Now Wasn’t <i> That</i> a Kick in the Head?

Amnesia is a topic that doesn’t pop up much, except on daytime TV. Usually it happens to some ex-lover of Susan Lucci’s on “All My Children” when she conks him on the skull with a fireplace poker, or to some poor outpatient from “General Hospital” whose car goes off a cliff or to some unlucky guest of Geraldo Rivera’s who joins a Satan-worship cult for transsexual vegetarians after she forgets where she parked her spaceship.

Well, Magic Johnson got his amnesia on daytime TV, too.

Happened Sunday on NBC. Magic fell down, hit his head, woke up in La-La-Land. All the power went out in his overhead scoreboard.

And now we’re worried about him. Mighty worried. Poor, dear Magic. Hustled to a hospital after suffering a blackout during the Laker-Chicago game. What if he wakes up and can’t remember who he is or where he works? What if he wakes up thinking he’s a used Buick salesman in upper Michigan? What if he wanders off and turns up 30 years later doing a magic act at a resort in the Catskills?

Tune in tomorrow for another episode of--cue organ music--”Centinela Hospital.”

Johnson: “Where am I?”

Doctor: “In a hospital, son.”

Johnson: “Who am I?”

Doctor: “Why, you’re Magic.”

Johnson: “I’m Magic?”

Doctor: “Yes, you’re Magic.”

Johnson: “Can I fly?”

Awakenings. They can be scary. When Magic woke up, maybe he thought he was in Kansas, seeing munchkins.

Yet what happened obviously wasn’t very funny, even to those who could still joke about it.

“If he can spell his name and count his money, he’ll be all right,” said Forum funnyman Mychal Thompson. “It’ll take him a while to count the money.”

The Lakers won’t be laughing long if Magic did get the rabbit pulled out of his hat. They have a 15-game winning streak. They have Portland hearing footsteps. This is no time to lose Magic Johnson. No time is time to lose Magic Johnson.

NBC showed him down and out at courtside. Showed him getting up, groggy. Showed an ambulance driving him to the clinic. Big story, Magic getting knocked cold. NBC did everything but bring in Arthur Kent for a field report.

The doctor said Earvin seemed alert but needed a second opinion. The trainer described Earvin as “lucid” but a little foggy. The unofficial diagnosis was a concussion, caused either by the Forum floor or a Chicago Bull’s shoe.

Good thing it was Horace Grant’s shoe and not Will Perdue’s, because the Windy City Sasquatch wears about a size 22. It also was lucky for the Lakers that an injury kept Chicago’s regular center, Bill Cartwright, from playing. Cartwright has a habit of maiming opponents with elbows as sharp as Freddy Krueger’s fingers.

It was nobody’s fault. Magic was minding his own business, which is to say that he was minding Michael Jordan. Then Magic got trampled by a runaway Grant, who wears black bands around his biceps and a black band around his head that is turning into basketball’s answer to Zorro.

He landed hard, the scariest Los Angeles quake in awhile.

“I got nervous, because he just kept lying there,” Terry Teagle said.

“At first, I thought he was just lying there to get a rest,” Tony Smith said. “Then I got concerned because he wasn’t moving at all.”

“Personally, I forgot all about the game at that point,” James Worthy said.

The Lakers did not, particularly Smith, who played Jordan as though he justifiably belonged on the same court with him. The Bulls played worse after Johnson’s injury than the Lakers did. They left the Forum with headaches almost as painful as Magic’s.

And the Lakers left feeling pretty pleased with themselves.

They want Magic back. Any who don’t want Magic back should have their heads examined.

“But James Worthy is a key player for this team, too,” Teagle reasoned. “And James went out recently and we still won without him. We can survive if we have to.”

The winning streak is at 15 and counting.

An excited Teagle told a teammate: “My rookie year in Houston, we only won 14 games all year.”

Without Magic, the Lakers wouldn’t necessarily turn into the Charlotte Hornets. But they’d be better off were he of sound mind--and so would he. One bad head injury is all it takes for a basketball player to wake up screaming, thinking that he has suddenly turned into Bill Laimbeer.

Besides, you hate to see an athlete with amnesia. It’s hell on autographs.