'i've Won. I've Beat Them'

No doubt part of this posture is pride, part of it defensive reaction, part of it delusion, a manifestation of a "childlike" innocence to which Hilary refers. On the other hand, without question Cosell is not hallucinating when he sees the print media after him. He would hardly be the first multimillionaire TV star to be set upon by the poor ink-stained wretches. Moreover, the attacks upon Cosell have been vigorously renewed since he came out in strident opposition to boxing last fall. Young, who for years had castigated "Howie the Shill" for touting ABC bouts, dismissed Cosell's protests against the brutality and corruption in the ring as "Salvation Army rhetoric."

No one has ever been a more flammable burnt offering for those who would roast him in the press than Cosell. If sports-writers were as all-powerful as Cosell howls they are, Pete Rozelle would have a lifetime, no-cut contract to rule the world. Even when a cowardly bunch of frustrated Baltimore thugs rocked the limousine Cosell was riding in after the Orioles lost a World Series game in 1979, he refused to blame the hoodlums. Instead, he assigned responsibility to a Baltimore columnist, who, Cosell maintains, had stirred the gullible masses against him. Later that same night, in the bar at the Cross Keys Inn, in a loud and celebrated argument with Pete Axthelm, the Newsweek sports columnist, Cosell not only lambasted Young—"that master of vendetta and vilification"—but also attacked Red Smith, a beloved avatar among sportswriters. This sacrilege eroded Cosell's reputation in the print world all the more.

Cosell is certainly not the only one in his profession to attribute almightiness to the print media. His contemporaries in television, especially those who grew up in a newspaper environment, have a curious tendency, as Ohlmeyer points out, "to be more impressed with the written word than the people who write it are." To be sure, as a man of words in a medium of smiles, a man of thought in a medium of reaction, Cosell seems in some crevasse of his soul almost to identify more with the enemy writing press than with broadcasting.

Sometimes, rather than holding television responsible for making what he considers a bad decision, he'll blame newspapers instead. For example, Cosell is convinced that the jackals of the sporting press, not the public, drove sportscasters Chris Schenkel and Curt Gowdy from their perches of eminence. Conversely: "Print was what made it safe for the networks to stay with a Gifford or a Whitaker because those were precisely the kind of announcers the networks knew wouldn't get criticized." Also, according to Cosell, when Arledge broke his word about making Cosell news co-anchor, Arledge didn't change his mind but merely lost his nerve, fearful of what the newspaper critics would say.

Cosell picks up a huge cigar, one that would fit neatly into Dale Murphy's bat rack, and lights it, his hands trembling. His critics have seized cruelly on his shakes. In fact, they have been a common defect in the family for generations, and Hilary and Jill have already blithely bet each other which of them will develop the affliction first. Then Cosell lies flat-out on the sofa. He is on the road again, working, but Emmy is with him, as ever, napping next door in the bedroom of their suite. He would see the grandchildren next weekend at the summer house. His office has just phoned and, yes, all the right people have called. His world is nailed down.

"True," says Cosell, "criticism did give me fits at one time, in the late '60s and the early '70s. But only intellectually. Criticism only substantively affected my life in the matter of my running for the Senate [as a Democrat, in 1976, for the New York seat Daniel Moynihan subsequently won]. I would have accepted that challenge, except that my family begged me not to subject us to the vilification we would have had to endure from certain elements of the print media over a long campaign.

"But, in my own mind, I would have won. Ultimately, you see, people believe in me. I've got the public, its respect, its love, its adulation.

"I've never been so secure or so sure in my professional life as I am right now. When I saw the sort of people who criticized my decision not to do any more boxing, that's when I knew for certain it was over. When they openly lined up with the sleaze, the crooks, I knew I'd won. I've won. I've beat them—conclusively. In fact, if anything, I miss being bothered by them, because now I lack the sustaining challenge they always provided me."

In Cosell's office—THE RAT RACE IS OVER/THE RATS WON says the sign on the wall—his phone is continually lit with calls to and from the athletic high and mighty. "Sometimes I think this is the sports headquarters of the world," he says rather diffidently, as if the thought has just crossed his mind. But then, later, in his more normal tone: "The one thing I can do is produce people. Barbara Walters is the only other person in this business who can deliver people the way I can. I can produce anyone in sports at anytime." He pauses, and continues a bit sheepishly, "Well, maybe not Alvin." Alvin is NFL Commissioner Rozelle. Cosell's closeness to Al Davis, Rozelle's archenemy, has been at the expense of the friendship Cosell used to enjoy with the commissioner.

Cosell is at home in all the highest echelons. He's intrigued by politics, and now that he doesn't have to practice law, dot all the i's, jurisprudence is even more appealing. If he had stayed at the bar, he would, he says, like to have become an Edward Bennett Williams. But then, show business, Cosell says, is "my element." According to Cosell, Danny Kaye has said The Howard Cosell Story "would make a hell of a movie." Jerry Orbach has advanced the same idea for a musical on The Great White Way. Any dinner is a guaranteed success if Cosell is toastmaster. Shortly before Cronkite retired from CBS, whom, in all the world, did he want to emcee a dinner in his honor? Howard Cosell of ABC. Charities line up for him, largely because the word is out he's a soft touch for any good cause—"a real pussycat," says Jimmy The Greek. In an informal way, Cosell, the sports guy—-not one of the news side heavies or corporate bigwigs—is deployed as envoy to the world for the American Broadcasting Company.