A friend of mine who had season tickets liked the song and vowed to get a copy to Chick, and he did. Before one of the games early on in the 1987/88 season, he made his way up to Chick’s birds-eye-view but was stopped by an usher. When Chick noticed that my friend had something for him, he told the usher to go ahead and let him through. Chick read the lyrics, smiling, and when he was finished said, “This is great! Thank you!”

Here’s my own little tribute to the 1987 World Champion Los Angeles Lakers, and the man who described all of those games to us so wonderfully.

LET’S GO LAKERS!

Let’s hear for the Lakers they’re our favorite team
Led by the Captain his name is Kareem
We got Magic he’s the MVP
He likes to dish it off to James Worthy
Here comes Cooper there goes Scott
They’re gonna break your back with a three point shot
Rambis, the Thompson’s and A.C. Green
They’re crashin’ the boards yeah you know what I mean

Off the bench we’ve got Matthews, Smrek and Branch
It’s over for you now, you don’t stand a chance
Our coach is Pat Riley, Mr. GQ
He always has a game plan that’s gonna to beat you
So watch out Dallas, Portland and Seattle
You better get ready ‘cause we’re going to battle
Houston, Atlanta, the Pistons and Bucks
But most of all the Celtics… Boston sucks!

Let’s hear for the Lakers ’87 World Champs
They run so fast they give the other teams cramps
They launch it and loop it and slam it in your face
There’s not another team that can keep up this pace
Now you better work hard foes over the summer
Or your season next year will be another bummer
Yeah these are the Lakers, they give you no slack
And next year is the year they’ll be going back-to-back!

Boom-ba Chick
Boom-boom-ba Chick Hearn
Boom-ba Chick
Boom-boom-ba Chick Hearn

(Repeat and fade)

I’ll never forget that sign.

http://lakersblog.latimes.com/lakersblog/2009/09/lakers-podcast-710-iverson-farmar-memphis-gasol-.html

AMEN.

So I set my TiVo prior to leaving hoping that by some miracle I could avoid hearing the score on the way back to LA and went to Boston determined to wear my Lakers sweatshirt as many places as possible. I even spent one morning taking pictures of blown up pictures of the Garnett, Allen, and Pierce that were in the lobby area of the Garden with my Lakers sweatshirt over their jerseys. Safe to say I got more than a few dirty looks from the locals passing by.

While my girlfriend is not a big Lakers fan, she knows how fanatical I am. On the last day of our trip, we went to the airport around 4pm to catch our 6pm flight (game time was 9pm local). When we got to the airport and after we checked our bags in, we were told that there has been a 3 hour delay on our flight. Rather than sit around the airport, we decided to go back into the city and walk around. It killed me watching all the people going to the game and I asked my girlfriend if we could just go to the arena to soak in the atmosphere. After talking some smack to a bunch of Celtics fans and chatting it up with a group of Laker fans that were going to the game we decided to get some ice cream and go back to the airport to make our flight. While my girlfriend was in line, I went to the bathroom, which happened to be located directly across the hallway from the ticket office. I noticed some people outside in a waiting line and decided to casually ask a security officer if there were tickets available. He said there were none, but that if some became available, there is a line outside. I didn’t bother looking to see how many people were in the line so I went back to meet up with my girlfriend. A few minutes later, we get up to leave and for some reason, I decided to take one last detour (this time with my girlfriend) by the ticket office. When I get there, I see that the person who was at the front of the line is now at the ticket window. I ask the security officer and he tells me that one of the luxury suites just went up for sale and that there were about 15 tickets available for $300 each, but that I would have to get in line. Thinking that there were probably dozens of people in line by now, I decide to go look to see how long the line is and notice that there are only about 15 people in line. So I get in line and start thinking about the chance to go to the game even though my bags were checked in on a flight I’m supposed to be on, I had just lost my job 3 weeks prior, and my girlfriend is with me and has work obligations the next morning. As I slowly move towards the front and begin to debate this decision, my girlfriend already resigned herself to knowing that there is no way in hell that I could pass up on a once in a lifetime experience like this and encourages me to get the tickets.

So I finally get to the ticket window not fully convinced that I “should” be doing this, but I knew that I HAD to do it so I turned to the guy and said…”I’ll take two tickets!” Two of the last tickets to the game! We didn’t have a hotel for the night, slept in the playroom at Logan airport for a couple hours before waking up at 4:30am so that I could go to the ticket counter and exchange the boarding passes we had in our hands to new ones for the first flight out in the morning, but it was the most memorable Lakers/Celtics experience I ever had…not to mention one of the best experiences of my life!

The shirt with the giant middle finger at Boston is one of my favorites.