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Great tribute, BD. I started listening to Chick during the Lakers' record-breaking, championship season of '72 (when his color man was Lynn Shackleford), and I haven't missed many of his broadcasts since. Never met the man, but felt I did. He'll be greatly missed by many. May he rest in peace, and may God bless his wife Marge and the rest of his family.

Before recently, Chick had an unbelievable streak of missing only 1 day of work in 36 years. But he had another streak that not many knew about. As far as I know, when he put a game "in the refrigerator," it always stayed there......except once. (It happened so long ago that I forgot the game). Ever since then, whenever he put a game in the fridge and the Lakers were on the losing end, I rooted like mad for a comeback --- not just because I wanted to see the Lakers win, but I wanted Chick to be wrong....just one more time. And I was always disappointed.

I guess asking Chick Hearn to be wrong about when the game was in the fridge was something along the line of asking Sandy Koufax to shrivel when he had to beat the one team his team most needed to beat to stay in the race and/or nail the flag.

It's enough to cause you to wish you were God for a moment - He has Chick Hearn...Jack Buck...Bob Prince...Red Barber...Russ Hodges...Mel Allen...Harry Caray...all those voices to bring Him the games. Lucky Him.

One of my favorite Chick calls was in this year's Western Conference finals, game 5. With time running out and the Lakers trailing, Chick was going over the Lakers' options. The last option he mentioned was, "Watch out for my man Horry!" After two missed shots, the ball was swatted toward center court by Divac. Horry picked it up and.....you know the rest.