He Turned L.A. Into a Small Town

A friend visiting from the East Coast called Wednesday and said he was astonished by the amount of coverage Chick Hearn’s death has received in the local media and asked whether I believed it was justified.

Of course, I said without thinking twice. Then I realized that I would have to explain. To someone who hasn’t lived in Los Angeles, I suppose Chick was merely a local basketball announcer.

To us, he was so much more. I knew that long before this week, as long as 20 years ago, when, during my two seasons on the Laker beat, as many people would ask whether I knew Chick Hearn as whether I knew Magic Johnson or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

But it really hit me Monday afternoon when local television channels led afternoon newscasts with detailed reports from the Northridge hospital where Chick lay dying, then switched to his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Fans had gathered at both places, bearing flowers and candles and signs of encouragement for him and his family.

As if for one afternoon there was no news from Washington or Wall Street or Jerusalem or Bogota, the newscasts were devoted almost solely to the vigil. When time came to sign off, one of the news anchors asked us to pray.

We live in the world’s seventh-largest metropolitan area, the nation’s second largest. The World Almanac refers to it as an urban center. But there is no center here, not structurally, politically, economically or spiritually. There is a Main Street in name only. Our megalopolis is too densely populated, too sprawling, too diverse.

On a day like Monday, though, we were living in just another small town, praying for the local basketball announcer.

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I explained to my friend that Chick was like the teacher every town seems to have who taught your grandparents, your parents and you and is now teaching your children or maybe even your grandchildren.

Maybe the teacher isn’t quite as sharp as he or she once was; maybe he or she sometimes gets Voltaire confused with Rousseau; maybe he or she sometimes calls your child or grandchild by your name. But you wouldn’t want anyone else teaching them. You couldn’t imagine anyone else teaching them.

Chick was our Mr. Chips. He was the corner grocer, the barber, the librarian, the milk man.

Some of you will remember the milk man. And the ice man. When Chick began broadcasting Laker games, they were part of our daily lives. He would be too, for the next 42 years.

He played, literally, in Peoria, broadcasting Bradley Brave basketball games in the early ‘50s. And he played in Los Angeles. And Orange County. And Pasadena. And Pomona. And Santa Barbara.

This son of a Midwestern railroad worker cut across geographical, generational, racial, ethnic and socioeconomic divides. He was our connection not only to the past but to each other.

Jack Nicholson, Dyan Cannon, Denzel Washington and the working stiffs who pay $10 to sit in the upper deck at Staples Center celebrate together when the Lakers win a championship. Today, they mourn together.

Chick was familiar to all of us who live here, even those who don’t follow the Lakers or sports. To those who regularly watch the Lakers on television or listen to them on the radio, he was practically family. He was in our homes so often that we might as well have set a place for him at the dinner table. We would have served jiggling Jell-O.

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When Chick died Monday evening, one fan interviewed on television called it a tragedy.

Not true, not even close. There is sadness, of course, for Marge, his wife of almost 64 years; for the poor guy or--more than likely--guys eventually chosen to replace him in the Laker broadcast booth only to discover that he is irreplaceable; and for those of us left behind to contemplate all that we lost with his passing.

From Chick’s words-eye view, though, tragedy isn’t a word that would occur to him. He had a job that he loved and that he was able to do until he was 85, and, when he died, he was as beloved as anyone whoever called this place home. He would put his life into the refrigerator as a triumph.

He wouldn’t want a funeral. He’d want a parade, down Main Street.

On Monday, when more and more fans began to congregate on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the fire department sent some of its men over there to sweep off Chick’s star. Their next stop, I imagine, was to rescue a kitten from a tree.

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Randy Harvey can be reached at randy.harvey@latimes.com.