CHICK HEARN IS DEAD. GOD BLESS THE BEST BASKETBALL ANNOUNCER THAT EVER LIVED.
Chick went out on top, calling the Laker's three-peat last season. God bless him and his family.
Oh how sad. God bless him and his family.
Yep. Chick went into the popcorn machine and got salt and butter all over him.
I first met Chick and Marge in Maui many years ago during Laker summer camp. I have never met a more genuine or nicer couple in all my life. When all of you hit your knees tonight please say a prayer for Chick and his family.
This is not the time for debate. We are all in mourning here. So please show a little class.
From ESPN:
Lakers broadcaster Chick Hearn dies at 85
LOS ANGELES -- Play-by-play announcer Chick Hearn, who made phrases like "slam dunk'' and "air ball'' common basketball expressions during his 42-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers, died Monday. He was 85.
"Chick Hearn passed away at 6:30 this evening,'' Los Angeles Lakers spokesman Bob Steiner told a hushed news conference outside Northridge Medical Center Hospital, where Hearn was taken Friday night after suffering a fall.
Hearn fell Friday in the back yard of the Encino home he shared with wife, Marge. The two would have celebrated their 64th wedding anniversary on Aug. 13.
Surgeons operated twice Saturday to relieve swelling in his brain, but he never regained consciousness.
Whether Hearn was the most famous Laker of them all can be debated, but his career with the team was far longer than such standouts as Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jamaal Wilkes, James Worthy and Michael Cooper.
And he was calling games long before current stars Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant were born.
Hearn called a record 3,338 consecutive Lakers games starting in 1965 before missing one because he had to have an operation in December 2001 for a blocked aortic valve.
While recovering, he fell and broke his hip.
Hearn returned to work April 9 and broadcast the Lakers' playoff run to their third consecutive NBA championship.
He called his first Lakers game in March 1961. His last game was June 12 when the Lakers beat the New Jersey Nets 113-107 in East Rutherford, N.J., to complete a sweep of the NBA Finals and earn their ninth title since moving from Minneapolis in 1960.
During the finals, he told The Associated Press he was getting stronger every day and planned to work at least one more season. And he said he believed his call of the Lakers' Game 7 victory over Sacramento in the Western Conference finals might have been as good as any in his career.
As recently as last week, he drove to Las Vegas with his wife to speak at a fantasy basketball camp.
Born Francis Dayle Hearn on Nov. 27, 1916, in Aurora, Ill., Hearn peppered his rapid-fire delivery with terms like ''no harm, no foul,'' ''the mustard's off the hot dog,'' ''ticky-tack foul,'' and ''faked him into the popcorn machine.''
Whenever he believed a Lakers victory was clinched, Hearn would say: ''You can put this one in the refrigerator. The door's closed, the light's out, the eggs are cooling, the butter's getting hard and the Jell-O is jiggling.''
Hearn's unique ''words-eye view'' provided the soundtrack for nine NBA championships -- one with West and Chamberlain, five with Johnson and Abdul-Jabbar, and the last three with O'Neal and Bryant.
When it came time to give out rings, raise championship banners, emcee victory parades or retire uniform numbers, Hearn was the master of ceremonies.
Hearn also broadcast other historic Lakers accomplishments, such as the night in Las Vegas when Abdul-Jabbar broke Chamberlain's NBA career scoring record and when Johnson broke Oscar Robertson's career assist record.
Hearn also was a comforting voice to fans in difficult basketball times -- helping fans cope with Johnson's HIV announcement in 1991 and Loyola Marymount star Hank Gathers' death in 1990.
When the Lakers moved from the Forum in nearby Inglewood to the downtown Staples Center in 1999, the press room was named in Hearn's honor.
He has been immortalized with a star on Hollywood's ''Walk of Fame,'' and appeared as himself numerous times on television shows -- including the TV movie ''The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island.''
And he hosted the TV show ''Bowling for Dollars.''
Hearn missed just two games before his unprecedented streak -- one because bad weather kept him grounded and one because he had another broadcast assignment.
The first game of the streak was Nov. 21, 1965, at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. Johnson was in grade school and Abdul-Jabbar was still Lew Alcindor and a teenager.
Throughout his career, Hearn refused to call in sick. He came to work when he wasn't feeling well -- including a couple of times with laryngitis that forced him to sit out the second half.
A member of the Basketball Hall of Fame and the American Sportscasters Hall of Fame, Hearn received a standing ovation on his 85th birthday in November during a Lakers-Milwaukee Bucks game.
God bless him. He lived a long and full life. He will be missed.
Basketball fans know (if they do not, pity them) what a gift Chick Hearn was to their game. But what made him truly great was that, if you were radio station surfing and not a basketball fan, you still couldn't pass by when Chick Hearn was on the air. As Vin Scully does with baseball games, Chick Hearn simply made it impossible for you to dislike basketball while he was on the air. That, ladies and gentlemen, is an artist. Praised be Thou, O Lord our God, for not making this good man suffer an unconscionable length of time.
Thanks for making me listen, too, Mr. Hearn. You made this year's NBA playoffs a treasure for me, though basketball is not my primary game interest. And I will miss you. For a life lived well, and often in spite of too many senseless sorrows (I understand one or two of his own children died some years earlier), you go to your reward a winner - and for such a winner, there is but one valedictory...your own, pronounced on so many victories over so many years:
Well, Chick's game is in the refrigerator. The door's closed, the light's out, the eggs are cooling, the butter's getting hard, and the Jell-Ooooooooooooo's jiggling.
And something unique has gone from our world...
I agree that Jack Buck and Hank Stram were the best ever NFL commentators. MNF with Jack and Hank....it was better than TV!
