Hearn News Not Good

Chick Hearn, the Lakers’ beloved announcer of 42 years, probably will never call another game after undergoing two brain surgeries Saturday, his doctors said.

“I’m very concerned with his speech ability and feel it is very likely he will have difficulty speaking,” said Dr. Asher Taban, who performed two craniotomies on Hearn on Saturday at Northridge Hospital Medical Center to control brain hemorrhages suffered during a Friday evening fall.

When asked if Hearn’s announcing career was over, Taban said, “Unfortunately, that is probable.”

Hearn, 85, was about to move a planter on his Encino patio when he fell back and hit the back of his head. The impact caused a blood clot about 6 inches in diameter to form on the surface of his brain, Taban said. To relieve pressure, Taban drilled a small hole in his skull and drained the blood.

Although his condition initially improved, Hearn was back in surgery by midmorning to remove a second, “quite sizable” clot that put pressure on his brain stem in an area that is “very important for both survival and to be conscious,” Taban said.

Hearn was in critical but stable condition Saturday evening, heavily sedated to control both his blood pressure and the pressure inside his head. Until Hearn comes off the sedatives, it will be difficult to determine his prognosis and level of damage, Taban said.

His wife, Marge, and granddaughter Shannon Hearn Newman and her husband, along with Laker spokesman Bob Steiner, Hearn’s longtime broadcast partner Stu Lantz and Susan Stratton, the Lakers’ longtime television producer-director, were among those keeping vigil at the hospital Saturday.

Marge, his wife of nearly 64 years, asked pertinent questions before the surgeries, Taban said, and “wants everything to be done as long as there is hope for a recovery.”

Newman said that her grandfather--who first seized hold of the Laker microphone in 1961 and almost never let go--did not regain consciousness after the fall.

“Never bet against Chick Hearn,” Laker General Manger Mitch Kupchak said in an interview from the Bay Area. “He’s a resilient person. I heard many times last season he wouldn’t come back and he did.’”

Hearn had a 3,338-consecutive-game streak that started in 1965 broken by heart surgery last December.

Paul Sunderland, who stepped in to replace Hearn while he was recovering from the surgery and a later broken hip, also cited Hearn’s toughness.

“Let’s hope and pray he is able to recover,” he said. “We all understand the gravity of the situation, but anyone who counts out Chick Hearn is making a mistake.

“I’ve said before I really wanted Chick to come back for one more glorious season.”

Sunderland would appear to be the heir apparent as the next play-by-play voice of the Lakers, but team and broadcast officials have said in the past that whenever the time came to replace Hearn, all legitimate candidates would be considered.

As word of Hearn’s condition was broadcast over television and radio stations throughout the day Saturday, colleagues and friends of the “Voice of the Lakers” reflected on a career that has spanned three generations of Los Angeles basketball fans.

“To do what he did as long as he did with fresh and unabashed enthusiasm is truly astonishing,” said ABC’s Al Michaels, who was briefly Hearn’s first analyst in 1967 and went on to become a respected network play-by-play announcer.

“I can’t think of anybody like him,” Michaels said. “Some guys have had long and illustrious and storied careers, some go on and on into their 80s like Ernie Harwell. But there’s never been anybody like Chick.”

Laker owner Jerry Buss was in London and could not be reached for comment. But Buss’ daughter Jeanie, the Lakers’ executive vice president who was 17 when her father bought the Lakers, said that Hearn “has been the common tie of all the great Laker teams.”

As her voice cracked with emotion she added, “I’m sorry, I’m a little upset right now. We’re just hoping for the best, that he can pull through. He is a valuable member of the franchise because of what he means to the fans of Los Angeles.”

Hearn’s hospitalization comes after a difficult year health-wise. Sidelined first by heart-valve replacement surgery in December, he fell at a gas station in February, requiring hip replacement surgery.

But he was back behind the microphone in time to call out his trademark “words-eye view” for all of the Laker playoff games, climaxing with their third consecutive NBA championship in June.

When he returned to the announcer’s chair April 9 after a 56-game absence, the game against the Utah Jazz was more like a sideshow to the welcome-back ovations and tributes from Vin Scully, Tom Lasorda and Penny Marshall.

He is known for his rapid-fire announcing, his folksy humor and as the man whose words brought sparkle to the Lakers’ moves with his so-called “Chickisms.”

He’s the wordsmith who invented the airball, the finger roll and described bad, flashy plays gone wrong as “the mustard’s off the hot dog.” American sports fans have Hearn to thank for a phrase ingrained in pop culture: “slam dunk!”

When Laker victories were at hand Hearn, who is honored in the basketball Hall of Fame, would spew out one of Los Angeles’ best-loved lyrics:

“The game’s in the refrigerator, the door’s closed, the light’s out, the eggs are cooling, the butter’s getting hard and the Jell-O’s jiggling.”

Even during the off-season, the indefatigable Hearn found a way to do Laker play-by-play, if mainly for fun. Just last week he drove to Las Vegas with Marge to act as the celebrity announcer for a Laker fantasy game, in which adults pay to be coached by real Laker coaches, culminating in a game announced by Hearn.

At Hearn’s star along the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was scrubbed clean Friday by a team of firefighters, passersby who were following his condition expressed their admiration.

“He’s an NBA legend and I’m a big fan,” said Zack Calandra, 32, a sports broadcaster himself on vacation from Cottonwood, Ariz. “He’s an inspiration and one of the guys I listened to growing up. I hope he’s going to be OK--he’d be a sad person to lose in the sports world.”

Jon Ogar, 49, a public relations specialist and avid sports fan from Lansing, Mich., agreed.

“He has a voice that, once you hear it, you immediately recognize it.... His is one of the great voices in the country.”

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Times staff writers Cara Mia DiMassa, Rob Fernas and David Haldane contributed to this report.