A True Story: Cosell Left Speechless

Bud Greenspan, Emmy award-winning television and movie producer, claims he is among the few people on Earth who has been able to quiet Howard Cosell for 30 seconds or more.

According to Greenspan, it happened at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. He was in a hotel lobby, and Cosell, sitting in the restaurant, saw him and yelled for him to come over. Cosell was sitting with Frank Gifford and a couple of other people, and the exchange went as follows:

Cosell: “Bud, wonderful to see you. I’d ask you to join us, but we haven’t got any room.”

Greenspan: “That’s OK. I’m just going to meet the ambassador to West Germany.”

Cosell: “Oh, great. Bring him over.”

Greenspan: “I can’t, Howard. You haven’t got any room.”

According to Greenspan, Gifford reported later that Cosell was speechless for at least half a minute, at that time his career record.

Trivia Time: What do Gary Carter of the New York Mets, Jamie Quirk of the Kansas City Royals and Bobby Grich of the Angels have in common? (Answer below.)

Nebraska Coach Tom Osborne, on the 63-0 win over Oregon: “I think probably, assuming Oregon is reasonably good, that our game was about as good an all-around performance--offense, defense and kicking--as we’ve had in a couple of years at Nebraska.”

Is Oregon reasonably good? Rich Brooks, the coach, doesn’t want to hear about it. Of the game, he said: “We played like a bunch of pukes.”

Add Osborne: He believes early-season upsets are to be expected, but Barry Switzer said: “Upsets aren’t good for Oklahoma. Eight-and-four isn’t winning here.”

44 Years Ago Today: On Oct. 5, 1941, Brooklyn catcher Mickey Owen dropped a third strike of what would have been the last out of a Dodger victory over the New York Yankees in the fourth game of the World Series.

On the passed ball, Tommy Henrich went to first. The Yankees, trailing 4-3, proceeded to score four runs on a single by Joe DiMaggio, a double by Charlie Keller, a walk and a double by Joe Gordon. The 7-4 win gave the Yankees a 3-1 lead in the Series, and they wrapped it up in the next game.

Note: In the 1941 regular season, Owen set a Brooklyn club record for catchers with a .995 fielding average.

Would-you-believe-it dept.: Notre Dame has lost three straight games to the Air Force, and tailback Allen Pinkett told Irv Moss of the Denver Post, “We focused on them the entire spring in practice. It’s been downright embarrassing the last three years.”

Today, the Falcons are favored to make it four straight.

From Dallas defensive back Dextor Clinkscale, looking to Sunday’s game against the New York Giants: “Harry Carson was wondering up there why we are America’s Team. We are in the entertainment business, and fans around the country lean to us. Now, it doesn’t take a Phi Beta Kappa to figure that out, so Harry should.”

Trivia Answer: All three were star high school quarterbacks who were sought by UCLA. Grich played at Long Beach Wilson, Quirk at St. Paul and Carter at Sunny Hills.

Quotebook

Linebacker Casey Merrill, after ending his holdout with the New York Giants: “I’m glad to be back in New York. Where else can you have bagels for breakfast, soul food for lunch and tacos for dinner?”