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Dick Enberg: Heartbroken yet happy

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Dick Enberg opens the door to the Fox Sports San Diego broadcast booth and smiles like a three-time lottery winner.

“This is what I love coming to every day,” he says.

He looks out to the sun-kissed grass at Petco Park and is reminded once again of the royal flush God dealt him.

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“I’ve never thought of this as work,” he continues.

He thinks about the nine innings of baseball he gets to call and the rush of pursuing the perfect broadcast. He thinks about his Hall of Fame career and his beyond-my-wildest-dreams life.

He thinks about his first grandchild, Archie, who was born last month in London -- just like he thinks about his wife, Barbara, and his recently married daughter Nicole.

These thoughts bring Enberg joy. They keep him grinning. They allow him to come into your home with that same joie de verve he’s exuded for over 55 years in the profession.

They do one other thing, too: They keep the other thoughts at bay.


Dick always considered his younger brother, Dennis, to be the hero of the family. Dennis was the solid one, said Dick -- the country boy who served in the Navy for four years, earned his Ph. D. at North Carolina, then spent three and a half decades as a geography professor at North Carolina Central.

Dick himself is a former college professor who taught for four years at Cal State Northridge, so to see Dennis devote his life to academia sparked an enormous sense of pride.

To see him succumb to pancreatic cancer five months ago sparked an even greater sense of grief.

Dick remembers looking down at his deceased brother and thinking “Come on. You can’t be dead.” He seethes at the injustice of cancer taking Dennis instead of him.

“I really admired what he represented,” said Enberg, 79. “My life was easy -- here’s a kid who really made something of his life.”

Enberg is genuine when he says this, but his humility outshines his sincerity. Not only did Dick make something of his life, he became one of the greatest sportscasters ever.

The voice of UCLA basketball? The Los Angeles Rams? The California Angels? That was Enberg. The Super Bowl? Rose Bowl? Wimbledon? That was Dick, too.

Enberg may never have held the majesty of a Vin Scully or distinction of a Howard Cosell, but if someone were to pluck a random sport out of a hat and demand a sublime broadcast, then Dick was your No.1 draft pick every time.

“He could orchestrate a telecast better than anyone I’ve ever worked with,” said former college basketball analyst Billy Packer, Enberg’s longtime partner at NBC. “I think anybody who worked with him would just stand in amazement at how great he was at anything he undertook.”

For decades, Enberg’s signature “Oh, my!” reverberated across the athletic spectrum. He could capture the moment with an impromptu pearl, or capture your heart with a post-game essay.

And who’da thunk it -- after 40 years in the national spotlight, a member of sportscasting’s royal court would commit his twilight years to the country’s 28th biggest market, taking a job as the Padres’ play-by-play man in 2009. It was like Meryl Streep headlining an off-Broadway musical.

Funny thing, though. Being sportscasting royalty doesn’t necessarily make you San Diego royalty. Enberg has lived in this city for 31 years but in many ways is still the new guy.

And while some -- including Dick himself -- would question whether his mind is as sharp as it once was, you can’t, under any circumstances, question his heart.

Especially when it’s this heavy.


Dick’s son Alex has played a Vulcan in two different Star Trek series. He was a gifted actor who performed on stage at the Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, drawing rave reviews from other members of the company.

Every bit as much of a fan, Dick would drive up to Los Angeles whenever possible to watch Alex ignite the crowd, often telling him that he was so quick and funny that he should pursue a career in stand-up.

Dick doesn’t make those suggestions anymore. Alex, 42, had a brain hemorrhage 16 months ago and will never be the same.

According to Alex’s older brother, Andrew, basic communication is now “a constant game of charades.” He can still tell Dick “I love you,” but he can’t say much else.

The saddest part is that Alex understands his plight. He knows he’s trapped in his body and alone with his thoughts.

“Do you have children?” Dick asks from the Petco Park press box. “Because they say a parent is only as happy as his unhappiest child.”

This, more than any other time, is when the booth becomes sanctuary. This is when the headset becomes refuge and the microphone asylum.

Enberg used to cover John Wooden, who famously said “make each day your masterpiece.” And if there is any piece of advice Dick has exemplified, it’s those five words.

Fox Sports San Diego Executive Producer Jeff Byle marvels at Enberg’s work ethic. He’s fraught with ideas for the 10 a.m. conference call, locked in his office five hours before the first pitch and researching every possible tidbit should dead air consider an appearance.

Enberg has long said that anybody can call a 12-inning thriller. It’s the 10-1 snoozer where he feels he earns his money.

But perhaps the chief driving force behind Enberg’s preparation is that elusive “perfect broadcast.” He’s never had it -- because no one has -- yet he chases it like a greyhound would a mechanical rabbit.

One time, while getting ready to call the women’s basketball gold medal game in the Seoul Olympics, he came across a quote from U.S. Coach Kay Yow, who had recently undergone surgery for breast cancer and said “when life gives you a kick, make sure it kicks you forward.” After the U.S. won, the camera panned to an emotional Yow -- who has since passed on -- setting the stage for a poignant comment.

Enberg recalls how he could have said “This is the woman who battled breast cancer and said ‘when life gives you a kick, make sure it kicks you forward.’ Not only has she gone bravely forward, she’s pushed a terrific team all the way to the gold medal.” But he didn’t speak those words. He’s not sure why. That was 26 years ago. He’s still upset about it.

So given this borderline compulsive approach toward his craft, you could imagine Enberg’s frustration with some of the mistakes that have occurred over the past couple years.

A wrong name here, a flubbed score there -- the occasional missed home-run call. They’re rarely so egregious that the record skips on the entire broadcast, but they’re frequent enough that tweeters and bloggers spare few bullets.

Enberg partially defends himself, citing the unparalleled exposure of a baseball announcer and a pool of critics with nothing better to do than pounce on his errors. But there’s another part of him that acknowledges the truth -- that good as he may be, he’s not what he was.

“I’m not as sharp as when I was 40 years of age. I think that’s true of anyone 30 years beyond 40. It doesn’t make me happy that maybe I don’t see it as well or that the synapses don’t click at the right time,” Enberg said. “I think it goes back to the silent majority. I would hope that they would accept me not being 100 percent accurate. No one is, but I think there are other things I bring to the broadcast and telecast.”

Then he pauses.

Is this making you uncomfortable, Dick?

“It’s only uncomfortable in that I wish I would be perfect and I’m not,” Enberg said. “I wish I had the same mental acuity that I did when I was 40. Age does take things away.”

Man. As if enough hasn’t been taken away already.


Dick’s younger sister, Sharyl, may be the most selfless woman he knows. It doesn’t matter that she was 4 when he was in high school or that they’ve spent most of their lives on opposite ends of the country -- in a pinch, nobody was more dependable than lil’ sis.

Enberg said that the ultimate measure of man is how much we give, and in that regard, “Sharyl gets an A+.” So as she sits on her deathbed after a three-year bout with ovarian cancer, Dick is doing whatever he can to give back to her.

Sometimes, Enberg is racked by guilt when he thinks about how little time he and Sharyl have spent face-to-face. But he had dreams to pursue, a life to lead -- a gift to share with anyone with a roof and an antenna.

Besides, if it was selflessness that defined Sharyl, if giving was her M.O. -- then those who know Dick would say she’s been with him his whole life.

Former NBC Super Bowl director John Gonzalez remembers how awestruck he felt the first time he saw Enberg in person in 1976. At the time, Gonzalez was just a graphics operator sitting across the room from Dick in a South Bend restaurant. When he went to pay his bill, however, he was informed that Enberg had picked it up.

“For some reason, that always stuck with me,” Gonzalez said.

Before calling his first Super Bowl in 2007, CBS sportscaster Jim Nantz recalls Enberg stopping by the booth to wish him luck, making Nantz feel as though he’d “been blessed by the Pope before delivering my first homily.” But what stood out to Nantz about Enberg wasn’t the way he treated those at the top of the totem pole -- it was the way he nurtured those at the bottom.

“I saw someone who pulled for everyone on that crew,” Nantz said. “He took great interest in that young broadcaster, was encouraging toward everyone and completely devoid of ego.”

Those at Fox Sports San Diego have similar tales. Color commentator Mark Grant has told Dick “I love you” to his face on multiple occasions. Sideline reporter Kris Budden forgets she’s working with a legend until friends ask her what he’s like in person. The aforementioned producer, Jeff Byle, may have put it best when he said “I don’t think he knows he’s Dick Enberg.”

Still, when popular figures are involved, the inner circle’s point of view often contradicts the public’s.

Enberg, remember, was blasted when he first started with the Padres for showing too much excitement toward the opposing team. An old-school proponent of objectivity, Dick actually considered the complaints to be “compliments,” but that hasn’t quelled some of the online criticism.

You’ll still see an anti-Enberg poll on Facebook or a rant on a Padres blog, but take a lap around Petco Park, and you’ll grow skeptical as to whether those posts represent the majority.

Clearly, they do not reflect the views of Pads fan Jeremy Clark, who said “Love him. I’m crazy about him,” when asked about Enberg.

Clearly, they do not reflect the opinions of Gavin Riehman, who said “I think Dick Enberg is probably the best thing we got going on with the San Diego Padres. Period.”

Clearly, they do not reflect the perspective of Anthony Torregiani, who said he hopes “Dick Enberg calls Padres games till the day he dies.”

No, like about three quarters of the fans polled on the concourse, they want one of broadcasting’s great artists painting on their canvas.

By the way, Enberg has joked that he wants to leave this world seconds after San Diego wins the World Series, falling head first into the table after announcing “Padres 5, Yankees 4.”

It might not be the most realistic aspiration, but as Dick knows, sometimes it’s nice for the mind to get away.


Dick has never had a broadcast partner he liked more than his daughter Jennifer.

In the early 1970s, Enberg was talked into hosting the Rose Parade for a Los Angeles affiliate, which he opted to cover alongside his first wife, Jeri. After he and Jeri split a few months later, Dick decided that, the following year, he’d call the parade with his children, Andrew and Jennifer.

All of 11, Jennifer spent hours writing notes about the floats she and her brother would describe. And despite needing a New Years pep talk from Dad to actually go through with it, she shined on the telecast.

This is one of Dick’s fonder memories of his daughter, and one he clings to these days. Because shortly after her aunt was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, Jennifer discovered that she had it, too.

If you’re keeping track, that’s a brother lost to pancreatic cancer, a son victimized by a stroke, a sister on the brink of death and a daughter fighting the same disease. And yet, here you have a 79-year-old calling 130-or-so regular season games with the zeal of a man half his age.

Grant flat out said that he wouldn’t be able to perform under the same circumstances. Budden echoed her colleague, saying “I don’t know how he does it.”

With Dick, though, it doesn’t seem that any number of clouds can keep him from finding blue sky.

A few months ago, his world riddled with cancer, Enberg went to the hospital for an MRI. Afterward, the doctor sat him down and told him there was a problem.

“Dick,” he said, “you have a bulging disk.”

Enberg celebrated like he’d just won the Super Bowl.

Hearing that was like expecting a life sentence and getting 60 hours of community service. Despite all the heartache surrounding him, Enberg still views every morning as a blessing and every evening as a gift.

Dick, are you happy? he was recently asked.

“Happy as hell,” he said. “I wouldn’t trade me for anyone.”

San Diego shouldn’t want to trade him, either.

Enberg will be back next year for the Padres and there are two ways for fans to view him. They can hold him to his old impossible standard and pout about how he falls short, or they can be like Enberg and focus on what they do have.

The truth is, one of the all-time greats is right here in SD. He’s still smooth, he still weaves a great yarn, and he still owns one of the most melodic voices to ever grace a microphone.

And for those worried that he may be tainting his legacy, Dick has a message: Stop it.

“That’s not something I think about. I’ve always tried to distance myself from people who are full of themselves,” Enberg said. “If they were going to write anything on my tombstone, I just hope it would be something like “He wasn’t the game, but he complemented it.”

How can you not admire that? How can you not extol the way this man has carried on? How can you take Enberg’s spirit, drive and grace amid unremitting tragedy and put it into words?

Perhaps like this.

Oh, my.

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