could you care, a little or a lot?
Don’t forget, “Ferdy Prachecko, the fight doctor.”
ff
Jimmy, Cosell, and Al Campanis were the initial victims of political correctness.
To be fair, Patton’s raging anti-Semitism isn’t a good character trait.
He would likely have supported Kapernick, based on his support of Muhammad Ali. But his choices were often made out of personal likes and dislikes. He despised Wellington and John Mara, the two owners of the NY Giants. But he loved the flamboyant big spending Jet owner Sonny Werblin and the conniving borderline cheat Al Davis of Oakland. He was in a quandry when Davis moved the Raiders to LA as he had attacked the Maras vuciously for moving the Giants 7 miles to East Rutherford NJ. He couldn’t bring himself to attack Davis even though he admitted to looking like a hypocrite. Almost everything about Cosell was personal, not business.
That being said he wasn’t disciplined for that....but for slapping a cowardly soldier from his perspective.
“Look at that little monkey run”
James Brooks, I think.
Cosell was entertaining back in the day. But if he was around today, he would be the dean of woke leftist shill sports journalists, right up there with Jemele Hill, Max Kellerman, Dan LeBatard, etc. He would just “tell it like the MSM narrative says it is.”
Personality features of an extremely insecure narcissist. Cosell was a vain, loud mouth NYC liberal pig.
Watching Don Meredith deflate Cosell’s pomposity was the best feature of the show for me. Howard knew everything about everything and would proclaim it loudly.
The genius of the show was having Meredith and Gifford in the booth, two athletes who knew the sport and could offer real opinions and commentary. Frank Gifford was slow to correct Howard and was more interested in providing the accurate play by play, but Don Meredith was there to have fun.
It was basically Monday Night Football with the Three Stooges: Howard was Moe, Frank was Larry and Don was Curly.
Oh, golly, do ya? Dry humor genius. Cripes...
He would be a good pick for color commentary./s
For Today's PC climate, he is pretty outspoken.
What a dumb headline. He’s been gone since 1995, and that question is being asked NOW??
Cosell was a jerk jock sniffer. Don Meredith, on the other hand, with his sense of humor, firsthand knowledge of the game and color reporting, was the best in the football business at the time. Meredith was a jewel, a little short, but a jewel anyway. lol
“Rush Limbaugh is the great loss”.
Amen. Rush’s years on the air marked a unique period of grace and enlightenment for the American public and paved the way for Donald Trump. May he long be remembered. His like probably will never come again.
Back in the day it was popular to "hate on him" but love him or hate him, everybody tuned in to see what he would say next.
He used to get pretty hammered in the booth (alcohol flowed more freely in those days) but he was still the sharpest and smartest man in the booth - always.
My most memorable Cosell moment was the meaningless MNF game between the (then awful) New England Patriots and Miami Dolphins on December 8, 1980.
I was in training for Marine Corps boot camp that night and doing situps at every commercial break (I would do at least a thousand situps every night in those days) and after a set of situps, I half heard Cosell mentioning something about John Lennon getting shot and then "dead on arrival."
I immediately flipped on the radio I had and the station (WBCN) was playing a Beatles song. I stayed up the rest of the night listening to the Beatles because virtually every station on the Boston FM dial was playing them nonstop (and would continue for days afterwards).
I remember when “feminists” were riding high and could get away with SAYING ANYTHING then Rush introduced the term “feminazi” and took them all down permanently and more than just a few pegs! Over time, they became almost irrelevant.
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