SAN DIEGO -- Dick Enberg spent many Midwestern nights and Saturday afternoons listening to baseball and football broadcasts on the radio. As soon as he could, he got behind a microphone himself.It was a vastly different era, one that helped shape a distinguished broadcasting career that spanned six decades and included covering pretty much every big sporting event there is.Enberg, 81, is down to his final few innings in the booth. Its up to the San Diego Padres to do something this weekend that will evoke an Oh my! or Touch `em all! call from Enberg, who will retire after Sundays game at Arizona.Enberg will step away from the microphone for good on the same day Vin Scully ends his remarkable 67-year career calling Dodgers games.Is it the end of an era?Thats an era only in that we all got old and we grew up in a different system, Enberg said. I go back to Harry Wismer calling football and Bill Stern. They fabricated sometimes, but it didnt matter to me. I was listening as a kid and imagining in my own memory bank of what might be happening on the field, and then Red Barber and Mel Allen in baseballVin and I talked about that a couple of weeks ago, how fortunate we were to grow up in the era of black and white radio, Enberg said The television picture now is the dominant part of any broadcast. Its like giving away the punchline to the joke. Its already there. Whereas on radio you can have 10 different people in a room listening to the same radio play-by-play broadcast and theyre seeing 10 different games the way their mind wanted to interpret it and receive it. We grew up in that era, not confused by television. Thats whats really different between growing up in radio where you paint the entire canvas and now where television is the dominant aspect of any game.Enbergs first radio job was actually as a radio station custodian in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, 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.He ended up in TV, doing Super Bowls, Olympics, Final Fours, Wimbledon, the U.S. Open and many other big assignments.Enberg said hes not sad as his career ends. Hes working on another book, hopes to get back into teaching and is building a vacation home in McCall, Idaho.At the time youre so involved in your work and youve done a great game, maybe a historically important game, but the next week you have another game, he said. That goes by. You almost push that aside because youve got another game next week. Its now being able to step back and realize how fortunate Ive been to be in the right place in the right time.During his nine years broadcasting UCLA basketball, the Bruins won eight NCAA titles. Enberg broadcast nine no-hitters, including two by San Franciscos Tim Lincecum against the Padres in 2013 and 2014.He said the most historically important event he covered was The Game of the Century, Houstons victory against UCLA in 1968 that snapped the Bruins 47-game winning streak.That was the platform from which college basketballs 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 Wooden hated when I said this, but UCLA had to lose. That became a monumental event.Enberg gave a shout-out to some of his many former broadcast partners, including Merlin Olsen, Al McGuire, Billy Packer, Don Drysdale and Tony Gwynn. He even worked a few games with Wooden, whom he called The greatest man Ive ever known other than my own father.When you add up just those alone, you think about a kid from a farm who dreamed about wanting to be a good athlete and trying hard but falling far short, said Enberg, who has called Padres games for seven seasons and went into the broadcasters wing of the Hall of Fame in 2015. But to be with the greatest in the history of the game and sit next to them and pick their brain every day, and they pay me for it and they put me in a good seat, too, behind home plate or midcourt or at the 50-yard line. Its an incredibly privileged life and part of it is because of those who you were able to share a broadcast with.---Follow Bernie Wilson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/berniewilson Tramon Williams Super Bowl Jersey . -- Aldon Smith believes he is on the path to being sober for good. Davante Adams Super Bowl Jersey . Bradwell was scheduled to become a free agent Tuesday. Born and raised in Toronto, Bradwell is entering his sixth CFL season, with all six played for his hometown Argonauts. http://www.packersonlineteamstore.com/dean-lowry-youth-jersey.html .Y. - Rob Manfred was promoted Monday to Major League Baseballs chief operating officer, which may make him a candidate to succeed Bud Selig as commissioner. Randall Cobb Super Bowl Jersey . The 29-year-old from Port Colborne, Ont., has nothing but good things to say about former U.S. marine Liz (Girlrilla) Carmouche ahead of their co-main event Wednesday on the UFCs "Fight for the Troops" televised card in Fort Campbell, Ky. David Bakhtiari Super Bowl Jersey . -- Aldon Smith believes he is on the path to being sober for good. The MLB All-Star break has arrived, and an array of the games finest have gathered in San Diego for Tuesday nights All-Star Game. It may have evolved into more of an exhibition over the past couple decades, but the game retains a great deal of personal, albeit mostly sentimental, meaning to me. The showdowns of the early 1970s continue to live in my minds eye, as the contemporary matchups will for a new generation of fans.Each game has its own unique cast of characters. Some players are perennials, while others are having their singular moment in the sun thanks to exuberant fan voting, an aberrant first half, the need for a club to have a representative, an injury -- you name it.As we did last season, lets rank every All-Star, including replacements and the players they replaced, by the relative likelihood that they would have made it to an All Star Game based on their respective amateur and minor league pedigrees. Throughout, I will reference my annual minor league position player and starting pitcher rankings, based on performance and age relative to league/level. Ive been preparing these lists since 1993; they basically serve as master follow lists, with the order tweaked afterward based on traditional scouting methods.The No-BrainersTen of the 17 no-brainers from last years list are bback -- repeats are noted in parentheses -- with 12 new players joining them.dddddddddddd1. Bryce Harper (repeat): Last years No. 1 repeats in that spot. Not much to be said here: When even casual baseball fans know your name not long after your first day of high school, youre the bluest of blue-chippers. Harper blasted through the minors, ranking No. 3 on my minor league position-player list after being drafted first overall at age 17, the definition of a slam dunk All-Star.2. Stephen Strasburg: The Nats sure did pick the right years to get the first overall pick. Strasburg, the first overall selection in 2009, raced through the minors as well, ranking fourth on my minor league pitching rankings in 2010. Harper rates a slight edge, as Strasburg didnt break into the national consciousness until the summer after his freshman college season.3. Kris Bryant (repeat): The second player taken in 2013, Bryant rampaged through the minors, ranking second on my minor league position-player list the following season. Highly regarded but unsignable out of high school, he put on quite a show at a Mariners pre-draft workout in 2010 when I was a member of their front office. ' ' '
