I Never Played the Game

This blunt analysis of sports on television is just as relevant today as it was when published 25 years ago. Cosell lifts up the rock that the creepy pro team owners live under and watches them scatter. He skewers NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle. Then he takes on his own network and slams his Monday Night Football partners. It all makes for incredibly entertaining reading and is told in Cosell's staccato "voice," so you feel like he's talking to you. The only negative about the book is that at almost 400 pages it's too verbose, like Cosell himself. He uses the first 125 pages to explain how owners moving teams to new cities destroyed pro sports. He makes a valid case that Pete Rozelle wasn't the great savior of football that his legend allows, but instead he single-handedly melded sports and media into an entertainment enterprise. Eventually he gets to his booth partners--and attempts to do an objective analysis of their lack of skills. He has respect for Gifford but is absolutely right on that Frank's broadcast skills were limited. Cosell has no love for Don Meredith, a hick out of the Gomer Pyle playbook who was there for amusement but who had a gigantic ego that couldn't live in the same room with Howard's. After this was published the sports and TV world turned against Howard--yet everyone else was wrong and 25 years later we can now see that Cosell was right. Look beyond his hairpiece, cigar and distinctive voice and you'll find a true journalist with a heart for serving the public interest. Here he uses his journalistic skills to expose the falsehoods of sports and media. This book blows all the stereotypes and rips down the curtain that allowed pro leagues and broadcast networks to scheme to make money off what once was pure sport. Instead it became entertainment. Cosell admits making a mint off of it, but here (at the end of his career) correctly summarizes the problems. Even today most of what he writes is sadly still true.

I have this thing about men with toupees. It's like they're trying to hide something. But what? Did they strangle a unicorn when they were younger? Did they repeatedly run over a poodle with their Vespa? Did they hit a parrot on the head with a ball peen hammer? I doubt it. But it makes you wonder right?

After recently watching the Howard Cosell HBO documentary, I felt compelled to read of Howard in Howard's words. I graduated from high school in 71 and my interest in sports overlaid Cosell's rise to prominence. This book is good and bad. The bad part is that Howard writes it and therefore Howard covers only what he wants. He picks out about 5 themes and covers the story from his perspective while overlaying his importance and how these events may have led to his eventually leaving network sports. For example, the first quarter of the book is an in-depth analysis of the Raiders leaving Los Angeles and Al Davis' fight with the NFL. Howard does a good job covering this issue from an intelligent standpoint but feels compelled to consistently drop names and inform you of his importance in the story. The most compelling part of this subject, which is further covered later with the section on the Jets and Giants leaving New York, is how it plays out in today's culture of sports franchises still successfully blackmailing cities and states. At least in that perspective, Howard was correct.In addition to NFL franchise moves, the other big story is NFL Monday Night Football. Fans today have no idea how big this was for football to be carried on the weeknight. Howard Cosell was perfect for the role. He was clearly the most hated man in America. Brass, cocky, controversial but always wanting to open his mouth and have everyone listens to him. My fondest memories of Monday Night Football is Don Meredith and his comedy. It was worth watching just to listen to Don. Frank Gifford was the ballast, the middleman compromise between Frank and Don who made everything run smoothly. Howard was like the nerd who never fit in but felt like he needed to lead the show. And actually he was pretty good at it at times. Eventually Howard self-implodes. Struggling because all the print media hates him, his partners don't like him, but self-delusionally believing it's everyone else's fault, he asks to be removed from the show. And with this change, Howard leaves the spotlight but doesn't seem to ever get comfortable without the light on him.Howard was an intelligent, complex man who had a huge desire to be loved. Probably what he should be known for most is his complete devotion to his wife. When she died in the mid-90s, Howard was just lost. Basically his life was over except for dying.Other stories covered in this book are his reason for walking away from boxing coverage as well as his personal history with Ali, Ray Leonard and O.J. Simpson. In summary, this is a book of stories that are interesting to Howard, not a biography. But it does give good insight into the man. I recommend this book for anyone with interest in sports, the 70s, or television history.

I never heard Howard Cosell do a broadcast. If it is anything like he reads this book, then I truly missed out! This is an excellent addition, especially for anyone who enjoyed the recent film "Monday Night Mayhem", depicting the rise of Monday Night Football and Cosell. This fills in much of what the movie may have been unable to cover. Plenty of signature Cosell lines, said by the man himself!

Howard Cosell was a national treasure. In reading this book I believe I have begun to understand why it was that the golden age for sports entertainment is long in the past. I hardly knew Howard Cosell in the media, since I was born in the early '70's. I missed out. Yet, I have been able to view the sports media and journalism business without him, and it is only a shadow of its former greatness. In "I Never Played the Game," Mr. Cosell pulls no punches. He "tells it like it is" all of things that are wrong in sports...or what were wrong in sports in the late 1970's early '80's (in retrospect: nothing has changed). He tees off on team-owners who carpet-bag to other cities (then it was a big deal if the Rams moved from LA to Anaheim!); he jabs deliberately at the "sport" of professional boxing. He also lets looses a few dingers on professional baseball, but not before sacking his former fellow announcers in the Monday Night Football booth. Are you tired of the sports analogies? In reading this book I began to weary of Cosell's whippings (probably it's main flaw), but believe it, he has something to say! He saw professional sports in a way that is non-apologetic. He does not excuse ANYONE. He criticized the fascination with "Jock-ocracy," or the praising of former athletes as being the "authorities" of the sports. I found it humorous when he took on John Madden as being a "caricature" of himself, and Frank Gifford as "boring." You can't help but think of these praised members of the today's sports media and smile, realizing that Howard was right. Today, Monday Night Football's ratings drop due to boring games and simply a pop-culture identity crisis--it can't figure out if they are sports or entertainment. We cry out when team owners threaten to move if they don't get a new stadium with elite luxary boxes; and we're sickened by greedy promoters that exploit boxers and the sport in terribly overrated matchups on pay-per-view, all for the almighty dollar. Nothing has changed in 20 years, people. Howard prophecied most everything that is a "concern" in sports today. We have not come far at all. ESPN's Chris Berman is close, but we need Howard back...or someone willing to take the risks and actually tell us everything as it is. If you are sports fan and if you can find this book (mine was a gift several years ago), it is a treat to read.