# Howard Cosell **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [December 17, 2010, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/howard-cosell/564557 "2010-12-17T20:43:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2010, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/howard-cosell/564557/21 "2010-12-29T15:11:17Z")
> [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > QFT. > > For those who didn’t like his style, just imagine how boring his announcing would have been if he had said “Frazier goes down!” instead of “Down goes Frazier!” > > [Down goes Frazier!](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9q7mvc6bsY) :rolleyes: Listen to the commentary. “Foreman is landing to Frazier’s head - the same head that was reached so often by Ali”. Only Cosell would present the notion that Frazier has only one head as if it were a valuable insight. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![PoorYorick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PoorYorick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoorYorick)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2010, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/howard-cosell/564557/22 "2010-12-29T19:55:03Z")
> [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#): > > And Monday Night Football has never been the same since. And it was a damned shame when he blurted “[Look at that little monkey run!](http://www.askmen.com/top_10/fitness/58c_fitness_list.html)” No more Howard Cosell on Monday Night Football. ETA: I’m guessing that I’m about one of a dozen people in the United States to actually read his autobiography. Hey, I was in the hospital and hard up for reading material. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/howard-cosell/564557/23 "2010-12-30T00:03:33Z")
> [@sh1bu1](#): > > Cosell was the most annoying person on TV ever. That grating voice, self importance, and need to find a “controversy” to talk about rather than the actual sports event. I hated him with the passion of a thousand suns. Aw, he was just a good ol’ boy. > [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > An unspeakable error confirmed to us by common sense - the sun has no passion, rather it has large amounts of heat. I think sh1bu1 garbled the phrase, “passion that burns with the heat of a thousand suns”. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/howard-cosell/564557/24 "2010-12-30T00:07:02Z")
As for the OP, given the event in question and it’s timing, I would have referred to him as the _inevitable_ Howard Cosell. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/howard-cosell/564557/25 "2010-12-30T04:02:49Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > :rolleyes: Listen to the commentary. > > “Foreman is landing to Frazier’s head - the same head that was reached so often by Ali”. Only Cosell would present the notion that Frazier has only one head as if it were a valuable insight. > > Regards, > Shodan Only Cosell indeed. What a blowhard. I’ve never been a fan of boxing, and don’t know much about football either, so I can’t speak directly to his analytical abilities there. Speaking as an ardent baseball fan, though, I CAN say that he was a total embarrassment when he was (not briefly enough) a member of the Monday Night baseball broadcasting team. I know there’s a lot of disdain around here for Tim McCarver and Joe Morgan as announcers, but their understanding of baseball is a hundred times more compelling than Cosell’s ever was. Not only did most of the strategies and nuances of the game escape him, but he clearly believed that he was the World’s Greatest Baseball Announcer–somehow, his knowledge of football and boxing had made him an Authority on all sports. Most of what he said in the MNB broadcast booth was pointless pontification; very little was remotely insightful; quite a bit of it had nothing to do with the game we were watching. Cosell also had two really strange ideas when it came to baseball. One was that Success on the Baseball Field was a direct result of a player’s Character, at least as Cosell defined it–to him Character was a vague concept that included Clutch Hitting, Unbridled Arrogance, Respect for Opponents, and Being Tough As Nails. Players without the requisite amount of Character were Doomed to Mediocrity, whereas men like Reggie Jackson, who of course led the league in several of these categories, were superstars because they had Character to Burn. (Little physical gifts like hand-eye coordination, speed, and strength never seemed to enter into Cosell’s equation.) The other was a certainty that the only truly Important players, the only ones worth Cosell’s notice (and therefore the only ones worthy of ours) were those who played in the Northeast, especially in New York. Even when covering games involving teams like the Royals or the Astros, both of whom were quite good during parts of the eighties, Cosell seemed to spend most of his time comparing their players–unfavorably, of course–to Jackson, Gary Carter, Lenny Dykstra, and other Luminaries of Yankee and Shea (and probably the Polo Grounds and Ebbets Field too, though I can’t say I remember this as clearly). Maybe he was better when it came to boxing and football. But the Inanity and Blatant Idiocy of his baseball analysis, not to mention the Off-the-Topicness of so much that he said, makes me wonder how much better he could have been. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/howard-cosell/564557/26 "2010-12-30T04:25:25Z")
The one thing I remember about Cosell’s baseball coverage was the game where he loudly expounded on George Brett’s hemorrhoid surgery. That was still more interesting to listen to than Tim McCarver. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/howard-cosell/564557/27 "2010-12-30T15:23:51Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > :rolleyes: Listen to the commentary. > > “Foreman is landing to Frazier’s head - the same head that was reached so often by Ali”. Only Cosell would present the notion that Frazier has only one head as if it were a valuable insight. > > Regards, > Shodan The point was that Frazier hadn’t learned to cover up his head since his fight with Ali. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/howard-cosell/564557/28 "2010-12-30T17:23:44Z")
> [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > The point was that Frazier hadn’t learned to cover up his head since his fight with Ali. Oh, I think I can speak for most of us reading this thread: we understand the point. It’s just that analyzed literally, Cosell wasn’t saying that. In his highly imitable way, he was implying that Frazier hadn’t changed heads. Which he evidently should’ve done. “hey, corner man! need a new head~! One that isn’t so easy to punch! Need it posthaste!” Cosell could’ve said just what you said. “Foreman is landing to Frazier’s head. Even after what happened in that fight against Ali, Frazier still hasn’t learned to cover his head…” I don’t know that it would have been clearer if he’d said it that way. But it certainly would’ve been less distracting, and less silly. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/howard-cosell/564557/29 "2010-12-30T19:04:18Z")
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#): > > Oh, I think I can speak for most of us reading this thread: we understand the point. It’s just that analyzed literally, Cosell wasn’t saying that. In his highly imitable way, he was implying that Frazier hadn’t changed heads. Which he evidently should’ve done. “hey, corner man! need a new head~! One that isn’t so easy to punch! Need it posthaste!” But why analyze it literally? Announcers use colorful language more than anyone else. It gets boring if they announce as if they’re reading the news. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/howard-cosell/564557/30 "2010-12-30T21:10:42Z")
> [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > But why analyze it literally? Announcers use colorful language more than anyone else. It gets boring if they announce as if they’re reading the news. This is no ordinary board of messages. Literal analysis of a post, the same post that has been literally analyzed before, is the signature of the Dope that is Straight. Figurative phrases are dissected with the heat of a thousand suns. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/howard-cosell/564557.md?page=1)