Longtime broadcaster Enberg found dead in S.D.
Dick Enberg, the longtime sportscaster who got his big break with UCLA basketball and called Super Bowls, Olympics, Final Fours and Angels and Padres games, died Thursday. He was 82. Engberg’s daughter, Nicole, confirmed the death to the Associated Press. She said the family became concerned when he didn’t arrive on his flight to Boston on Thursday, and that he was found dead at his home in La Jolla, a San Diego neighborhood, with his bags packed.
The family said it believes he had a heart attack, but was awaiting official word.
Enberg retired in October 2016 after a 60-year career — and countless calls of “Oh my!” in describing a play that nearly defied description. He also was well-known for his baseball catchphrase of “Touch ’em all” for home runs.
Enberg’s first radio job was actually as a radio-station custodian in Mount Pleasant, Mich., when he was a junior at Central Michigan. He made $1 an hour. The owner also gave him weekend sports and disc jockey gigs, also at $1 an hour. From there, he began doing high school and college football games.
During his nine years broadcasting UCLA basketball, the Bruins won eight NCAA titles. Enberg broadcast nine nohitters, including two by the Giants’ 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 college basketball victory over UCLA in 1968 that snapped the Bruins’ winning streak at 47 games.
“That was the platform from which college basketball’s popularity was sent into the stratosphere,” Enberg said. “The ’79 game, the Magic-Bird game, everyone wants to credit that as the greatest game of all time. That was just the booster rocket that sent it even higher . ... UCLA, unbeaten; Houston, unbeaten. And then the thing that had to happen, and Coach ( John) Wooden hated when I said this, but UCLA had to lose. That became a monumental event.”
Enberg’s many former broadcast partners included Merlin Olsen, Al McGuire, Billy Packer, Don Drysdale and Tony Gwynn. Enberg worked a few games with Wooden, whom Enberg called “the greatest man I’ve ever known other than my own father.” Enberg called Padres games for seven seasons and won the Baseball Hall of Fame’s Ford C. Frick Award in 2015.
ELSEWHERE Hall of Fame horse trainer Jolley dies
LeRoy Jolley, a Hall of Fame trainer who twice won the Kentucky Derby and was involved in one of thoroughbred racing’s most famous match races that ended in tragedy, has died. He was 79.
Jolley, who died Monday, won the 1975 Kentucky Derby with Foolish Pleasure. In 1980, Jolley won the Derby with Genuine Risk.
On July 6, 1975, a highly anticipated match race was run between Foolish Pleasure and unbeaten filly Ruffian at Belmont Park.
While on the lead, Ruffian broke down, snapping both sesamoid bones in her right front leg. She still tried to run and finish the race, which Foolish Pleasure won unchallenged. Ruffian underwent surgery and when the anesthesia wore off, she thrashed about wildly on the floor as if still running in the race. She had to be euthanized. Baseball: Bob Bowman, a powerful Major League Baseball executive credited with generating extraordinary revenue for the league, was forced out by baseball’s commissioner because of a pattern of inappropriate misconduct going back at least 10 years, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Accusations against Bowman included shoving a team executive, hiring escorts to attend an office party, berating employees and having relationships with subordinates. Baseball officials — including former commissioner Bud Selig — were aware of complaints about Bowman but did not discipline him.
MLB announced last month that Bowman would depart at the end of the year when his contract expired. Neither the league nor Bowman explained why he was leaving. The final straw for the current commissioner, Rob Manfred, came in October, when Bowman verbally abused a co-worker.
The Arizona Diamondbacks agreed to a two-year, $6 million deal with reliever Yoshihisa Hirano, the Arizona Republic reported. Hirano, 34, had 143 saves from 2013 through ’17 while pitching for the Orix Buffaloes in Japan.
The Texas Rangers signed right-handed pitchers Shawn Tolleson and Paolo Espino to minor-league contracts with invitations to spring training.