Legendary diverse broadcaster. Locally in SoCal he was the voice of the Angels, Rams and UCLA football and basketball. He hosted the Olympics and many other national sporting events. He was legendary.
One of the classic sports broadcaster talents of my lifetime, I reckon.
RIP Mr. Enberg; you done good.
I was a fan of the game show he hosted in the 70s, Sports Challenge. He was the best. R.I.P., Dick.
Oh my!
Dick Enberg retired as a Padres announcer at the end of 2016. There were many short tribute videos for him. Here is Bob Uecker with 44 apt seconds.
Dick Enberg:
► died Thursday morning at his La Jolla home, his wife, Barbara said the family found out later in the day when Dick Enberg failed to get off a flight in Boston, where they were scheduled to meet. She said her husband had appeared to be waiting for a car that was set to shuttle him to the San Diego airport for a 6:30 a.m. flight. “He was dressed with his bags packed at the door,” she said. “We think it was a heart attack.”
► Enberg did it all: major league baseball, college and pro football, college basketball, boxing, tennis, golf, Olympics, Rose Bowls and Super Bowls, Breeders’ Cup horse racing — earning a trophy case full of Emmys, awards from the pro football, basketball and baseball halls of fame, niches in several broadcasting halls of fame and other assorted honors.
► quarterbacked his high school football team
► played college baseball
► earned both master’s and doctoral degrees at Indiana University
► got his big break in 1965. KTLA, Channel 5, was looking for a sportscaster and Enberg was hired, at $18,000 a year. “I felt guilty because that was triple what I made as a teacher,” he recalled for The Times in 1987. “Then I found out I was being paid 10% under the union minimum.”
► became the radio announcer for the Los Angeles Rams
► began working UCLA telecasts during the Bruins’ John Wooden-Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) glory years; During his nine years broadcasting UCLA basketball, the Bruins won eight NCAA titles.
► had a decade-long association with the Angels
► called NCAA basketball games. In a UCLA-Oregon game in 1970, Oregon went into a stall, leaving Enberg with little to talk about and air time to be filled. He began humming “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” from the big movie of the previous year, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” At the next game, UCLA’s pep band played the song and the student section called for him to sing it. He demurred, saying he didn’t know the words, but they insisted and he promised he’d learn them. Then, after the last home game of the regular season, he walked to mid-court and sang.
► was known for his countless calls of “Oh my!” for amazing plays and “touch ‘em all” for home runs
► broadcast nine no-hitters, including two by San Francisco’s Tim Lincecum against the Padres in 2013 and 2014.
► Enberg said the most historically important event he covered was “The Game of the Century,” Houston’s victory over UCLA in 1968 that snapped the Bruins’ 47-game winning streak.
► called John Wooden “The greatest man I’ve ever known other than my own father.”
► called Padres games for seven seasons and went into the broadcasters’ wing of the Hall of Fame in 2015.
► won 13 Sports Emmy Awards and a Lifetime Achievement Emmy. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and UCLA named its Media Center in Pauley Pavilion after Enberg this year.
R.I.P., Dick Enberg, and thanks for the memories