Dick Enberg: Always On The Ball

Dick Enberg couldn’t believe his good fortune. At Harry’s Coffee Shop in La Jolla, just blocks from his home, the longtime broadcaster got an unexpected surprise late last year.
“I was about halfway through my waffle and I said ‘I think I’m being offered a job here,’” Enberg said.
Oh my.
The proposal came from the Padres. They wanted Enberg as their play-by-play announcer. What he initially believed to be a social meeting, arranged by his friend George Mitrovich, between him and Padres President Tom Garfinkel, quickly became all business. Enberg was intrigued. Why wouldn’t he?
Still, there were compromises to be made, details to work out. But Enberg wouldn’t concede one substantial detail.
“My wife (Barbara) has become accustomed to a style of living and I have to respect that,” Enberg said with a laugh.
Though money was a sticking point and Enberg would have to relinquish some of his national broadcast duties, the two parties finalized a deal last December. With it, Enberg gave up calling college basketball for CBS and even more significant, lost his Sunday perch on NFL telecasts, where he was paired with Hall of Famer Dan Fouts. The latter was the toughest concession. Fouts and Enberg were good together. They connected and their strong chemistry in the booth related well with audiences.
“We did our first game and it was in synch,” Enberg said. “It was one of those wonderful things. I could start something and he always knew where I was going and he’d follow up on it. By the end of the year, I would have stacked our work up with any announcing team in the NFL. I think CBS recognized that as well as anyone.”
Fouts gave Enberg all the credit.
“I’ve been fortunate to work with some of the greats in this business, but Dick ranks among the best,” Fouts said. “He’s as pleasant a guy as you could ever work with. It was fantastic.”
Enberg said he told Fouts about the Padres in November, when they had dinner before a Broncos’ game in Denver.
“He said ‘you (SOB),’” Enberg said laughing. “But he was happy for me. He still calls me and razes me about things I say on the air even now. But that was tough (parting ways with Fouts) because things were sailing smoothly in our relationship.”
His relationships with CBS and ESPN remain solid. Enberg worked Wimbledon and will work the U.S. Open and Australian Open. At the time we spoke, he was negotiating for a part-time return to NFL games with CBS after the Padres’ season ends.
Baseball has always figured prominently with Enberg. He played it at Central Michigan University and coached it at Cal State Northridge, where he also worked as a professor. Cal State Northridge was what brought the Michigan native west. After a gig he desperately sought as play-by-play announcer for the University of Indiana basketball broadcasts fell through, Enberg accepted the Northridge position in the early ‘60s. He also kept his broadcasting pipes sharp with a variety of side jobs in the L.A. area.
Eventually, Enberg’s broadcasting work caught the eye of Gene Autry, who hired him as a pre-game host for Angels’ telecasts on KTLA in 1965. In 1969, Enberg became the Angels’ play-by-play announcer for radio and TV. A year later, he was paired with the late Hall of Famer and legendary Don Drysdale. They were a popular duo, with Drysdale frequently needling Enberg by calling him “Professor.”
“Dick Enberg and Don Drysdale were the best broadcasting team of all time, any sport,” Reds’ broadcaster Marty Brennaman, an award-winning sportscaster himself, told MLB.com recently.
Enberg also worked as the UCLA basketball and the Los Angeles Rams’ lead announcer.
Still, as much as college basketball, the NFL and tennis were the heart of his broadcasting career, baseball remained his passion. Enberg is scheduled to work 110 to 120 games this season on Channel 4 with Hall of Famer Gwynn and former Padres pitcher Mark Grant as analysts. Like them, Enberg brings considerable insight to the game.
Winner of 14 Emmys, nine Sportscaster of the Year awards and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Enberg is the only person to win an Emmy as a sportscaster, writer and producer. In more than 45 years in the business, he has covered Super Bowls, the Olympics, the Masters, Rose and Orange bowls and 14 Final Fours.
Enberg, 75, also is an accomplished writer, having penned a one-man play years ago called “McGuire.” It is Enberg’s tribute to the late coach and broadcast partner Al McGuire, his dear friend and former colleague. The play was staged across the country, including a run at the North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach.
But he’s giddy sharing the spotlight with the Padres.
“I knew this was the right thing to do,” he said of joining the club. “I like the new ownership and the spirit of the club. The joke around the ballpark is we’re shopping at Wal-Mart while the Yankees shop at Neiman-Marcus. But that’s OK. Here we are six or seven weeks into the season and the Padres are in first place. That’s a wonderful bonus.”
Oh my, indeed.

Image courtesy of the North County Times