Utah Jazz: Hot Rod has his own style

LOS ANGELES – The best way to listen to Hot Rod Hundley was alone, cruising down a long stretch of highway at night. There was something in the vast darkness on the way to Las Vegas or Evanston that took your mind back to the intersection of what is now John Stockton and Karl Malone Drives. Something in his voice that made you think of, well, an old cowhide globe. A national writer once said Hundley sounded like he had "gargled with salt water on a foggy night."

Even an out-of-state listener, speeding past the Salt Flats on the way to or from the coast, could tell immediately it was an NBA broadcast. The rapid cadences — from "belt-high dribble" to "leapin' leaner" to "the ol' cowhide globe hits home!" — perfectly captured the rhythm of the game.

Whenever he would call out, "Utah Jazz basketball is comin' up next, and you gotta love it, baby!" I have to admit, I did.

I loved hearing Hot Rod call the games as much as I did watching them in person.

Tonight at the Staples Center, the Jazz face playoff elimination, in which case it will be the final call for Hundley, the only radio play-by-play man the franchise has ever known — in New Orleans as well as Utah. The new voice will undoubtedly be efficient, informed, updated and opinionated. But I don't expect to hear the creak of weathered hardwood in his voice. I won't sense the richness of Hot Rod's 42 years and 3,000 games, either.

When the team moved him from courtside to the back of the lower bowl to accommodate more luxury seating, it may as well have taken away his eyes. He was no longer in the game. But his retirement was also about the road, his life for five decades. Late games and long distances had begun wear on him.

Yet even at 74, he still had that boyish love of the game and his trademark rakish grin. I sat next to him on press row my first year on the beat, 19 years ago. The man was a celebrity. He signed autographs, made appearances, had books written about him. More than once that season, he flashed the same familiar grin as he showed me room keys women had passed down to him.

Tonight before the Jazz meet the Lakers, he'll talk easily with Jack Nicholson as they settle in. They've known one another since Nicholson was a twentysomething aspiring star and Hot Rod played for the Lakers. Many of the game's greats knew him – Magic and Kareem, to name two — and made it a point to shake his hand before games. In Utah, everyone knew him, from politicians and presidents to skycaps and school teachers.

Who didn't recognize the phrases "good if it goes!" and "yo-yo dribble"?