Operation Takes Laker Voice Hearn Off the Air

The last time Chick Hearn wasn’t behind the microphone at a Laker game, Lyndon Johnson was in the White House, gas cost less than a quarter a gallon and Kobe Bryant was 13 years from being born. Since then, the Lakers have won 2,092 games and eight National Basketball Assn. championships.

But tonight, for the first time in 36 years and 3,338 consecutive games, Hearn won’t be there. He’s been sidelined by open-heart surgery.

However, “Chick wants everyone to know that the surgery is in the refrigerator and he’s doing well,” cardiac surgeon Dr. Michael Soltero said Wednesday night, using one of Hearn’s trademark expressions. “All his vital signs are good. We anticipate a full, uneventful recovery. He’s a strong man with a good will, and we anticipate him being back broadcasting for the Lakers. He could be back in six weeks.”

Hearn, 85, the only play-by-play announcer the Lakers have had in 42 years in Los Angeles, underwent unexpected surgery Wednesday afternoon at Northridge Hospital Medical Center to replace a damaged valve. Soltero pronounced it successful.

Longtime L.A. broadcaster Paul Sunderland will replace Hearn when the Lakers play at Houston tonight and for as long as needed.

“He’s following Sinatra,” NBC broadcaster Marv Albert said of Sunderland’s task.

Laker spokesman John Black said Sunderland “will be keeping the seat warm” for Hearn, who, along with Dodger announcer Vin Scully, has been a comforting and familiar voice for Southern California sports fans for decades.

Scully was saddened to hear that Hearn needed heart surgery.

“He embodies everything you would want in a professional sports announcer,” Scully said.

Hearn had learned earlier this week that he would need the procedure after undergoing tests for chronic fatigue.

He had hoped to postpone the surgery until the end of the season, but doctors were not willing to wait any longer than the day after Christmas.

Before the operation, which lasted about 2 1/2 hours, Hearn had only 20% of normal blood flow when he exerted himself, which Soltero said made it “somewhat urgent” that surgery be performed as soon as possible.

Asked about the rigors of NBA travel, the surgeon said he would put no restrictions on Hearn.

“I won’t hold him back,” Soltero said. “Some people can recover from this in a few weeks. For some people it takes a few months. He’s in great shape for a man his age. His mind is sharp, and his body is strong.

“But there are always potential problems in something like this that we watch out for,” he added.

Scheduled to leave Wednesday morning for Houston and the start of a two-game trip, Hearn told his wife, Marge, that he was feeling extremely fatigued.

“I think you need to have that surgery” she told him.

“You’re right,” he said. “Let’s get it done today.”

Hearn has suffered from aortic stenosis, a condition that affects the aortic valve, through which blood pours as it leaves the heart to circulate throughout the body. In patients with the problem, the valve thickens and fails to open and shut properly. The malfunction leads to poor blood flow and a buildup of pressure in the heart.

Aortic stenosis becomes more common with increasing age.

About 5% of people in their 80s suffer from it, said Dr. Greg Fonarow, a cardiologist at UCLA Medical Center. Although open-heart surgery always carries some risk, “studies have shown that individuals are far better off being operated on than not,” he said, because without the surgery, patients become steadily more ill.

In the operation, surgeons replace the ailing valve. Given the choice of having the valve of a pig or a cow, Hearn chose a cow’s.

For the procedure, surgeons generally open the rib cage. That is why the recovery period is typically about six weeks. Other techniques, called minimally invasive surgery, do not require as extensive a recovery. But the open-chest procedure gives surgeons the best access to the heart.

The major predictors of how a patient will do are how well the heart is functioning before the surgery and whether other arteries are blocked and need to be repaired at the same time as the aortic surgery is performed.

Hearn is in good health and does not have any blockages, according to a team spokesman. That means “he should be expected to have a full recovery and do well,” Fonarow said.

The last time Hearn missed a Laker game was Nov. 20, 1965, when bad weather grounded him after a football game in Fayetteville, Ark.

There have been a few close calls along the way.

In March 1994, he broadcast a game hours after regaining his voice following a bout with laryngitis, and in May 1995 he sat out the second half of a playoff game against the San Antonio Spurs because of laryngitis.

Last Feb. 21 he sat out the second half of a in San Antonio, again because of laryngitis.

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Times staff writers Larry Stewart and Thomas H. Maugh II contributed to this report.