You Can't Make This Up: Miracles, Memories, and the Perfect Marriage of Sports and Television

by Al Michaels

  Since he’d “discovered” me in Hawaii, Tommy and I had crossed paths countless times over my years with the Reds, the Giants, and ABC. Now we’re together in St. Louis for the National League playoffs. It’s the Cardinals versus the Braves. It’s baseball in October. Beautiful. Except that Tommy was very nervous. Frankly, he looked petrified. As we rehearsed the opening segment, I had to keep telling him, “Tommy, it’ll be okay, you’ll be fine.”

  Cosell opened up the telecast. Then he brought me in. And then I brought Tommy in. We talked with him about the two teams. The Cardinals do this, the Braves do that. Here are their strengths and weaknesses. So far, so good. Then Cosell is ready to take us to a commercial. But before he does—and I’m going to paraphrase here, but not by much—Howard says, “Okay, throwing out the ceremonial first pitch are the children of the late Cardinals third baseman, Kenny Boyer, who succumbed a fortnight ago, at the age of fifty-one, to the ravages of lung cancer. Kenny Boyer fought that insidious disease tooth and nail to the very end. He went to Mexico for laetrile treatments and absorbed more radiation than anyone thought could be humanly possible.

  “So when you look at the long and storied history of the St. Louis Cardinal franchise, you can go back and you can have your Rogers Hornsby. You can have your Joseph ‘Ducky’ Medwick and Jerome ‘Dizzy’ Dean, as well. You can take Albert ‘Red’ Schoendienst and, yes, even the Man himself, Stanley Frank Musial of Donora, Pennsylvania.

  “Because when it comes to the embodiment of the St. Louis Cardinals franchise, look no further than the countenance of one Kenton Lloyd Boyer. He was a man’s man. And we’ll miss him.”

  Howard then lowered his voice another notch. “We’ll be back after this.”

  Know this about Howard. There was nothing he loved more than delivering a eulogy. He would affect a “half-mast” voice. Didn’t matter who it was. Cosell wanted to show you how much he knew about the deceased and how well he could put their life into context.

  We went to commercial. We turned around. I was sitting on the left facing the field, Howard was in the middle, and Tommy was on the right. We had been using hand mikes—and now we were putting our headsets on. I started jotting something down in my scorebook. Howard, of course, was preening after delivering his Boyer tribute.

  Then, I thought I heard sniffling in my headset. Then I heard it again. I looked over at Lasorda—his eyes were moist and I saw little rivulets running down his cheeks. Howard saw it, too, and said, “Tommy! What’s the matter?”

  Tommy’s voice was breaking and he said, “Howard, in the minors, I actually roomed for half a season with Kenny Boyer. I loved him. He was one of my dearest friends. What a man. A tremendous man. Howard, I’ve never heard a eulogy like that. Only you could do it. That was just beautiful.”

  There were a few seconds until we were back on the air. Cosell leaned back. He had the cigar going. He looks at Lasorda and then says, “Hey, Tommy, just understand one thing. Kenny Boyer was a prick!”

  It was quintessential Cosell. Show everyone how smart you are, show that you know every player’s middle name—“Stanley Frank Musial, Kenton Lloyd Boyer”—and just make it part of the show.

  But it actually calmed Lasorda down. And we went on with the game.

  IN 1984, COSELL AND I were in San Francisco to broadcast the baseball All-Star Game. Earl Weaver, who had retired as the manager of the Orioles two years earlier, would join us in the booth. Jim Palmer would be doing dugout interviews. Since Earl had managed in the American League exclusively, he’d not had the pleasure of visiting the dump that was Candlestick Park. It’s the day before the game, and the three of us go out to Candlestick for a meeting and to talk to some players. Afterward, in the limo back to the hotel, were Cosell, Weaver, myself, Palmer, and Steve Hirdt of the Elias Sports Bureau. Few people could curse a blue streak in the mold of Earl Weaver. Every third word might be something you wouldn’t find in Webster’s. And this was Earl in the limo: Jesus Christ, I’ve never been to a colder fucking place in my life. It’s the middle of fucking summer. The wind is blowing forty miles an hour. It feels like it’s twelve goddamn degrees. Who built this piece of crap?

  As Earl is ranting, Howard has his eyes closed, and clearly has no interest in any part of the conversation. Or, at this point in his career and life, in any conversation. Howard was worn-out. He didn’t want to be with any of us, and we didn’t particularly want to be with him. Meanwhile, having worked at Candlestick for several years, I explained it all to Earl. Back in the fifties, the mayor, George Christopher, knew this developer, Charlie Harney. When the Giants came out here from New York, they needed a new stadium. Harney had this piece of land. What else was he going to do with it? It was basically worthless. He and Christopher were in cahoots. Who knows who got paid what to do what, but it’s really simple. Candlestick Park is a monument to political chicanery.

  Howard appeared oblivious.

  The All-Star Game is the next night. The telecast wasn’t more than a few minutes old when Howard said, as I recall, over a blimp shot, “You’re looking at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Some would say it’s a monument to political chicanery. Nevertheless, it is the site of tonight’s All-Star Game . . . .”

  Howard Cosell could be a lot of things. He could even be a parrot.

  Meanwhile, let’s talk about Earl Weaver here. Apart from a lifetime membership in the Profanity Hall of Fame, he was a lovable crank. I’d first gotten to know him when I was covering the 1979 World Series for ABC. Earl’s Orioles were facing the “We Are Family” Pirates. The Pirates were managed by Chuck Tanner, who, a decade earlier, had been a good friend and mentor as the manager of the Hawaii Islanders.

  Before Game 5 on a Sunday afternoon in Pittsburgh, I saw Earl at the batting cage, and he looked rumpled and exhausted.

  “Earl, are you all right?” I asked him.

  “Jesus Christ. I couldn’t get any sleep last night. That fucking hotel we’re staying at is so goddamn noisy. Never slept a minute.”

  “Where are you guys staying?”

  “We’re staying at a hotel that is so fucking old, they named William Penn after the hotel.”

  An Earl classic.

  The Orioles would lose the Series in seven games. Following the 1982 season, Earl retired. (He’d eventually come back for a couple of seasons in the mid-eighties.) Earl was an aggressive manager, rarely relying on small ball but a proponent instead—as he famously put it—of “pitching, defense, and the three run-homer.” Earl was intense, lived hard, and had gotten burned-out. He joined us on Monday Night Baseball as an analyst for the 1983 season and was pretty good—a little green but full of insight. He was normally very nervous before a telecast. I always figured it was not over the possibility that he’d make a mistake on the air—but that the censors wouldn’t have their fingers on the mute button fast enough.

  Another thing about Earl: When we would ride out to an airport together the morning after a game, he would always be jotting down a bunch of numbers on a notepad. I figured it obviously had something to do with baseball.

  One morning I asked him what he was working on.

  Without looking up, he said, “I’m trying to figure out if I have enough money to live on for the rest of my life.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, I do it all the time. I’m just adding in last night’s fee.”

  So here was the legendary Earl Weaver computing his up-to-the-minute net worth. He was a real-time human actuarial table. If there was one of those cartoon thought bubbles over his head, it would have read: If I lost my job tomorrow, how much longer could I live before the money runs out?

  He didn’t need a three-run homer. He needed a winning lottery ticket.

  Earl didn’t pass away until January 2013 when, at age eighty-two, he had a heart attack aboard a cruise ship. The St. Louis native died on the same day as another legend, Stan Musial.

  BY 1983, HOWARD COSELL had reached a new level of surliness. He was choleric and cantanker
ous, as he might have put it. He’d had enough of Monday Night Football and would take himself off the show at the end of that season. In October, at the World Series between the Phillies and Orioles, I met Bob Costas for the first time, before Game 1 in Baltimore. Minutes later, a very youthful Bob also introduced himself to Howard in the press box. “I KNOW who you are,” Howard sniffed. “You’re the CHILD who RHAPSODIZES about the infield fly rule.”

  By 1984, Howard was dialing back his schedule, but he’d become the world’s biggest pain in the ass. He would arrive on-site in a foul mood and was poisoning the environment. He didn’t want to be around people, and people didn’t want to be around him. He was threatening not to work the Los Angeles Olympics—he was still angered that, twelve long years before, McKay had been the anointed one in Munich. He’d already announced that he was finished with boxing, so Chris Schenkel would handle that assignment in Los Angeles. Just a day or two before the Opening Ceremony, suddenly Howard showed up but with nothing to do. It was clear to those of us who’d worked with him that he was there in anticipation of a Munich-like event and that this time Arledge would see the wisdom of putting him—and not McKay—in the anchor seat. Meanwhile, the Olympics got under way and Los Angeles turned, in a matter of just a couple of days, into Utopia. No traffic, no smog, spectacular weather, terrific competition. Everything seemed perfect and the concern over a terror attack or anything insidious was fading rapidly. Of course, being on the air was like a drug for Howard—so where would he get his fix? I passed him in the hotel lobby on the third or fourth morning of the Games and he muttered something about Schenkel. I heard the word incompetent. Typical Howard—just taking another shot at a colleague. Not a day later, of course, Howard showed up at the Los Angeles Sports Arena, the boxing venue. Now we were all hearing that Cosell would announce some fights to give Schenkel an occasional breather. Howard was still, at that point, the thousand-pound gorilla. Who was going to tell him “no”?

  Need I say more? By the end of the Olympics, Howard would be calling every fight. Schenkel might as well have been on vacation. If there was a light flyweight preliminary bout between a guy from Nigeria and a kid from New Zealand, Howard was your man.

  Two months after the Olympics, Cosell, Jim Palmer, and I were in Kansas City for Game 1 of the American League Championship Series between the Royals and the Detroit Tigers. Howard came to town dark and brooding. I love postseason baseball, everyone on that production crew loved postseason baseball—and there was Cosell making everyone around him walk on eggshells. The second game of the series was a four-hour affair, going eleven innings before the Tigers finally won. At one point late in the game, Howard was calling for a bunt—his favorite piece of strategy. So what else was new? To make matters worse, he’d been in the bar at the Alameda Plaza Hotel for a couple of hours before we’d even left for the ballpark. And he had a big plastic cup that was constantly being filled and refilled during the game. It wasn’t unusual for Howard to drink during a game, but this may have been a record.

  Palmer and I were attempting to keep Howard from looking like a complete fool by calling for a bunt in a situation where no manager would ever bunt. We were working the edges, so as not to embarrass him on the air—but we couldn’t let Howard go on and on. The game ends and I’m disgusted. We’d had a terrible night. The telecast was awful, sabotaged by Howard’s incessant and often incoherent ramblings. Not fifteen seconds after we’re off the air, Howard starts to tell me that he knows far more baseball strategy than anyone, and he is who he is because he always takes a stand. Then, he says to me—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 just walked away.

  I walked back to the pressroom behind the broadcast booth at Royals Stadium. I’m standing there with Palmer, alternately commiserating and venting, when a sportswriter walks up to the bar and asks the bartender, a woman, for a glass of vodka. As he turns away for a second, she pours him about three drops’ worth. When he turns back, he says, “I’ll need a lot more than that.” At which point she holds up an empty quart bottle of Smirnoff and says, “I’m sorry, sir, Mr. Cosell drank the rest.”

  The next day, an off day in the series, we got on a plane ABC had chartered to Detroit for Game 3. Palmer and I wanted nothing to do with Howard. We didn’t even want to look at him. Thankfully, my old friend Curt Gowdy was broadcasting the series on network radio and we’d invited him to come with us. We also knew that Curt could sit with Howard so neither of us would have to. Also, in the New York Post that day, the columnist Dick Young, who’d always detested Cosell, had excoriated him and Howard knew all about it.

  We landed in Detroit a little before noon and checked into the Pontchartrain Hotel. An hour later, there’s a knock on my door. I open it and there’s Howard, cigar burning brightly, walking right past me and settling into a chair. “Alfalfa, I just want to tell you, it was Palmer I was really pissed off at last night. He should have—”

  I cut him off. “No, Howard. We were both trying to protect you. We were trying to get you off the hook. If Palmer and I think you’re totally off base, what are we supposed to do? Are we supposed to say, ‘Howard, you’re a moron?’ We’re trying to save you from yourself.”

  We did the game the next night. The Tigers won and swept the series. I normally want a series to go the distance—more drama. This was the one time I was happy just to get out of town as fast as possible. At the time, the two networks covering baseball, ABC and NBC, alternated coverage of the World Series each year, and it was NBC’s turn—so we were done with baseball. Our season was over. A few weeks later, though, with my contract expiring at the end of 1984, I had a meeting in New York with Roone Arledge to talk about a new deal. When we got around to baseball, I told him that it was simple. “Look, I love baseball,” I said. “It’s been the cornerstone of my career. But I can’t share a booth with a guy who doesn’t want to be there and prepares for a game in the hotel bar. I can’t do it anymore.”

  Roone said, “I’ll promise you this: if Howard does baseball next season, he won’t be drinking before the game or during the game.” I took him at his word.

  I renewed my contract and Howard was back on baseball for the 1985 season and, I must say, Roone’s guarantee would hold up. Still, it wasn’t a satisfying season. Howard still didn’t want to be there. He did half the games, at most, and when he was in the booth, he wasn’t Howard anymore. I remember thinking that—to use a line Howard often intoned on the air—he was simply a shell of his former self.

  He was, however, nearing completion on a second book about his career. Everyone at ABC Sports knew he was working on it and we were all expecting a hatchet job. In fact, we were all positive about it. In late September, a few days before the book would come out, details began to emerge. Sure enough, Howard was going after everybody at ABC Sports, including, to a certain degree, Roone Arledge himself! Howard might as well have burned himself at the stake. He just didn’t care anymore. He gave me a couple of small shots—tweaks, really. But nothing compared to the vitriol he had saved up for most of the others.

  That was our year to televise the World Series. But when Cosell’s book came out, and his trashing of ABC became public, Arledge had had enough. A week before Game 1 of a World Series that would match Kansas City against St. Louis, he removed Cosell from the broadcasts and replaced him with Tim McCarver. On a personal level, it was the greatest trade in the history of broadcasting.

  Just a couple of weeks earlier, Cosell, Palmer, and I had been together for a Sunday afternoon telecast in Minnesota, the Twins against the Royals,
that would hardly draw flies, going up against the NFL on CBS and NBC. The crowd was not only small but about half the ABC affiliates around the country weren’t even carrying the game. They could make more money with local programming. The rating was minuscule. The game ended and the three of us got into a car to go to the airport in Minneapolis. The dynamic with Cosell all season long had been frosty. Palmer and I headed down one concourse; Howard, stooped over and looking forlorn, down another. We mumbled good-bye to him with a cursory wave.

  I didn’t know it at the time, but I would never work with him again. In fact, I’d never see him again. Or even speak with him. It was the last time he would ever appear on network television. So think about this: Howard Cosell—this seminal figure in sports television who was larger-than-life, this man who was once one of the most recognizable people in America, who made “just tell it like it is” a catchphrase, and who, two decades after his death, is still being imitated—ended his career with a meaningless Royals-Twins game in September 1985 that got a rating you could only discover with a microscope. That was it. Finished.

  We had a lot of fun, especially at the beginning. But Howard always had something eating at him. Even in the good times, no matter the circumstances, it was never enough. If you elected him senator, he’d want to be president. If you made him president, he’d want to be king. If you made him king, he’d want to be God. He ascended to an extraordinary position but never felt the industry was exalted or revered enough for him. Howard Cosell may have known who he was. But he could never be at peace with where he was.