Chick Hearn's "slam dunk," "air ball," "mustard's off the hot dog"

Tue Aug 6 06:24:42 UTC 2002

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Lakers Announcer Chick Hearn Dies 
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The Associated Press
Monday, August 5, 2002; 10:22 PM LOS ANGELES –– Play-by-play announcer Chick 
Hearn, who made phrases like "slam dunk" and "air ball" common basketball 
expressions during his 42-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers, died 
Monday. He was 85."Chick Hearn passed away at 6:30 this evening," Los Angeles 
Lakers spokesman Bob Steiner told a hushed news conference outside Northridge 
Medical Center Hospital, where Hearn was taken Friday night after suffering a 
fall.Hearn fell Friday in the back yard of the Encino home he shared with 
wife, Marge. The two would have celebrated their 64th wedding anniversary on 
Aug. 13.Surgeons operated twice on Saturday to relieve swelling in his brain, 
but he never regained consciousness.Whether Hearn was the most famous Laker 
of them all can be debated, but his career with the team was far longer than 
such standouts as Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain, Magic Johnson, 
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jamaal Wilkes, James Worthy and Michael Cooper.And he 
was calling games long before current stars Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant 
were born.Hearn called a record 3,338 consecutive Lakers games starting in 
1965 before missing one because he had to have an operation in December 2001 
for a blocked aortic valve.While recovering, he fell and broke his hip.Hearn 
returned to work April 9 and broadcast the Lakers' playoff run to their third 
consecutive NBA championship.He called his first Lakers game in March 1961. 
His last game was June 12 when the Lakers beat the New Jersey Nets 113-107 in 
East Rutherford, N.J., to complete a sweep of the NBA Finals and earn their 
ninth title since moving from Minneapolis in 1960.During the finals, he told 
The Associated Press he was getting stronger every day and planned to work at 
least one more season. And he said he believed his call of the Lakers' Game 7 
victory over Sacramento in the Western Conference finals might have been as 
good as any in his career.As recently as last week, he drove to Las Vegas 
with his wife to speak at a fantasy basketball camp.Born Francis Dayle Hearn 
on Nov. 27, 1916, in Aurora, Ill., Hearn peppered his rapid-fire delivery 
with terms like "no harm, no foul," "the mustard's off the hot dog," 
"ticky-tack foul," and "faked him into the popcorn machine."Whenever he 
believed a Lakers victory was clinched, Hearn would say: "You can put this one
 in the refrigerator. The door's closed, the light's out, the eggs are 
cooling, the butter's getting hard and the Jell-O is jiggling."

(...) 