No Words Can Fill Void Left by Absence of Hearn

So where were you on the night of Nov. 20, 1965, the last time the Lakers had to go it so alone, without so much as a single word’s eye view?

“Nobody can remember,” KCAL (Channel 9) studio host Alan Massengale said Thursday shortly before 6 p.m., with the Lakers in Houston and Chick Hearn in a Northridge hospital bed, separated for the first time in 3,339 games.

“What’s it going to sound like?” Massengale wondered, reading the minds of thousands of Southern California basketball fans suddenly tossed into the popcorn machine, hung out to dry, bracing for nervous time.

“What’s it going to be like?”

Sitting next to Massengale, James Worthy was discombobulated by the very thought.

“The eggs won’t be jiggling ... won’t be quite as ... jiggly,” he stammered, temporarily losing himself inside Chick’s legendary refrigerator.

Frankly, it wasn’t a very good night for cooling anything, not when the most valuable Laker of them all underwent open heart surgery barely 24 hours earlier. Not when the 85-year-old with the stubbornness of a mule and the stamina of a racehorse is still getting introduced to his new heart valve, constructed from the tissue of a cow.

Everybody was a little anxious, a little jumpy, including the Lakers, who struggled to defeat a Rocket team that had lost its previous 14 games and was playing without injured starters Steve Francis, Maurice Taylor and Glen Rice.

But then, the Lakers were also playing short-handed. Not to put any pressure on Paul Sunderland or anything, but Worthy opened the pregame show by declaring, flatly, “There is no other voice in sports. Period.”

Sunderland, a local freelance broadcaster dispatched to Houston to sub for Chick, then had the most thankless job in sports, to say nothing about Laker history.

Over the last 40 years, this franchise has had big shoes to fill before. Wilt Chamberlain came and went ... and he was replaced by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who came and went ... and he was replaced by Shaquille O’Neal. Back in 1970, when Chick immortalized Jerry West’s 63-foot buzzer shot in the finals against the Knicks, we all presumed West was irreplaceable. But along came Magic Johnson, and after him, Kobe Bryant.

Who can replace Chick Hearn?

Who wants to even try?

Sunderland, facing a bigger no-win assignment than the depleted Rockets, settled on the smartest strategy available: Play it safe, keep it straight down the middle, don’t screw the thing up. He’s temporary help, after all, just keeping the seat warm until Chick and his new heart valve decide they’re ready to turn Staples Center into the Cow Palace.

Still, as close to the vest as Sunderland played it, Chick’s influence was inescapable.

Two minutes in, Shaq gets the ball inside and begins backing in for an inevitable score.

“The finger roll and the soft bounce--the first basket for Shaquille O’Neal,” Sunderland says.

Before Chick, there was no such thing as a “finger roll.” He invented the term.

Four minutes before halftime, the Lakers have squandered all but a point of their lead over Houston ... and here comes a Rocket through the lane with the ball, jamming it through the hoop.

“SLAM DUNK by Kevin Willis!” Sunderland yells.

Chick invented that one, too.

With 3:37 left in the second quarter, the Lakers still can’t make the Rockets go away. It’s a one-point game, heading into commercial, and Sunderland sends up a cry for help:

“If you have any suggestions, Chick, give us a call!”

Stu Lantz laughs and adds, “Believe me, he has some and he’s voicing them right now.”

Pity the poor nurses.

Somehow, Sunderland and Lantz and the Lakers make it to intermission, but it’s been tough sledding for all involved. Lakers 53, Rockets 51.

“This is a game where (Chick) would be very frustrated,” Sunderland says, “because he knows that the Lakers have not played with the kind of intensity and energy that he would expect.”

Lantz: “He’s hollering in somebody’s ear right now.”

Chick was nowhere near the Compaq Center, yet he was everywhere during Thursday’s telecast. The pregame show was essentially a Chick Hearn testimonial, complete with live news conference from Northridge Hospital Medical Center, where Chick’s wife Marge and his surgeon, Dr. Michael Soltero, informed all that a day after surgery, Chick was already growing restless.

KCAL’s halftime sports report led off with highlights from that news conference, reassuring us again that all was well was Chick.

Oh, right, and after that, there was this: Hideo Nomo has agreed to a two-year contract to return to the Dodgers. Just a secondary news story on this night.

And then there was the usual recitation of the Laker sponsors, recorded by Chick on tape long ago. Rather than bring on Sunderland or Lantz for new voice-overs, KCAL just went with the tape, queuing up those famous vocal cords for a Hearnian sound bite that was oddly reassuring, if a tad eerie.

I will say this, though: “When it comes to great char-broiled taste, the name of the game is Carl’s Jr.” never sounded better.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Streak Ends

CHICK HEARN BY THE NUMBERS

364,148 Points Lakers scored during streak

3,338 Consecutive games called by Chick before Thursday

2,092 Laker victories in that span

237 Players Lakers have used during streak

36 Years the streak lasted

8 U.S. Presidents who have served during streak