© 2024 KRWG
News that Matters.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Remembering Sports Broadcaster Dick Enberg

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Generations of Americans grew up knowing this voice.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

DICK ENBERG: Third down to Kelly (ph), he throws, Brooks (ph) wide open. Kevin Ross makes the tackle.

MARTIN: Sportscaster Dick Enberg died yesterday at the age of 82 after a career that lasted half a century.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

It goes back to 1965 when Enberg got a chance to work at a Los Angeles TV station. In the decades that followed, Dick Enberg called everything from Wimbledon to the World Series to the NCAA basketball finals to 10 different Super Bowls.

MARTIN: People knew his catchphrases.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ENBERG: That ball is drilled to deep left center field, and Myers will touch 'em all.

MARTIN: He'd say touch 'em all, all the bases. And when something astounding happened on the field...

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ENBERG: There's a throw, and he is out of there. Oh, my.

INSKEEP: Oh, my, indeed. He kept working until last year, and as Dick Enberg stepped aside, he had a chance to address the crowd for his home team, the San Diego Padres.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ENBERG: And I promise I'm going to be alongside you fans on the curb when the San Diego Padres - no, the World Series champion San Diego Padres parade by.

INSKEEP: That's emblematic. He got to spend his life as a reporter but also as a fan.

(SOUNDBITE OF EL TEN ELEVEN'S "SETTLING WITH POWER") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.