I have listened to Al Michaels for a long time, he is very good at his job, and I am thankful. His biography, written with help, but the sort that captures his voice, is fascinating.
It comes before the decline of the NFL in the face of concussions and politics.
It comes before Trump when tales of the man were still simply funny: Trump cheats at golf, but boldly.
Al Michaels is young enough to have a career ahead of him, but old enough to have worked with people from the Lombardi era of the NFL (Frank Gifford). He loves sports, all sports, and as a hockey fan (Kings!) is the voice of the Olympic Miracle on Ice.
If you are my age, that is the day when we elected Ronald Reagan and won the Cold War. Al Michaels, whatever his politics, is the voice of the change. Do I believe in miracles?
We saw the nation go from malaise of Carter and Russians everywhere to Reagan and morning in America. Yes. Yes, we do believe in miracles.
You cannot tell much about his politics from this book, his religious views, or anything, but that Al Michaels seems a decent man. He is kind to his co-workers, even when he does not particularly respect them, and generous to his numerous friends. If he has made a few enemies, he is particularly hard on them.
Howard Cosell is what we knew he was. Michaels is kinder than he is cruel.
If you do not know the names I have mentioned, Cosell, Gifford, then you will not understand Dierdorf or Dandy Don. You are young, but know this: we were young once. There was a time when Monday Night Football was a thing, young men watched or pretended to watch. If you saw the game, then you saw Howard and a packed Astrodome with people singing about loving Blue. This was Houston and that was the first time I heard of the city I have come to love.
Frank Gifford is play-by-play for me and Michaels was the younger, and yes better, man who replaced him.
That world is deader than Dicken’s Victorian London and the loss is not so great.
Yet there was a brief time when despite the new thing called the Internet that ESPN was just going to be the new ABC. Sunday Night Football could be Monday Night Football. . . And Madden was a man, a very great coach and announcer, and not a video game name. That world is very far away, mostly for good.
Yet if you are reading this far and are a youngling, be warned. Most of pop culture, most of what we invest so much time and thought into learning, dies quickly. The rules change. We move on. The heroes of youth are forgotten, almost entirely, and nobody cares about the olds.
What endures?
Jesus. Plato. Bach. Austen. Hughes.
Greatness endures.
Al Michaels is the voice of many good memories if you are my age. He gave his life to sports and sports rewarded him handsomely with money and fame. Did it matter?
Not for the game, but because as an essentially decent man, as opposed to his colleague OJ Simpson, he left us with entertainments and few regrets. The joy he gave immortal souls was (mostly) harmless and for that I am thankful. Our mistake, however, was to confuse the ephemeral (“The Miracle on Ice”) with the eternal, the souls who survived the Gulag to win freedom in Russia.
We believed in miracles, but too many of us missed the voice of Solzhenitsyn for Michaels. That is not his fault, but ours. Still . . .
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