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Cosell was great! No, I did not always agree with him in those cases where politics and sports crisscrossed. Consider:

* Monday Night Football never was the same since he left

* Boxing is now a joke but it was watchable and enjoyable when he did the announcing

* Baseball was still Americas past time when he was announcing Monday Night Baseball(Yes I know he did color commentary but you get the point)

No, he was not perfect but at least he was an old school liberal. But he was a good commenter on all matters of sports and I used to love his "Speaking of Sports" radio spots on New York radio in the 70s. From what I have read, he spent the last decade or so of his life bitter and detached from everybody. He burned all of his bridges out of shear anger and spite and got rid of whatever friends he had. In the bitter end he was an angry old recluse who died alone. Sad.

Howard Cosell was the best. I grew up with the guy in the 1970s watching his "Wide World Of Sports" (a great weekend sports show that is long forgotten) and of course his Monday Night football (and baseball) broadcasts. Not to mention the boxing.

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).

Howard CoSELL was a piece of human garbage.

What he knew about boxing he could write on the head of a pin, and still have room for his name and address.

He was the main cog in the left wing sales machine for media created fraud Ali.

Cosell was a drunk. His wife would call Cosell's immediate boss at ABC, Jim Spence, at the start of Monday night football games when she tell that her husbamd was drunk from his first few sentences, and beg Spence to get CoSELL back to his hotel room safely after the game.

The clueless writer of the above crap article selling shill CoSELL repeats the quote with false implications from Cosell, "Frazier is down. Frazier is down."

Joe Frazier fought Ali three times, a total of 41 rounds and Ali never knocked Frazier down. Meanwhile Frazier knocked media sales product Ali down flat on his back in the 15th roubd of their first fight, and also in the 11th round of that same fight.

Frazier WAS knocked down by George Foreman later in his career.

Part of the sales pitch for media product Ali is to repeat the CoSELL line, "Frazier is down" from the from the Frazier-Foreman fights, which the ignorant, knowing Frazier and Ali fought, assume refers to the Frazier-Ali fights.

IN THE REAL WORLD :

'ALI IS DOWN. ALI IS DOWN"