Stratton Earned Chick’s Trust

Although Chick Hearn was a devoted husband for nearly 64 years, there was another woman in his life.

She was Hearn’s frequent companion on the road, always sitting in the seat next to his on Laker charter flights. She met him for lunch on game days and hung on his every word in the evenings.

It certainly wasn’t love at first sight, but Hearn grew fond of her.

So did Hearn’s wife, Marge.

Susan Stratton became a dear friend to both.

Stratton, who has been producing and directing Laker telecasts for Channel 9 since 1977, was on the road with the Lakers when Chick had heart surgery in December, but she was with Marge in the hospital when he had hip surgery in February. And she stayed by Marge’s side after the fall that led to Chick’s death Aug. 5.

“She is almost like a sister to me,” Marge said this week.

When it was mentioned that Stratton was “the other woman” in Chick’s life, Marge chuckled.

“Just be careful how you write that,” she said.

When Stratton first got the Laker assignment, few women were working in sports in any capacity. Certainly none were producing and directing NBA telecasts.

Stratton had been a sports fan as a youngster in Auburn, Pa., where her father was the principal and basketball coach at a tiny 12-grade school. When she went to work in television at WMAL in Washington, her duties included being film editor for “The Sonny Jurgensen Show” when Jurgensen was the Redskins’ quarterback.

She met her husband, Dick Stratton, at WMAL. They were married in 1971 and came to Los Angeles the next year, when Dick was named executive producer at Channel 11.

Susan did some free-lance directing before landing a job at Channel 9, where in 1974 she volunteered to produce and direct Ram exhibition games, as well as the weekly show starring Coach Chuck Knox.

When Channel 9 got the Laker package before the 1977-78 season, the station’s general manager at the time, Lionel Schaen, named Susan the producer-director.

Hearn was not pleased.

“He was against it,” Stratton said. “No woman had ever produced and directed an NBA telecast, but it wasn’t just that I was a woman. I had no professional basketball experience.”

What Hearn and Stratton soon learned was that they had one important thing in common. Each was a perfectionist.

“He wanted to get it right, and I wanted to get it right,” Stratton said.

The turning point occurred about a month into that first season, when the Lakers were in Piscataway, N.J., to play the New Jersey Nets. The Nets and Rutgers shared the arena and Rutgers had played there earlier in the day.

“We had no time to set up and I told everyone we couldn’t go on the air,” Stratton recalled. “Well, we did anyway, and it was a disaster. Audio problems and everything else.”

Stratton said then-Laker owner Jack Kent Cooke called the next day. She figured her days as a Laker producer-director were over. But it was just the opposite.

“Mr. Cooke told me that he had heard that I had tried to cancel the telecast, that the problems weren’t my fault and that he supported me,” Stratton said. “And he told me that Chick also supported me.

“From then on our relationship began to improve.”

Hearn, interviewed in 1996 about Stratton, said, “I figured she’d be gone after one telecast. Boy, was I wrong. If there is a hall of fame for women directors--forget the women part--she belongs in it.”

Hearn no doubt would have said that Susan Stratton also belongs in the hall of fame as a friend too.

Honors Keep Coming

Marge Hearn said she has committed to five charity functions at which her late husband will be honored.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D--Sherman Oaks) visited her home in Encino on Monday and presented her with a flag that had flown at half-staff in honor of Chick over the Capitol in Washington.

Sherman plans to introduce a bill in Congress on Sept. 4 to rename the post office in Encino after Hearn.

The Replacements

The Lakers are still at least a month away from naming the replacements for Hearn. It will take three broadcasters to fill the void--a TV play-by-play announcer, a radio play-by-play announcer and a radio commentator.

Paul Sunderland remains the front-runner for the TV job and his longtime friend Chris Marlowe has applied for the radio play-by-play job. Another candidate for that job is Fox Sports Net’s versatile Bill Macdonald.

Terrible Idea

It’s bad enough that Channel 9 delayed two Angel telecasts from New York and will delay two more from Boston--tonight’s and Monday night’s.

Making matters worse was what happened Tuesday night in New York.

On the telecast, which was delayed an hour, the Angels were leading the Yankees, 5-2, in the third inning. Meanwhile, a real-time score of 5-5 in the fifth was shown on the bottom of the screen.

Just another reason to show the games live.

Unusual Doubleheader

Fox will televise the Angels and Red Sox on Saturday at 10 a.m. to 35% of the country, followed by the Dodgers and Atlanta Braves at 1 p.m. However, in Los Angeles the Dodger game won’t be on Fox’s Channel 11 but rather Dodger flagship station Channel 13, which is also owned by Fox.

The idea was to avoid the possibility of the Angel game running over into the Dodger game.

The announcers for the Angel game will be Mel Proctor and Jerry Remy. The announcers for the Dodger game will be Kenny Albert and Tim McCarver.

Vin Scully, who took a couple of days off because of laryngitis, may be back for tonight’s game, which will be televised by Channel 13.

Sunday’s 5 p.m. game against the Braves will be broadcast on the Dodger radio network as well as ESPN Radio, including KSPN (1110) in Los Angeles. KSPN gets one exception date to blackout rules, and this is it.

Recommended Viewing

A one-hour special, “30 Years of Greatest Sports Legends: a Producer’s Scrapbook,” will be televised by Channel 7 Saturday at 4 p.m. The special will include highlights from the series that began in 1972 and became the longest-running syndicated sports series in television history.

Producer Berl Rotfeld, his son Steve and producer Mike Tollin, who now produces HBO’s “Arli$$,” are among those who reminisce on the special.

Short Waves

The exhibition game between the Oakland Raiders and San Francisco 49ers will be televised on Channel 2 Saturday at 6 p.m., with Jim Gray, Sean Jones and Jim Plunkett calling the action. Gray was asked by Raider owner Al Davis to fill in for Charlie Jones this season. Jones is recovering from radiation treatment for prostate cancer and says he is feeling better.... ESPN will use Dennis Green as a studio analyst for ESPNEWS. Green will also be a frequent contributor on ESPN Radio and special editions of “NFL 2Night” on ESPN2. ESPN earlier had hired Bill Parcells as an analyst for “Sunday NFL Countdown.”

The Mighty Ducks have named John Ahlers, who comes from the Tampa Bay Lightning, as their new television play-by-play announcer. He replaces Chris Madsen, whose contract was not renewed.... Al Michaels, Melissa Stark and Dan Fouts will be among those on the “ABC Primetime Preview Weekend” Saturday and Sunday at Disney’s California Adventure Park in Anaheim.... The NBA has agreed to a three-year deal with Telemundo (Channel 52 in Los Angeles) for the Spanish-language network to carry 15 regular-season game and up to 10 WNBA games.

In Closing

In the September issue of Maxim magazine, Fox’s Jillian Barberie picks the Miami Dolphins to win the Super Bowl. Why?

“I had a boyfriend when I was 17 who was a huge Dan Marino fan,” she says.

Someone might want to tell Barberie that Marino retired after the 1999 season.