Legendary sports broadcaster Dick Enberg dies at age 82

Legendary sports broadcaster Dick Enberg has died at age 82, passing away at his home in La Jolla, Calif. per multiple reports.

Enberg left an indelible mark in a variety of sports in his six decades behind a microphone, including the NFL, NBA, college basketball, golf, and tennis. But he was most known for his work in baseball, and he was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2015.

His signature phrase was “Oh, my,” a term he got from his mother.

“‘Oh, my’ came from my mother who used to say it often, usually in dismay. It’s something that I had done or encountered. A nice midwestern term. It’s a term of acknowledgment,” Enberg explained at baseball’s winter meetings in December 2015. “You go to the marketplace in the Midwest and folks will be talking, did you hear about the Jones boy? Oh, my; is that right? And how about the game on Saturday? Oh, my. So it’s been a good friend of mine that I’ve used when I can’t think of anything else to say.”

NBC paid tribute to Enberg during Saturday night’s broadcast between the Vikings and Packers:

A Michigan native, Enberg went to school at Central Michigan University. In his over 50 years in broadcasting, he called games for the Angels, Rams, and UCLA, in addition to working 25 years as a national announcer for NBC and another 11 for CBS, with duties between the two networks that included 28 Wimbledons, 23 French Opens, 15 NCAA basketball championships, 12 US Open tennis championships, 10 Super Bowls, nine Rose Bowls, four Olympic Games, and the 1982 World Series.

Enberg returned to his San Diego home to call Padres games for seven years before retiring from full-time announcing in 2016. In 2017 he did a weekend series for the Tigers, getting a chance to call games of his boyhood team.

“We are immensely saddened by the sudden and unexpected passing of legendary broadcaster Dick Enberg,” Padres chairman Ron Fowler said in a statement. “Dick was an institution in the industry for 60 years, and we were lucky enough to have his iconic voice behind the microphone for Padres games for nearly a decade. On behalf of our entire organization, we send our deepest condolences to his wife, Barbara, and the entire Enberg family.”

In addition to his wife, Enberg is survived by his six children.