Game 21: Mitch Chortkoff - Chicken and Broccoli

The Los Angeles sports world lost its most committed chronicler in 2018 when Mitch Chortkoff passed away at 78. Chortkoff was born in Brooklyn but at five, his family moved to Southern California where he would spend the rest of his life both mythologizing and criticizing Lakers players over a score of Southland papers . For over fifty years, Chortkoff covered the Lakers with the Los Angeles Times Orange County edition, the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, the Santa Monica Evening Outlook, the San Diego Evening Tribune, the South Bay Daily Breeze, and the Culver City Observer. His span included the Lakers’ first years in L.A. to the media circus surrounding Lonzo Ball and his family, and everything in between.

When Chortkoff passed, a wide array of tributes were published from his colleagues, friends, and the Lakers organization he wrote so passionately about. So, I thought I’d let them do the talking for me. Here are some stories and memories gathered from tweets, press releases, Facebook comments, obits, and some new stories from past Goldstein and Gasol interviewees and sportswriters like ESPN’s J.A. Adande:

J.A. Adande, ESPN commentator, Director of Sports Journalism at Northwestern University, and former Los Angeles Times sportswriter

“Mitch was the entry point to a lot of my Lakers news in the 1980s because we used to subscribe to the Santa Monica Evening Outlook.  And he was still around when I started covering Laker games myself 15 years later. I remember he had this laugh, it was like a softer version of Arnold Horshack's laugh on "Welcome Back Kotter"“

Thomas Bonk, former Los Angeles Times sportswriter and Goldstein and Gasol Game 13 subject

“Mitch was king of the puns and spent much time with Chick on the road trips.  Every time we had to pay at a toll booth on the team bus, you could count on Mitch to say 'This trip is taking its toll on me.'  Jerry West called him 'Goat Head,' with affection. He thought Mitch had a head shaped like a goat, simple as that. West Virginia humor never dies.”

Steve Bisheff, writer at Orange County Register and friend of Mitch’s since childhood - Facebook

“The world lost one of its most gentle souls when my lifelong friend Mitch Chortkoff passed away on Tuesday.Mitch was truly unique, a warm, kind person with a wonderful sly sense of humor and a penchant for some of the most outrageous puns you've ever heard. The more groans his puns would induce, the more Mitch loved it.

Mitch was a sportswriter for more than six decades and the Lakers were the real love of his life. So much so that the one time he was actually engaged to be married, he bolted not soon after because he thought it would interfere with the lifestyle he loved.

Ah yes, that lifestyle. Heaven to Mitch was a road trip with the Lakers, complete with five-star hotels, room service food and easy access jacuzzis, all leading up to covering the games he couldn't wait to watch and cover.

Everyone loved Mitch, from the late Chick Hearn to Magic Johnson to Shaquille O'Neal. He was so even-keeled, never angry, never mad. His media pals loved to hang around him because he was so funny and so easy going. Nothing flustered Mitch, unless of course they happened to run out of cookies in the press room.

Yes, Mitch loved to eat. He and his friend the late Alan Malamud formed probably the all-time exacta of sportswriters who loved sweets. I'll never forget we all went out to an Italian dinner one night, one of those places that kept putting dishes in front of you, from salad to soup to pasta to steak to spumoni. Afterwards most of us were stuffed. Not Mitch and Alan. They stopped on the way home, bought a pie and proceeded to devour the whole thing between them.

Mitch and I met when we were teenagers. Once we realized we both were hoping to be sportswriters one day we were inseparable. We roomed together, along with a couple of friends, first at an apartment near USC, where I was attending school, and later in West L.A., near where we both worked.

So many great memories, so many great times, so much laughter and insights into the business. Mitch was the best man at my wedding and like an uncle to my kids. I always thought he'd make a great dad himself, but he always argued no. It would interfere too much with that lifestyle.

He truly loved what he did, and that makes him one of the lucky ones. But the real lucky ones were those of us who grew to know him and love him through so many cherished years.

Damn, I can't tell you how much I miss him already.”

Chris Long, sportswriter

“I had 13 sports editors in my 44-year career. Mitch was the absolute best .... no offense to the other 12. Like a great coach, he had a way of treating people so they would run through a wall for him. He never got angry. If you screwed up, he patiently explained what you did wrong and what you needed to do to be better next time, always positive. Don't forget the cookie story in Cincinnati. The Reds always put out chocolate chip cookies in the sixth inning. The Dodgers were there as the Reds started a nine-game homestead. Mitch was on the trip. The next day, the press room chef announced that all of the cookies were gone for the rest of the Dodgers series, the Giants series and the Padres series. I had two newspapermen who I considered to be my mentors -- Mal Florence and Mitch Chortkoff. RIP, boss.”

Peter Schmuck, sportswriter

“Yep, Steve, just a sweet guy...like you. First met Mitch during my abortive attempt to cover the Lakers and a rookie phenom named Magic something. I was 23, horrible and never knew what to write. Mitch, of course, never let anyone see him sweat. "Something will happen,'' he always said, and something always did.”

Excerpt from the Lakers 2018-2019 Press Guide:

“A gentle soul with a wry sense of humor, Mitch loved to produce groan-inducing puns. He was famous for them. Almost as famous as he was for having an All-Pro sweet tooth. Oh, how he loved his desserts. Once, when the Lakers were in Houston in the midst of a best two-out-of-three first round of the playoffs, the media went out together to one of the town’s better steak houses. After a huge meal, the waiter asked if they’d like to try the mud pie for desert. Another writer, Steve Springer, argued that they should pace themselves, because the playoffs could go on for two months and they might gain 30 pounds each if they were not careful. Mitch would have none of it. “Let’s have the mud pies now, then we’ll adjust later,” he said. So it was mud pies all around. 

As fate would have it, when the series returned home, Houston shocked the Lakers, beating them in L.A. and stunningly ending their season prematurely. When they opened the Lakers’ locker room after the game, it was as quiet as a funeral parlor. Players sat with towels over their heads staring at the floor. The media gathered uncomfortably in the middle of the room, waiting for someone to become available. It was at that precise moment that Mitch leaned over, tapped Springer on the shoulder and whispered: “Aren’t you glad you had that mud pie now?” 

Ask anyone and they’ll tell you Mitch was among the earth’s most gentle souls. He was kind and patient with young writers and even managed to maintain good relations with some of the more, uh, aggressive TV and radio types. Who else would show up early at games with a huge bag of Mrs. Fields cookies and distribute them generously along press row? Mitch was one of the lucky ones. He truly loved everything about his job. He was so obsessed with covering the Lakers that he continued to work the beat even after diabetes forced him to have not one, but both of his legs amputated. Such a handicap would have overwhelmed most people. Not Mitch. He merely adjusted and found new ways to get to the games and write his stories.“

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Chicken with Broccoli

2 pounds fresh broccoli

12 chicken breasts (halves)

4 tablespoons butter

Pepper

1 pint sour cream

1 ¼ ounce package onion soup mix

1 cup whipping cream

¼ cup Parmesan cheese

Clean broccoli and cook in water for 3 to 4 minutes. Do not overcook. Place in large buttered baking dish. Skin chicken breasts. Heat butter in large skillet and brown chicken in butter. Season with pepper and cook over low heat until tender.

Remove chicken and cut each breast into 2 or 3 large chunks. Combine sour cream, onion soup mix, and pan juices. Spread half of this mixture over broccoli and top with chicken. Whip cream and fold in remaining mixture of sour cream, soup mix, and pan juices. Spread over chicken. Sprinkle liberally with Parmesan cheese and bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until browned thoroughly.

“Being a bachelor, this favorite dish is prepared by friend, Psychologist Barbara Lasser.”

Barbara… WHY? Look, I don’t know the full history of Mitch’s medical history. But I do know that Mitch had to have both legs amputated due to diabetes. And Barbara, who is described in Mitch’s ESPN obit as his “longtime companion,” regularly brought him a giant tray of chicken baked in whipping cream to eat. I think they may have been connected.

This recipe is actually not that bad until the whipping cream is added. 95% of the ingredients make sense. The mixture of sour cream, dried onion soup mix, and pan juices tasted deliciously unhealthy once mixed in with the cooked chicken and broccoli. If I ever had these ingredients (sans whipping cream) laying around, I’d remake this provided I only ate boiled vegetables for the next week. So I knew something was off when the recipe called for me save half of the mixture so I could fold in… a cup of whipping cream? That couldn’t be right! I thought. But this is Goldstein and Gasol. I cook what they write, no matter how disgusting it sounds.

After 15 minutes whipping it into shape, I folded the cream into the sour cream/onion soup mix/pan juice mixture and added it to my mom’s Pyrex I borrowed for the recipe. In it went into the oven and out it came, tasting like someone added a cup of whipped cream into a very well seasoned dish of chicken and broccoli.

I ate one plate. Then I ate the only quick meal I had around my apartment:. A Hot Pocket. And it settled my stomach! The chicken had turned my stomach into a gurgling sewer pipe. I hand picked the remaining chicken, rinsed off the whipped gunk, and put it in some tupperware. This might’ve topped Rosemary Garmong’s ambrosia fruit salad as the worst thing I’ve made for Goldstein and Gasol. At least with the fruit salad, it was just a dessert. I knew I was throwing $15 in the trash, but at least I already ate dinner. Not with this. I was starving and actually looking forward to it..

The next morning, I woke up with the worst back pain I have ever felt in a lifetime of back pain. Turns out I was experiencing my first kidney stone! But for a brief moment (especially when I was vomiting), I thought this broccoli and chicken had killed me. That’s how bad it was.