Chick Hearn — American Journalist born on November 27, 1916, died on August 05, 2002

Francis Dayle "Chick" Hearn was an American sportscaster. Known primarily as the long-time play-by-play announcer for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association, Hearn was remembered for his rapid fire, staccato broadcasting style, associated with colorful phrases such as slam dunk, air ball, and no harm, no foul that have become common basketball vernacular, and for broadcasting 3,338 consecutive Lakers games starting on November 21, 1965. Additionally, Hearn started the now common tradition of estimating the distance of shots taken Of note is that most of Hearn's games in the television era were simulcast on both radio and television, even after most teams chose to use different announcers for the different media... (wikipedia)

Anybody who doesn't think I want the Lakers to win is a fool. But I'm no homer.
I always like to pretend two things: one, I'm sitting in the seat beside you watching the game together. I'll say, 'Wasn't that a great shot? Boy, it sure was.' The other thing I do is pretend I'm talking to people who are non-sighted. I try to create a word picture. I get more mail from blind people thanking me.
You can't please everybody all the time, but you can please a majority.
I do something that I don't think anyone else does. I warm up before a game. Baseball and basketball players warm up, so why shouldn't the announcer warm up?
Most people can't talk as fast as I do. I'm not proud of that. That's God-given.