Oh Me, Oh My! Clippers Sportscaster Ralph Lawler To Be Honored

LOS ANGELES, CA – Retiring Los Angeles Clippers broadcaster Ralph Lawler will be honored at Tuesday's Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting.

Lawler has been the Clippers main play-by-play announcer for 40 of the past 41 seasons. He now announces all games televised by the Prime Ticket regional sports network. He is known for such catch phrase as "Bingo!," "Oh Me, Oh My," and "Lawler's Law," which holds that the first team to reach 100 points will win the game.

Since Lawler joined the Clippers in 1978 when they moved to San Diego from Buffalo, New York, the team reaching 100 points first has won 2,332 times in 2,521 games, 92.6 percent.

Lawler has received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, three Los Angeles-area Emmys and a Telly Award. The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame announced in February he would be a Curt Gowdy Media Award recipient, an award presented annually to members of the electronic and print media whose longtime efforts have made a significant contribution to basketball.

Lawler is a graduate of Bradley University in his hometown of Peoria, Illinois, and was inducted into its Sports Hall of Fame in 1993. He is also a member of the Southern California Sports Broadcasters Hall of Fame.

Lawler began his career in Riverside. His first announcing position with a professional team came with the San Diego Chargers in the early 1970s. He then moved to Philadelphia, where he was an announcer with the Phillies, 76ers and Flyers.

When the Clippers moved to Los Angeles in 1984, Lawler remained in San Diego, managing a real estate office, but he returned to the team in 1985.

"I liked San Diego and was really settled there," Lawler told the Los Angeles Times in a 1990 interview. "The move of the franchise was a real shock to those of us who were part of the program in San Diego, but looking back, I should have come up the first year."

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-City News Service