Rest In Peace, Chick

[stephen beauregard <sb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://www2.bostonherald.com/sport/sports_columnists/baker08062002.htm

Broadcasters speechless as greats fall

by Jim Baker
Tuesday, August 6, 2002









Word from the left coast that legendary Lakers voice Chick Hearn died
yesterday and Pat Summerall, now back home near Dallas, had been
hospitalized with internal bleeding has left the sports broadcast
community, already saddened by the recent death of ex-Red Sox voice Ned
Martin, reeling again.

Hearn had been to the Lakers what the late Johnny Most was to the
Celtics - not only a distinctive and special play-caller but the team's
very identity to generations. Hearn, who passed away last night after a
Friday fall at home caused brain hemorrhaging, is the only regular
play-caller the Lakers have had since the team moved from Minneapolis to
Los Angeles for the 1960-61 season.

The Hall of Famer already made one remarkable comeback to call the
Lakers' latest championship run. He'd worked 3,338 consecutive games -
dating to Nov. 20, 1965 - when December heart-valve replacement surgery
ended that streak and hip surgery followed.

Hearn was first to use terms now routine in hoop play-by-play - ``slam
dunk,'' ``air ball,'' ``finger roll,'' ``garbage time'' and more. He
could be blunt when the Lakers disappointed, but when a win was assured,
the game was ``in the refrigerator.'' And while Most was noted for
describing dribblers ``fiddling and diddling,'' Hearn had them
``yo-yoing the ball up and down.''

He's a classic example of how great radio used to be.