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 LARRY MERCHANT ...an HBO Sports asset |
Larry Merchant Keeps On Punching for HBO's Boxing
of TheColumnists.com
HBO almost lost Larry Merchant as its boxing analyst. Almost. Fortunately, the support of boxers and newspaper people and good sense prevailed.
When rumors were circulating that Max Kellerman, a bright young man, was going to replace Merchant as the main HBO boxing analyst, fighter Arturo Gatti said this at a kick-off press conference for his July 14 fight against Alfonso Gomez:
“I wouldn’t want to speak to nobody but Larry Merchant after a fight. Some people don’t like him. I like him because he’s real. He’s got balls to say it. If Max Kellerman goes to HBO, HBO is gonna go to shit.”
This eloquent non-elegant comment is about as rich a testimonial as any practitioner of any trade will earn. It helped persuade HBO sports chief Ross Greenburg that it would be unwise to demote Merchant to lesser HBO bouts. Instead they worked out a deal where Merchant would work a reduced schedule, but would continue to be the analyst on the major fights.
This suits Merchant, who, at 76, regards himself fortunate to have been in the boxing spotlight for more than 20 years. He was honored for the second time recently by the Boxing Writers Association.
Full disclosure. I am a good friend. I have known Larry since the days when he was sports editor of the best sports section in the country at the Philadelphia News in the 1960s. I saw him move on to a column at the New York Post, to a reporting and producing gig on pro football at NBC and then to HBO where he is the wise head, long respected for the journalistic excellence he has brought to the venue.
I love this story:
I was at a party in Alesand, a small town in Norway, a few years ago. A young man brought his dog, a boxer, to the party. When I asked him why he named the dog, Ali, he said, “He is a boxer, and I named him after the greatest boxer in the world, Ali-- Muhammad Ali.” That got us to talking about boxing. I asked him if he saw any of the fights from the United States, specifically the HBO fights with Jim Lampley, George Foreman and Larry Merchant.
The young man said, “LARRY? Yes, I know LARRY. I love LARRY. He’s great.”
When I told Merchant about it, he laughed. “Yes, I am known in many places,” he said. “particularly by doormen, waiters, bus boys and messengers, the people who watch fights.”
Merchant often has a light touch and there is invariably a lilt in his commentary. He likes boxing and boxers, but he is not awed by anyone. “My philosophy of commentary,” he says, “is to convey who the fighters are and what the event is about. It’s not my job to be a cheerleader. I’m skeptical of hype and false narratives. I don’t avoid talking about corruption in boxing. I look at the sports world as perfect with its imperfections. My goal is to get viewers involved and be honest at the same time.”
At one point Merchant was too honest for Mike Tyson when that unfortunate man’s personal life demanded truthful reportage. Tyson did not want to be interviewed by Merchant after a fight. The line in the trade was: “The only guy Mike Tyson is afraid of in the ring is Larry Merchant.”
Merchant isn’t perfect. Once, when he thought before a Pernell Whitaker-Oscar de la Hoya fight that De la Hoya’s entourage, complete with mariachi band, was getting too much attention at the expense of the champion, Whitaker, Merchant said, “I think in this setting mariachi music sucks.” He admitted soon enough that this was a poor choice of words and apologized. It put him in trouble with the Latin community for a while.
One of Merchant’s memorable newspaper moments came when he was on a road trip with the Phillies in the midst of a pennant race. On the plane back to Philadelphia after some tough losses by the Phils, Merchant was typing his column when a drunken catcher, Sammy White, came lurching up the aisle. He looked over Larry’s shoulder at his copy, then picked up the typewriter and threw it down the aisle.
Merchant dunned the Phils for the price of the typewriter, and wrote about White, “It was the best throw he made all season.”
At NBC Merchant worked the Sunday pre-game pro football shows. He was eminently qualified for that because he had once been a fifth or eighth-string halfback on the Oklahoma U. football team in the days when coach Bud Wilkinson fielded powerhouses every year. At just about the time Wilkinson told the five-foot-seven, 155-pound Brooklynite that he might get into a game, he was injured and never played. He made his mark instead as sports editor and editor-in-chief of the student newspaper.
He went on to become a part-time backfield coach for Lafayette High, his old school. He had once scored a touchdown on a 62-yard run toward the baseball infield portion at Ebbets Field. “When I got to the end zone,” he said, “my first thought was, ‘I’ve just scored a touchdown, and I’m standing where Jackie Robinson plays.’ ”
Whenever I hear of a new analyst hired for the Monday Night Football telecasts, I shake my head with wonderment that they haven’t been smart enough to hire Larry Merchant for the job.
©2007 by Stan Isaacs. The Stan Isaacs caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The photo of Larry Merchant is courtesy of HBO. This column first posted June , 2007.
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