Hank Goldberg, a prickly, bombastic and witty sports activities discuss radio and tv persona in Miami who grew to become nationally recognized for handicapping horse races and N.F.L. video games on ESPN, died on Monday, his 82nd birthday, at his dwelling in Las Vegas.
The trigger was problems of power kidney illness, which required dialysis therapies and induced the amputation of his proper leg under the knee final yr, mentioned his sister and solely speedy survivor, Liz Goldberg.
For greater than 50 years, sports activities and playing had been inseparable spheres to Mr. Goldberg. A habitué of racetracks and on line casino sports activities books, he ghostwrote for the celebrated oddsmaker Jimmy Snyder, generally known as Jimmy the Greek, within the Seventies. He was an analyst for Miami Dolphins soccer video games on radio, hosted sports activities discuss reveals on two Miami radio stations, and reported and anchored sports activities for a neighborhood TV station.
As a serious sports activities determine in Miami, he counted the Dolphins’ former head coach Don Shula and former quarterback Bob Griese among the many buddies with whom he wager on horses at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Seashore, Fla. He imbibed the privileges of superstar, together with being handled like a king on the well-known Joe’s Stone Crab restaurant in Miami Seashore.
“I personal this city,” he mentioned whereas driving round Miami, captured in archival video that ESPN utilized in a tribute to him after his loss of life.
Beginning within the early Nineties, Mr. Goldberg discovered a broader viewers as ESPN’s betting maven, shelling out his takes on favorites, underdogs and level spreads earlier than Sunday’s N.F.L. video games and the chances earlier than Triple Crown and Breeders’ Cup horse races.
ESPN reported that Mr. Goldberg had a .500 report or higher in 15 of the 17 seasons that he handicapped N.F.L. video games for the community.
Mr. Goldberg’s outsize persona emerged most absolutely on radio, the place he began in 1978, at WIOD-AM in Miami. He would argue with callers and typically hold up on them in disgust.
Joe Zagacki, considered one of Mr. Goldberg’s producers at WIOD, recalled in a telephone interview an occasion when Mr. Goldberg “had considered one of his volcanic explosions” with a caller. “And I mentioned: ‘My goodness, you simply hammered that man. You’re ‘Hammering Hank Goldberg.’”
The nickname caught. After he began at ESPN in 1993, Mr. Goldberg started banging a mallet on a studio desk to specific his disagreement with a colleague or his disdain for a sports activities determine. He referred to himself as “Hammer.”
He initially appeared on ESPN2, which was new on the time and trying to achieve a youthful viewers with anchors who wearing a cool, informal type. Not Mr. Goldberg, who was positively not cool however introduced a unusual, brassy persona to the community — though it was extra congenial than his in-your-face radio demeanor.
“Hank may match into any style,” mentioned Suzy Kolber, a longtime anchor and reporter at ESPN who labored with Mr. Goldberg on ESPN2 and in Florida. She added, “Plug him into the horse-racing crowd or the ESPN2 bunch, he match proper in.”
Henry Edward Goldberg was born on July 4, 1940, in Newark and grew up in South Orange, N.J. His father, Hy, was a sports activities columnist for The Newark Night Information; his mom, Sadie (Abben) Goldberg, was a homemaker. Hy Goldberg regularly took his spouse and kids to the Yankees’ spring coaching in Florida, the place younger Hank grew to become pleasant with Joe DiMaggio, who known as him Henry, Liz Goldberg mentioned in an interview.
Hank was 17 when he went to the racetrack for the primary time — Monmouth Park in New Jersey — profitable $450 when he hit the each day double. When he introduced his winnings dwelling, he recalled, his father informed him, “Oh, you’re in hassle now.”
“He knew I’d by no means recover from my love for the races,” Mr. Goldberg mentioned of his father in an interview this yr with The Las Vegas Evaluation-Journal.
After attending Duke College, he transferred to New York College and graduated in 1962. He began his profession as an account government for the promoting company Benton & Bowles. He moved to Miami in 1966 and continued to work in promoting.
He additionally discovered work within the broadcast sales space of the Orange Bowl in Miami for community telecasts of Dolphins’ video games, employed as a spotter — serving to the play-by-play announcer by figuring out which participant caught a move or made a deal with. There he befriended the NBC play-by-play announcer Curt Gowdy and developed relationships within the native sports activities world.
These contacts led him to satisfy Mike Pearl, who wrote and produced Jimmy Snyder’s radio present and ghostwrote his syndicated newspaper column. Mr. Pearl launched Mr. Goldberg to Mr. Snyder, Liz Goldberg mentioned, and when Mr. Pearl left for CBS Sports activities, the place he would produce “The NFL At this time,” Mr. Snyder requested Mr. Goldberg to take over the column.
WIOD employed him to host a sports activities discuss present and supply commentary on Dolphins video games in 1978, changing Larry King. He added work as a sports activities reporter and anchor on the Miami TV station WTVJ in 1983. He additionally continued to work in promoting; from 1977 to 1992, he was an government with the Beber Silverstein company.
Regardless of his success on WIOD, Mr. Goldberg was suspended a number of instances through the years and fired in September 1992, following a dispute with this system director over the content material of his present.
“The largest radio identify in South Florida sports activities is a loudmouth who likes to drop names — typically like grime — and who upon saying the Dolphins’ improbable end Monday Evening didn’t comprehend it was his personal, too,” wrote Dave Hyde, a columnist for The Solar-Sentinel, a South Florida newspaper. Mr. Hyde advised that every one the station ought to have achieved was “wash out his mouth.”
Mr. Goldberg was rapidly employed by one other native station, WQAM-AM, the place he was once more profitable. However he left in 2007, believing he had been lowballed in contract negotiations.
By then he was effectively into his two-decade run at ESPN. It ended round 2014, however he returned for the “Each day Wager” present in 2019, a yr after he moved to Las Vegas. He was additionally a prognosticator for CBS Sports activities HQ, a sports activities streaming service, and Sportsline, a web based CBS sports activities community.
Requested what motivated her brother, Ms. Goldberg gave a easy reply: “He beloved the microphone.”
