Hello again, everyone. Howard Cosell here, speaking to you from the Big Broadcast Booth In The Sky. Down below me, always below me, is my former indefatigible producer on ABC “SportsBeat,” the bulldog reporter Michael Marley.
COSELL; Our format today on “Weird World Of Sports” is the Just For Men “Head To Head” segment in which the goy, I mean my boy Marley, and I compare and contrast two prominent members of the jockocracy who have something in common. In this particular case, we will, vodka supply permitting, compare and contrast the two Pacmans, Tennessee Titans star Pacman Jones and boxing superstar Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao.
MARLEY: Thanks, Coach (as he was lovingly known at ABC). Coach, I know you dumped both pro football and boxing before you retired from the booth. But you must admit that Pacman Jones has put the rap back in rap sheet. Coming out of college, not even a football expert such as yourself could’ve predicted how this Pacman would light up the NFL (National Felons League).
COSELL: Indeed, my beer-guzzling, Irish friend. I would’ve had to find a place for Pacman Jones on my fun shows, the old “Battle Of The Network Scars” programs. He would’ve gone wild, ahem, working with all those blondes named Heather that I had on those shows. Time does not permit a full recitation of Pacman’s entire criminal docket but, as two law school graduates, you and I should handle this adroitly if not as masterfully as my old “Monday Night Football” halftime highlights. Who can ever forget that it was I, the incomparable Cosell, who deemed Otis Sistrunk “a graduate of the University Of Mars,” or who proclaimed to the world that Russ Francis, New England Patriots, was “All World.”
MARLEY: Indeed, Coach, I can see that death has not diminished your oh so healthy ego in any way. I still say your last book should’ve been entitled “How Great I Art.” Imagine how that sniveling critic, Phil Mushnick, would’ve made a pathetic attempt to savage that. As for the football Pacman, it’s too bad he wasn’t in the league when Fair Hooker played for Cleveland. Remember when Big Hat, No Cattle Danderoo Don Meredith said on the MNF air “I never met one of those.” You thought The Giffer was going to soil his canary yellow ABC blazer.
COSELL: Don’t remind me, Michael. Discussing hookers, even left hookers like the Filipino Pacman, reminds me of our late, overrated producer Chet “The Jet” Forte. A talented midget, yes, but he often came up short. Now let’s go to the rap sheets and see how Pacman Vs. Pacman stacks up. Speaking of stacking up, Anna Nicole Smith was in this very booth just last week…
FOOTBALL PACMAN: July 13, 2005- Arrested and charged with assault and felony vandalism after a nightclub altercation. This began Pacman Jones NFL rap sheet. He already had a lengthy one from high school and college.
BOXING PACMAN: Manny is most dangerous with a pen outside the ring although I don’t think he has signed a promotional contract in at least seven or eight days.
FOOTBALL PACMAN: September 5, 2005- Adam was invited to attend the Nashville Sports Council Kickoff Luncheon. Jones went off on a verbal tirade while being told to wait for his car after the event. He then refused to tip the valet service.
BOXING PACMAN: I suppose you could consider Manny’s political speach as verbal tirades. I doubt if Manny is as cheap as the other Pacman. I think Manny even tips tricycle drivers.
FOOTBALL PACMAN: October 2005- State of West Virginia filed a petition stating that Jones had not been contacting his probation officer and that he had not reported his July 2005 arrest. The judge extended the probation for just 90 days.
BOXING PACMAN: May wind up spending as much time in court as football Pacman as Top Rank-Golden Boy wends its way to trial in Los Angeles federal court. If Top Rank and Manny lose, though, only handcuffs for Manny will be De La Hoya’s golden ones.
FOOTBALL PACMAN: March 23, 2006- Charged with marijuana possession in Fayetteville, Georgia. He went on to claim that he knew how to beat the NFL’s drug test.
BOXING PACMAN: Only dope you can attribute to the Pinoy Pulverizer is being dopey in signing both promotional contracts. Using same analogy, the “pusher” is then Paquaio lawyer Jing Gacal.
FOOTBALL PACMAN: August 25, 2006,-Arrested for disorderly conduct and public intoxication after being ordered by the cops to leave a Murfreesboro night club several times. Jones claimed a woman stole his wallet. The woman claimed that Jones spat on her. The judge in the case gave Pacman six months probation and told him to stay away from the club.
FOOTBALL PACMAN: October 26, 2006- Jones was issued a citation for misdemeanor assault after a female student from Tennessee State University claimed that Jones spit in her face at a Nashville night club.
BOXING PACMAN: Manny may shoeshine opponents with two-fisted attack in ring but he obviously has more class than gridder. Here’s one case where a guy who let fifth grade keep him out of the sixth grade acts more intelligently than someone with a college education.
FOOTBALL PACMAN: Feburary 19, 2007- The facts are disputed and no charges have been made yet, but Jones was in the middle of a fight and shooting at a strip club in Las Vegas that left one man paralyzed and two more wounded. The fight broke out after Jones showered strippers on stage with $81,000 dollars. The club owner claims Jones was beating a stripper’s head against the bar while claiming he would kill one of the club’s employees.
The above time line doesn’t include his sentence of one year in prison for a bar fight in Morgantown, West Virginia while in college. The sentence was later suspended in exchange for two years of probation (because he is a really good football player).
BOXING PACMAN: I know that Manny loves his beer, playing pool and karaoke but I can’t see him using a stripper’s noggin as a bongo drum. I wonder if that marvelous love song, “I’m In Love With A Stripper” was playing in the adult entertainment center at the time. As far as throwing cash showers, it has been Bob Arum and De La Hoya showering Manny with money.
MARLEY: This was no contest, Howard, it was more one-sided than the wicked beating Sir Lawrence Holmes handed out to Randall “Tex” Cobb.We did not even make reference to Pigskin Pacman recentrly being menaced by a man with a knife in a bowling alley. Bowling is getting to be a rough sport also. When it comes to being a first-class athlete in and out of the ring, Manny Pacquaio, is all that plus a bag of Wise’s potato chips. As for the moral midget, the Football Pacman, I see a swift return to campus for him. Not back to college, not to somewhere like Penn State. He is bound for State Pen, in Nevada or elsehwere. His future is jail, not Yale. I hereby declare boxing and Boxing Pacman the unanimous winner.
COSELL: Indubitably, Michael, I must say your tenure with me certainly restored some of the intellectual brilliance you possessed before you became a print prostitute, meaning a lowlife, ill-informed sportswriter for such a detestable rag as The New York Post. So, there you have it, sports fans, this one is easy to call as when I prognosticated, mano a mano to Fidel Castro live on ABC, that speedskating was a sport in which Cuba would some day excel. I am sure you have seen how the island nation has won a plethroa of Olympic medals in speedskating! I agree, in this one case, the Pacman who is a gentlemen and a sportsman of the higher order is the tiny tot from the Phillipines. As for the other Pacman, well let’s stay within broadcast decency standards and summarily dismiss this antisocial lout as a despicable cad.
We’ll be back in 60 seconds and remember this is Howard Cosell, not the diminutive Bob Costas or the offensive Marv Albert, and I Never Played The Game! Now I must continue my heavenly search for another cad, Alvin “Pete” Rozelle. I’m sure he is Down There, Way Down There with the Pitchfork Guy and I bet Alvin and that old hack, Dick Young, are badmouthing me even now. It doesn’t matter because I have won. I’m Up Here and they are Down There. Now let’s throw it to Jim McKay at Lake Placid for some foolish winter sport like jumping over barrels while wearing ice skates. That idiot Rudy Martzke will gush over that…
Football Pacman incident report courtesy of bumpsports.com
