On Veterans Day, Friday, Nov. 11 at the Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial, a plaque will be installed honoring Major League Baseball’s Ted Williams, considered the greatest hitter of all time, who also served in the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marines during World War II and the Korean War.
Williams, a star player and pitcher with Herbert Hoover High School in the late 1930s, joined the San Diego Padres, then a Pacific Coast League team in 1936 before moving to the Boston Red Sox, serving two years with their minor league team, then spending 19 years with the MLB franchise, retiring in 1960. Williams interrupted his baseball career during World War II when he joined the Navy Reserves on May 22, 1942 and went on active duty in 1943, when he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps and a Naval Aviator on May 2, 1944.
While in military service, he played on the baseball team in Chapel Hill, N.C. At one point, he was sent back to Boston’s Fenway Park to play on the All Star team managed by Babe Ruth. On Aug. 18, 1945, following the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Lt. Williams was sent to Pearl Harbor. While at Pearl Harbor, he played baseball in the Army League, whose players also included Joe DiMaggio and Stan Musial. The “World Series of Army vs. Navy” drew crowds of up to 40,000 for each game.
Williams returned to active military duty for portions of the 1952 and 1953 seasons to serve as a Marine combat aviator in the Korean War.
He will be commemorated by another great from the sports world – sports caster Dick Enberg, who hung up his microphone after seven years as the sportscaster for the San Diego Padres last month, capping a 61-year broadcasting career.
Enberg started playing baseball while growing up in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. When he was 11, his family moved to Michigan, where his father bought a farm. He got his first sports gig at a Mt. Pleasant, Mich. radio station in 1955, where, as a student at Central Michigan University, he needed money and went to work as a janitor. But when the station manager heard his voice, he quickly hired Enberg on as weekend sports anchor. After securing a doctorate in health sciences, Enberg moved back to Los Angeles to coach baseball and teach at San Fernando State College, now Cal State Northridge. He also began working for several Los Angeles stations, where he became best known for sports casting UCLA basketball and Angels baseball.
In 1975, Enberg joined NBC Sports and for the next 25 years covered virtually all major sports – the NFL including eight Super Bowls, NBA, major league baseball, college baseball and basketball, the U.S Open Golf tournament, Wimbledon and the French Open tennis tournaments, major league boxing, horseracing and the Olympics. While with NBC he was paired with a man he regarded as a “street genius,” former Marquette basketball coach Al McGuire, who died in 2001. Enberg penned a play, “Coach,” in tribute to his late friend in 2005. The play has toured the country with favorable reviews. In the year 2000 he joined CBS Sports, providing another decade of sports coverage, particularly for the NFL, college basketball.
His memoir “Oh My!” is titled after his signature catchphrase that captured the excitement of truly outstanding plays. The Mt. Soledad Memorial Day ceremony includes music by the San Diego Marine Corps Band, MCRD Color Guard and a “fly-by” conducted by the San Diego Performance Team Aircraft.
Old Town Trolley will provide complimentary shuttle service to and from the memorial from nearby Mt. Soledad Presbyterian Church (6551 Soledad Mountain Road) parking lot.
The Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial is one of the most unique veterans memorials in the United States. More than 4,800 individual veteran tributes, embedded on black granite plaques, are mounted onto 11 curved walls and honor United States veterans, living and deceased, from Revolutionary times up to today. The memorial stands high on La Jolla’s Mt. Soledad, offering panoramic views of San Diego, the mountains, the Pacific Ocean and Mexico. The Mt. Soledad Memorial Association owns and operates the memorial and soledadmemorial.com. The association office is at 565 Pearl, Suite 301, La Jolla; the telephone is 858-459-2314. The memorial is open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m