Lakers Play-by-Play Announcer Channels Chick Hearn, Jack Buck
Dotting the i's and crossing the T-shirts.
As Jordan Clarkson put the finishing scoring touches on Kobe Bryant’s final game as a Laker, 710 ESPN Radio play-by-play announcer John Ireland marveled on-air that the game was “in the refrigerator” and that, in reference to No. 24’s record-setting 60 points, “I don’t believe what I just saw.” Those were, respectively, nods to the late, great Chick Hearn and Jack Buck’s call when Kurt Gibson hit a walk-off home run for the Dodgers in the 1988 World Series.
This morning on ESPN 710, Ireland explained that the only thing he had thought about ahead of time in terms of game-ending calls was such a nod to Hearn’s signature wrap-up.
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