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Del Mar, L.A. Dodgers, L.A. Lakers, L.A. Kings, USC

Let the record show a truly golden era ended Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024, at 6:40 p.m. PDT.

“We thank all fans for their attendance this afternoon and for their attendance throughout the now concluded Del Mar meet.”

The words might not be memorable, but they were the last uttered by Trevor Denman into his microphone at Del Mar. If he knew he was signing off for the last time that late summer day, he did not say so publicly. Not until Thursday.

Denman announces his retirement as voice of Del Mar.

“This is one of the hardest decisions I ever have made, but my soul is telling me that now is the time.”

Those 22 words released by Del Mar were truly Trevor. Unassuming. To the point. And with perfect pitch.

That a man who retained the accent of his native South Africa could be embraced for more than four decades in Southern California was, in his word, his syllables, un-be-liev-a-ble. At least it seemed that way all those years ago.

I remember being immersed in the Trevor zeitgeist when I moved from Northern California to take a job at the Pasadena Star-News in 1989. Back then the newspaper had a staff devoted only to racing. Hell, back then, it had a staff.

Denman already was well-established at Santa Anita and Del Mar. A year after I arrived, Hollywood Park decided to try out another announcer with an international accent.

“If Trevor can do it, so can he,” one of our writers said.

The he was Australia-bred Michael Wrona, who continues to call the races at Los Alamitos. The writer was Paul Allen, who announces now at Canterbury Park and has a side hustle with some football team in Minneapolis.

By taking the craft of describing races to a whole new level in our corner of the world, Denman made us Americans want to eavesdrop on worldwide calls. Doing so put him in a sphere that never will be matched in Southern California. He was more than an iconic soundtrack for Thoroughbreds. He was part of the greatest assemblage of sports announcers in one region ever.

Vin Scully with the Dodgers. Chick Hearn with the Lakers. Bob Miller with the Kings. Tom Kelly with USC. Widen the footprint to blur the boundaries of time, and names like Dick Enberg, Bob Kelley, Bob Starr, Jiggs McDonald and Bill King fit right in.

All those names could have been the first choice in central casting for the sports they covered. Their talent and geographical correctness made them so. Every one of those names shows up on IMDb.

So, too, did Denman, truly the last of that breed. It was a class that informed us and entertained us and kept us company at a time when the media truly was mass. It was a time when events and games and races were destination viewing and listening on contraptions we used to call TV and radio.

For a while Denman was the only voice of racing in Southern California, following in and then blowing past the footsteps of Joe Hernández and Harry Henson. Not long before him, Enberg seemed like the only voice for all seasons of sport, what with his assignments with the Angels and the Rams and the UCLA basketball dynasty.

Now everything is splintered. We can consume sports events live through competing platforms. We can see replays from different angles at different times using different tools. The speaker icon may allow us to hear the announcer, or maybe we put the red slash through it to focus in silence.

And because we have random access to everything without having to wait for someone to spoon-feed it to us through transmitter towers at a time we are told we must be plugged in, we have become critical consumers. We don’t need grandpa’s old stories about Kirk Gibson and Magic Johnson and Sunday Silence and how they were described by the great Scully and Hearn and Denman. We can see and hear for ourselves.

Maybe lines like “a very pleasant good evening to you” and “this one’s in the refrigerator” and “they’ll have to sprout wings” don’t resonate as much as they once did. We don’t sit around as one big community so much anymore watching the one ballgame or race card that we were allowed to see or hear on any given day.

It also might be as simple as the fact that Trevor Denman and his contemporaries were lightning in a bottle. A very special bottle that Southern California was spoiled to taste for about a generation.

In the year 2025, which sounds almost like the start of a really bad song at the junction of Exordium and Terminus, we do not agree on much of anything. You name it. Politics. Religion. Joe Buck. Everything fosters disagreement. At a time when we consume individually rather than communally, that is all fine and good.

Not so long ago I was at dinner with a race caller, and the grading of peers came up. Not by either of us so much as by the public.

“I am not walking into that Vietnam,” I said. “That is like touching the third rail of horse racing.” There is nothing like invoking old war and train idioms in the 21st century to illustrate a no-win situation. To each his, her or their own when it comes to announcers.

I wonder what might happen if a wordsmith from South Africa who has a keen racing eye and intellect were to come into the game for the first time today. He talks too much. He talks too little. He gets too excited. He doesn’t get excited enough. The accent. The catchphrases. Trevor Denman 2.0 would, to use a Scully phrase, suffer the slings and arrows.

Fear not. He may be copied, but he will not be duplicated. There never will be a Trevor Denman 2.0.

As Vin Scully also said, “Don’t be sad that it’s over. Smile because it happened.”

Ron Flatter’s column appears Friday mornings at Horse Racing Nation. Comments below and at RonFlatterRacingPod@gmail.com are welcomed, encouraged and may be used in the feedback segment of the Ron Flatter Racing Pod, which also is posted every Friday.