Hearn Expects March 1 Return

The voice on the phone was familiar.

“The voice sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?” Chick Hearn asked Thursday morning.

Yes, Hearn was told, the voice sounds good.

Now it was Hearn’s turn to answer a question: When’s he coming back?

Hearn said he will see his cardiologist Monday. “If he gives me the go sign, I’ll be back March 1,” he said.

Hearn felt pretty good about getting the go sign and later Thursday the Lakers put out a news release confirming that Hearn, who had heart surgery Dec. 19, plans to return for the March 1 home game against the Indiana Pacers.

“This is a happy day for the Lakers and our fans,” General Manager Mitch Kupchak said.

Swan Song for CBS

CBS says goodbye to the Nissan Open this weekend. The tournament moves to ABC next year.

CBS coordinating producer Lance Barrow said it will be a low-key goodbye.

“The tournament isn’t going away, just we are,” Barrow said.

Fans’ Favorite

Golf Digest recently conducted a survey about golf television coverage. The magazine received more than 3,000 Internet responses and phoned 400 readers at random.

CBS was cited as the fans’ favorite, edging the Golf Channel. ESPN, ABC and NBC tied for third.

CBS’ Jim Nantz was picked as the best host, and NBC’s Johnny Miller and CBS’ David Feherty and Gary McCord were named the top three commentators.

Some Comeback

Before Thursday’s round, Feherty had this to say about the resurgence of John Daly, who shot a 70: “When you talk about the great comebacks in sports, you’ve got to mention Ben Hogan’s comeback after his car wreck in 1949. But it was only Hogan’s body that was broken.

“If John manages to come back and win, it’s one of the great stories in sports. His brain was completely disconnected and pickled. I mean really.”

Recommended Viewing

You never know what Feherty and McCord might come up with when they do one of their late-night West Coast Swing highlight shows.

The plan for Thursday night’s show was to stage their own “Caddie Olympics,” with events such as the gallery jump rope and golf bag relays.

“In the Caddie Olympics, you’ll know the judging is crooked,” cracked Feherty.

Tonight’s show at 12:50 will feature outtakes from the last four weeks.

On a more serious note, ESPN offers “Finding the Fairway” Sunday at 11 a.m. as a part of Black History Month. This half-hour show, produced by PGA Tour Productions, looks at the plight of African Americans in golf.

Among those featured will be Joe Louis Barrow Jr., the son of the former boxing champion. Barrow is the national director of the First Tee youth golf initiative.

A Gift for Bel-Air

Ken Venturi, the captain of the winning U.S. President’s Cup team two years ago, presented the trophy to Bel-Air Country Club Thursday.

That’s the second trophy Venturi has given to Bel-Air. The club already had Venturi’s trophy from his 1964 U.S. Open victory.

Pardon the Interruption

America’s Olympic network, NBC, which supplemented its Winter Olympic coverage last Sunday with the NBA All-Star game, will interrupt Olympic coverage this Sunday for the Daytona 500. No, NBC will not delay the race on the West Coast to get a bigger audience. It will be shown live at 9 a.m.

And at 1:30 p.m., NBC will televise the Lakers’ game at Portland, with Marv Albert, Steve Jones and Bill Walton announcing.

Short Waves

Channel 7’s Bill Weir, who has a way of growing on people, says he plans to leave the station to explore possibilities outside sports when his contract expires in September. One possibility is a late-night talk show on USA, which would be produced by Lorne Michaels, a co-creator of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.” ... That show is not to be confused with the show NBC is now showing on the West Coast, “Every Night Delayed.”

The Lakers’ game against Michael Jordan and the Washington Wizards Tuesday night on Fox Sports Net had a 7.3 rating, making it the cable network’s highest-rated Laker game of the season. The game also generated a record 2.6 rating for that night’s “Southern California Sports Report.” ... Nationally, the Lakers and Wizards on TNT got a 2.2 cable rating. That’s impressive, but the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show on USA that night got a 3.2.... Attention Lisa Guerrero fans: Beginning Monday, she’ll have her own Web site on FoxSports.com. The keyword is LisaG. UCLA’s game against Arizona State on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. will be televised on ABC, with Terry Gannon and Len Elmore announcing. The versatile Gannon, former North Carolina State basketball star, is also ABC’s lead figure skating announcer.... ESPN’s three hours of “The Block” Sunday features the second part of “The Season: Behind Bars” at 5 p.m., “SportsCentury: 1981” at 6:30 p.m., and “Sidelines: L.A. Hoops,” featuring the Clippers, at 7 p.m. Highlights of the look back at 1981 include Fernandomania and the Oakland Raiders becoming the first wild-card team to win the Super Bowl.

Radio Daze

Within the next week or so, Jim Rome, as he has been saying on his radio show, will decide whether to devote all his energy to radio or television. The guess here is Rome will pick radio, a medium he has dominated the past decade.... Furman Bisher, veteran sports columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, was a guest on Rome’s radio show Thursday and had a unique way of describing the passing of an old-time boxing character named “Chicken Man” Jones. “He died of an overdose of bullets,” Bisher said.

Jim Kelly was a guest of Scott Kaplan and Billy Ray Smith on XTRA (690) this week and unloaded on ABC’s Al Michaels and Dan Fouts for not explaining that he had to leave last weekend’s Pro Bowl festivities because his son Hunter was hospitalized. But Fouts talked with Kelly on Thursday and smoothed things over.

While Fred Roggin is busy in Salt Lake City, Petros Papadakis has been filling in on his KMPC (1540) show, offering a unique perspective. Roggin still has a presence on the show, filing reports from Utah.... KMPC’s Chris Myers and Bob Golic will be broadcasting from Riviera today.... While KNX (1070) is offering periodic Olympic reports from the Westwood One network daily at 16 and 46 minutes after the hour most hours until midnight, KMPC is offering Westwood One’s long form coverage every evening. Saturday and Sunday’s expanded coverage will run from 5-9 p.m.

Where has Joe McDonnell been? The KSPN (1110) talk show host seemed shocked that NBC was delaying its Winter Olympic coverage in the West, even though it had been well publicized. McDonnell blamed NBC’s Dick Ebersol and of course called him an idiot, which is McDonnell’s favorite word. Dave Stone had to step in and point out that Ebersol wanted the coverage to be shown at 5 p.m. in the West but lost that battle. So who was the idiot there?

In Closing

So who’s watching the Olympics? The two leading demographic groups are women 25-54 and women 18-49.

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What Los Angeles Is Watching

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