Entertainment

Cosell done in by booze

Howard Cosell drank himself out of his announcing job at ABC, according a new biography of the famed TV sports personality.

During a 1984 American League Championship game, Cosell and his partner, Al Michaels, squabbled over a piece of baseball strategy, the new book “Howard Cosell: The Man, the Myth, and the Transformation of American Sport” says.

“What viewers didn’t know was that Cosell had been drinking during the game,” according to author Mark Ribowsky.

“You’re drunk”¯,” Michaels told Cosell after the game. “You’re ruining the f—ing telecast.”

Michaels complained to ABC, which did nothing because Cosell was such a big star.

But by the next year, Cosell’s antics had worn thin on both the network and the new commissioner of baseball, Peter Ueberroth, who had veto power over announcers.

Jim Spence, an ABC Sports exec at the time, made the call several days before the 1985 World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Kansas City Royals.

Cosell was pulled off the air and replaced by Tim McCarver, the book says.

“I think by then,” a friend told the author, “Howard thought calling games of any kind was beneath him.”

Two months later, Cosell quit ABC.