Broadcaster Nadel throws Birthday Benefit

DALLAS -- Eric Nadel’s Ninth Annual Birthday Benefit concert and auction was supposed to be held in May 2020. As COVID-19 shut down MLB and major cities across the country, the event was postponed to August, then to December, then May 2021.

Nadel -- a Ford C. Frick Award winner who has been the main voice of the Rangers’ radio broadcasts for 26 of his 43 years with the club -- was finally able to hold the event on Thursday at the Kessler Theater in Dallas’ Oak Cliff neighborhood, featuring a sold-out show and over $50,000 raised for the Grant Halliburton Foundation for youth mental health and suicide awareness. Nadel said the magnitude of this year’s event is “beyond his wildest dreams.”

The Rangers and the Texas Rangers Baseball Foundation were among the many all-star sponsors of Nadel’s Birthday Benefit, which sold out in less than a day. Though Nadel’s actual birthday is on May 16, he decided to push it back one more month, hoping for an increase in vaccinations across the state and country by the time of the event.

And he was right. The Kessler was packed with sponsors, friends of Nadel’s and and others hoping to support the cause. Auctions and raffles included everything from dinner with Rangers manager Chris Woodward and general manager Chris Young to all-expenses-paid vacations to Cuba and Lake Tahoe, Calif.

The two musical acts -- Daphne Willis and Bastards of Soul -- played their first concerts since the pandemic broke out in March 2020. Willis, who was set to go on tour back in 2020, has performed at seven of Nadel’s nine Birthday Benefits so far, while the up-and-coming DFW-based group Bastards of Soul made its first appearance as the headliner of Thursday’s show.

Nadel has been a spokesperson and champion for mental health causes in Texas for years. This year’s beneficiary, the Grant Halliburton Foundation, is a nonprofit organization that provides mental health services and education for North Texas schools, from elementary to colleges.

The foundation was started 15 years ago in memory of Grant Halliburton, who struggled with depression and bipolar disorder before taking his own life at 19 years old. According to the Grant Halliburton Foundation, suicide is the second leading cause of death for 10- to 24-year-olds in America.

Nadel spoke at the event about the importance of mental health, especially amid the pandemic that affected so many lives throughout the last year and a half. He said he hopes that the experiences within the last year will emphasize the need for mental health resources, something that the Grant Halliburton Foundation has been championing since its inception.

Grant Halliburton Foundation's president Kevin Hall said that Nadel has been an integral part of mental health causes in North Texas and thanked him for his continued contributions to the cause. Hall said he was initially shocked by the number of sponsors Nadel had at the very beginning of planning for this year’s Birthday Benefit.

“As a nonprofit, any nonprofit, it is an absolute dream to find a high profile champion from the community who will get behind your cause and will put their heart and soul into the work,” Hall said of Nadel. “We got one. His name is Eric Nadel. This guy deserves a standing ovation. You cannot believe the amount of enthusiasm and passion that he puts into this for us. He exceeded our expectations a thousand times over.”