He Should Listen to One Voice--His

Those pesky losses to inferior teams like the Atlanta Hawks and the Chicago Bulls and the Portland Trailblazers, they get so easily forgotten. Shaquille O’Neal comes back, the Lakers win a dozen in a row, the playoffs arrive and no Laker fan is going to remember how upsetting it was to see the Hawks beat the world champions.

But then you catch a snippet of a radio news update, just the very end, and hear the words “Lakers” and “may be out for the season.”

O’Neal’s toe is worse, that must be it. Not good news and maybe that three-peat won’t be happening, maybe another world championship will have to wait until next year. But maybe there’s an upside, too, and his arthritic toe will heal and O’Neal will come back without pain and with fresh enthusiasm for basketball.

But it’s not O’Neal who’s done for the year. It’s much worse.

It’s Chick Hearn.

Only two weeks from returning to his job as Laker broadcaster after almost a two-month layoff following heart surgery, Hearn fell and broke his hip. And today he will have hip surgery. He won’t be back on the air March 1, as he said he would. The Lakers are going to have to move through the playoffs without Hearn. They’ll probably have O’Neal but, really, who would you miss more, Hearn or O’Neal?

Nobody wants to cast that vote.

Sunday night, Hearn and his wife, Marge, were out for dinner when they stopped to get gas. When Hearn got out of the car at the pump, he slipped and fell. That’s so Hearn, 85 years old, still pumping his own gas.

A week ago, Hearn was talking on the radio, speaking in his strong, Chick voice, sounding like a 5-year-old waiting for Santa Claus. Hearn’s Christmas was to be March 1. Our present was going to be Hearn back on the air, explaining to all the Southland what each Laker was doing, where each Laker was standing.

His heart was strong too, it was so obvious from listening to Hearn. He was embracing his life, his fans, his Lakers. He was excited and thankful to be coming back to work.

What a wonderful thing that is, to love one’s work.

There will be many now who will wish Hearn well and beg him to take as much time off as he needs, to not rush his recovery. There will be well-meaning people who will wonder if it isn’t time for Hearn to think of himself, to take care of himself, to explore other parts of his life. Hearn deserves it, they will say. Hearn deserves the rest, he deserves the chance to vacation in Hawaii or to read a good book, to sleep late every day and never have to catch a 5 a.m. limo to the airport for a 7 a.m. flight to Cleveland.

But that would be missing the point of a man who loves his job.

Every game, every half, every quarter that the Lakers play makes Hearn smile and he makes us smile when he tells us about it all.

Nit-pickers will whine that Hearn pronounced somebody’s name wrong or used only a number and not a name to identify an opposing player. “That No. 20 is killing the Lakers,” Hearn will say, and if you’re at home or in the car and don’t know who No. 20 is, it can drive you a little nuts.

The thing is, though, you can always find out who No. 20 is. You can look it up. But only Hearn can make you see exactly what No. 20 is doing and why he is able to do it and why the Lakers aren’t stopping No. 20 from killing them.

So don’t wish Hearn well by telling him to take his time. Don’t tell Hearn not to rush back.

Hearn wants to rush back. The man broadcast 3,338 consecutive games until his Dec. 19 heart surgery. Even people who love their jobs will get flu and take a day off, have a fever and not be able to drag themselves out of the house. But Hearn never had to drag himself, and he was marking off the days on the calendar until March 1.

And he’ll keep marking off the days now.

As the Lakers continue their season, as we receive daily updates on the state of O’Neal’s big toe, now we’ll also need daily updates on the state of Hearn’s hip. The Lakers should put Hearn on their daily injury report because, in his way, Hearn is as important as any Laker player.

Ever.

Hearn’s voice can make us feel confident about the Lakers. If O’Neal needs more rest, Hearn’s voice can make us believe Kobe Bryant can go it alone and the Lakers would still be OK. Hearn’s voice tells us when to be really mad at the Lakers, or worried about the Lakers, and it can also tell us what an important loss is and what a meaningless loss is.

A loss to Atlanta in February is meaningless. That’s what Hearn would say.

We know Hearn will listen to every Laker game. A week from now, Hearn will probably have the sound down on the television and he’ll be calling games and Marge will be so lucky. She’ll get to hear the call.

If only the rest of us could come over and listen.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com.