RIP Dick Enberg

This one really hurts. Dick Enberg has passed away at 82. Not only was he one of the greatest sportscasters in history, he was also a wonderful man. I’m sure over the next few days you’ll be seeing and hearing highlights. He called Super Bowls, World Series, Wimbledon tennis, NCAA basketball championships – pretty much every major sport. He was the sports voice of NBC for many years (later with CBS and ESPN). He is almost synonymous with the NFL. But lucky listeners in Los Angeles also knew him for years as the radio voice of the Rams, the TV voice of UCLA basketball (in the Johnny Wooden era), and the radio/TV voice of the California Angels.

I first met Dick in 1969. I was a lowly sports intern at KMPC radio in Los Angeles and Dick was calling the Angels and Rams on that station. He treated everyone equally and with respect, even a wide-eyed punk kid like me. One year I got to intern for the home Rams games. I would stand in the back of the booth and watch a weekly masterful performance. Spotters and statisticians would hand him scraps of paper and he would seamlessly weave them into his broadcast, all the while describing the action and conveying the drama of the situation. Here was this exciting football game going on on the field and I couldn’t take my eyes away from the man calling it rather than watching it myself from the 50-yard line.

Before the game Dick was always gracious with his time, showing me how he prepared for a game and what to look for during a game.

I hadn’t seen him in quite a few years and when we reconnected in 2009 at Dodger Stadium when I was hosting Dodger Talk and he was in his first year doing television for the San Diego Padres he remembered my name. How amazing is that after almost 40 years? When I would see him at Petco Park he routinely would arrive at the ballpark around 1:00 for a 7:00 game just to do his preparation. And trust me when I say that many of those Padres games meant nothing. They were so bad they were often mathematically eliminated by the All-Star break. But he took pride in everything he did and had a passion for everything he did, and it really showed.

And man was he good. A few years ago at Dodger Stadium during a Dodgers-Padres game there was a weird triple play. On MLB.com you could watch all of the broadcasts. To be honest, Vin Scully blew the call. Whoever the ESPN announcer was that day also kicked it. Dick Enberg not only got it right, but called it effortlessly. This man was a PRO.

He once had to call a Superbowl when there was an audio problem and he was hearing an echo in his headphones. Imagine being on an open mic speaking to 80 million people and that maddening distraction was going on for three hours. When you listen to the broadcast itself you would never know there was a problem. His call, his concentration, his analysis was right on the money. Again, a pro’s PRO.

One of his other gifts was making his broadcast partner feel comfortable and thus getting the best performance possible out of him. Merlin Olsen, Billy Packer, Don Drysdale, Al McGuire, Mark Grant, and many others – all benefited greatly by having Dick Enberg by their side.

A few years ago he did NFL Thursday night games on national radio. It was a treat to hear him back on the radio, and at 77 or 78 he hadn't lost a step. You could picture the game better than if you were watching it. And I could picture him in the booth, gesturing to the engineer to bring the crowd noise up and down, reading scraps of paper, and taking the listener on a spellbinding ride. My oh my, I will miss him.

NOTE: Friday Questions will appear later Friday. But I wanted to share my thoughts on Dick Enberg.