Category: Media

Bauer & McVay: Why are we the last to know?

~ T.J. Simers ~ 2 Comments

By T.J. Simers

I have no idea what I am writing about, although I would if I was working the story.

That’s an indictment of the LA Times and its inability to tell us the inside story when it is time to read the inside story.

It’s like the recent Trevor Bauer story, the Dodgers going to the Friday deadline to keep or release Bauer and the Times’ baseball writers apparently clueless to tell us what was happening. Inexcusable, making the LA Times useless.

I remember when Plaschke was a Times’ beat reporter covering the Dodgers, and Dylan Hernandez later followed to do the same job. They were superb, two bulldogs who would never have left Times’ readership uninformed. It has a large part to do with why they were promoted to columnists.

To this day Plaschke and Hernandez are called upon to reach key officials with the teams in town because the beat reporters don’t have the contacts to properly report a story. There might be some truth to the fact that people are more responsive to Plaschke and Hernandez because they are opinion makers, but the truth is Plaschke and Hernandez did a better job of cultivating sources while they were beat men.

The decline in quality leadership within the Times’ sports department has allowed this slippage in beat personnel to cheat Times’ readers from reading a first-rate newspaper.

The list of legendary beat men and women working in the Times’ sports section is, well, legendary. Not anymore.

Now we have the Rams’ head coach John McVay holding football fans hostage with his angst, or whatever reason it is that it’s not a foregone conclusion he’s returning.

The reason, of course, is that Times’ beat reporters have failed to do their jobs, one of their prime responsibilities to get to know the people on their beats better than anyone else in the country. They spend hours and hours with the Dodgers and Rams and yet they appear to know just as much as you and I, which is nothing.

How impersonal, and journalism has always been very very personal. I spent hours talking to Chuck Knox at the end of a day in the media room at Rams Park in Anaheim, talking about his kids, my kids and other reporters couldn’t understand why I thought Knox was such a personable guy.

Rams’ executive John Shaw, who orchestrated the team’s move to St. Louis, would speak to me regularly, often in the Rams offices on Pico in Los Angeles. That’s where I met and talked with owner Georgia Frontiere. The other reporters on the Rams beat openly griped about the favoritism Shaw and Frontiere were apparently showing, yet Frontiere was standing on the practice field less than 100 yards from where the media were seating for photo day and not one of them made a move to go out there and talk to her.

Like any profession, sometimes laziness is far too prevalant.

McVay is 36, seems personable from afar, but why aren’t the Times’ writers telling us what is going on with the guy? It’s not like they are trying to get something out of Belichick.

Why is someone talented enough take his team to the Super Bowl twice, at such a young age, already even considering such a career change? That’s something you come to learn or discuss in October, December or the last time there was noise about him going into a TV booth.

Where’s the insight? Whatever the Times is paying these guys it’s too much because you are not getting your money’s worth.

I really liked Knox, and came to know many of the coaches, GMs, players and owners in the same way. It was part of the job, developing trust with the people we covered, so when a story broke we could make a telephone call and have it answered. I still treasure many of those relationships. I came to even like Mike Garrett and Kevin Malone.

How disappointing to know Times’ reporters are waiting around now for press releases to tell them what they should be telling us with great reporting.

Who cares what LeBron says to LA media wimps

~ T.J. Simers ~ Leave a comment

By T.J. Simers

Saw a clip of LeBron James chastising the Los Angeles media for not asking him about the Jerry Jones’ picture.

Then I saw Stephen A Screamer on TV supporting James and blasting the LA Media.

First of all, why doesn’t James pick on someone his own size. The LA Media is small, uninspired and totally overwhelmed while lacking confidence. There is no one who can stand up and represent the LA Media as a giant in the business.

Plaschke is home listening for ambulances and Hernandez is just home.

Can you name another writer in the LA market? You want to raise your hand and say, “Helene Elliott,” and have everyone laugh at you?

If you haven’t heard about the Jerry Jones’ photo, you really aren’t missing much. The Washington Post unearthed a picture of Jones taken when he was a sophomore in high school standing in the back of a group of White kids blocking the entrance to several Black students.

You probably weren’t born yet when the photo was taken. I was seven. I didn’t care then that he was photographed and I don’t care now. Had I been in the Lakers’ media room Wednesday night I would have responded to LeBron: “I don’t care what you have to say about a photo taken 65 years ago.”

LeBron’s point, though, was he is always asked about controversial things when they involve a Black person not faring well, singling out Kyrie Irving as a prime example.

Kyrie Irving was criticized for apparent anti-Semite sentiments. And he’s an NBA player.

Jerry Jones’ picture was only current while taken 65 years ago because the Post was doing a story on Jones’ legacy. And he’s an NFL owner.

Listening to the TV guys paid to argue, they said Jones hasn’t hired a Black head coach, didn’t react to Colin Kaepernick’s banishment from football, and he comments on everything else. He should denounce racism, the critics of Jones concluded.

Dak Prescott is biracial and is Jones’ quarterback, but I don’t know if that counts as having a Black quarterback for the guys on TV paid to argue. Assistant head coach Rob Davis is Black but is obviously not the head coach. The running backs, wide receivers and tight end coaches are all Black, but they are not the team’s head coach. Five of the team’s nine defensive coaches are Black.

Hasn’t Jones already denounced racism? I know, I’m White, and of course I would write that and I just did.

Kaepernick wasn’t that good of a quarterback, and everyone who wanted him to be signed and keep playing has no idea what they are talking about. The fact that Jones did not come to his immediate defense is a bogus argument. Jones knelt with his players, although one guy paid to argue on TV said he did so after some delay.

Jones commented on the Post picture, but it wasn’t to the satisfaction of the TV critics. Jones said he was a high school student moved by curiosity and caught gawking in the wrong place and time. I find that believable, but then I am White, and I would.

I see no reason why Jones has to denounce racism. If he does so, those asking for such a proclamation won’t believe him. The search for a reason to be outraged or remain outraqed is pretty strong.

Jones might be guilty of being an “old boy,” but not necessarily an old racist.

Maybe he was when he was 14 because he was from the south and we all know the stereotype. He talks like a Southerner, who might be living on a plantation. We have one still photo to make the case, and the mention of Kaepernick and not hiring a Black head coach as grounds for outrage today. I know, I couldn’t understand. And I don’t.

I don’t call White athletes “my brothers,” as Stephen A. Screamer does Black athletes, but it works for him.

As for the LA Media, it is already a collection of lightweights and picking on them is unfair. And especially after a night game when deadlines limit the number of reporters who have the time to listen to James wax poetic.

The LA Times ran a story from the Associated Press online about James’ challenging the media, although the Times had a reporter there covering the game. Who knows if the newspaper had someone at the post-game press conference especially knowing how streamlined the LA Times operation has become to save money.

The Associated Press has the task now of covering up the Times’ omissions, mistakes or attempts to save money.

Now I don’t know these days about reporters’ accessibility to someone like James at practice or before a game, but from my previous experience, I know big-name players like LeBron spend much of their time hiding from the media until after they have taken a shower following a game. That’s too late for someone working on deadline.

Had someone challenged LeBron or told him no one really cared what he had to say about Jones’ picture 65 years ago, the reporter might’ve gotten in trouble. Some of that sits with the audience, most sports fans very upset if a reporter challenges, and God forbid, irritates a sports star.

The athlete has the microphone and the podium, making it very difficult for reporters to muster the courage to challenge a superstar and maybe generate a rebuke by way of response. Had that happened Wednesday night it would have been shown everywhere on TV.

So, most reporters avoid potential contentious meetings today with athletes or lightweight reporters, preferring to stay home and sound tough on their computers. Like I am doing right now.

.

Volunteering to work for free

~ T.J. Simers ~ Leave a comment

By T.J. Simers

I think we have pretty well established the fact the LA Times sports section stinks.

Plaschke writes everything in threes, a trite trick used by kids writing for their high school newspaper. Elliott can’t write and Hernandez seldom writes. The Angels coverage was nonexistent, and folks wonder why Ohtani got so little consideration for MVP.

In the last few months, the newspaper has dedicated a ton of space and financial resources to feature the mediocre writing of soccer writer Kevin Baxter, who is living it up in Qatar and writing about a team that has almost no chance to advance. And the tournament has just begun.

It’s frustrating because the LA Times once had a great sports section under the leadership of Bill Dwyre with writers like Murray, Ostler, Reilly, Heisler, Dufresne, Harvey, Florence, Hoffer, Glick, Newhan and Penner.

Even if you included the hacks now, you couldn’t find a lineup worthy of the $1 it costs to buy a six-month subscription to the digital product.

Take the Lakers’ coverage..

Can someone explain to me what Lakers’ beat reporter Dan Woike was trying to say in the first paragraph of Monday’s story: “Eventually, it’ll be harder for the Lakers to follow this path, the one that everyone seems to agree is the one with the best chance of leading the team to a successful season.”

Huh? What? Best path that everyone agrees on? Is he talking about getting rid of Westbrook again?

This is atrocious writing and I think we can all agree on that.

It gets worse: “But for now, with LeBron James on the bench recovering from a strained adductor muscle, there’s no doubt about what the team needs from Anthony Davis.”

Huh? What? First of all, what is a strained adductor? And is this the same Anthony Davis that had Plaschke writing: “Winless, helpless Lakers should consider trading Anthony Davis?” Who are we supposed to believe, Plaschke or Woike?

It gets even worse: “Him being great,” writes Woike, and hard to tell is he’s writing about James or Davis, “playing at a most-valuable-player caliber once again, is the clearest pathway to Western Conference relevance.”

So, I guess Woike has given up on Western Conference dominance and now is shooting for relevance. How the Lakers have fallen, their only hope the guy that Plaschke wants traded.

And that could be James or Davis, because Plaschke has called for each of them to be traded.

Meanwhile, Woike goes on to quote Davis, who explained the victory over San Antonio. Instead of Davis saying, “We beat one of the worst teams in the NBA,” Woike dutifully writes down Davis saying, “We just locked in.”

Gives me chills.

I remember a Rams’ cornerback, back in the day when they were real losers like they are again today, saying after Steve Young set a NFL record for passing yards against the Rams’ secondary, “We did some good things out there.”

I threw my notebook to the ground and started yelling in the Rams’ locker room. “Oh, my Lord, what a joke. I’m not going to write this crapola down.”

Pretty easy to understand why I don’t write for the LA Times any longer, although I sent an email to owner Patrick Soon-Shiong a month or so ago agreeing to write again for the Times so long as any paycheck I might earn was given to Dr. Noah Federman at Mattel Children’s Hospital for his study on mitigating damage to kids undergoing treatment for bone cancer.

I told Patrick I would work for nothing but wanted $200,000 a year donated to cancer treatment at Mattel’s.

I never got a response from Patrick, figuring most of his money was going to Qatar to pay for Baxter’s soccer expenses or they already had too many good writers.

Like the Lakers — the Times stinks

~ T.J. Simers ~ 1 Comment

By T.J. Simers

Haven’t written in a while. Too depressed reading the LA Times sports section.

Thursday morning, they had their Lakers’ beat reporter writing that the Lakers had watched film of themselves provoking the players to talk amongst themselves. Who knew the Lakers talk to each other?

I wonder if any of them spoke up about the Lakers’ mismanagement under Jeanie Buss and Rob Pelinka.

The hard-hitting news story, written by the Times’ shameless Lakers beat reporter, concluded the Lakers will be a lot better now because they criticized each other.

As the Times’ headline read: “Tell-the-truth film session may just have been spark Lakers needed.” Then again it may not. That will be another silly story for another day.

I just want to know who thought it would be a good idea to have the Lakers watch themselves? Nothing like driving home the point what losers they are.

The Times reported, “the biggest gains the Lakers can hope to make are in terms of chemistry.”

They pay this guy who writes gibberish for the Times about the Lakers. How about winning, which seems like the biggest gain the Lakers could make. Maybe move up in the standings.

Maybe he models himself after Plaschke. Plaschke seldom interviews anyone, a cheap way to write a column and never leave his house. This week he predicted UCLA will beat USC.

Now imagine that; he’s been writing USC is the best team in the land and now he’s got them losing to the other team in L.A. How do you predict a team is so great and then advise everyone they really aren’t?

Plaschke has made a career of being wishy-washy and making ridiculous sports predictions and has taken delight in doing so. If USC loses, he will be correct. If USC wins, Plaschke will make the case they are national championship bound as he predicted.

There is no great insight into his prediction; he’s just guessing. You have seen him on Around the Horn and so you know he doesn’t have a sense of humor, so he’s not being funny.

I know a little something about predictions. I predicted UCLA and Karl Dorrell would beat USC in 2006, calling it a trap game and telling Uncle Pete Carroll in a radio interview two days before the game he was going to lose.

UCLA won 13-9, and an outraged Plaschke wrote it was the fault of the Trojans’ quarterback John David Booty, and one thing almost no writer does with any experience is single out a college kid to be shamed.

But Plaschke wrote: “This should have been Booty’s moment. He was equipped with quick drops and great wide receivers and an emerging running back. Yet the rush rattled him, the pressure rocked him and, in the end, the game was bigger than he was.”

Ouch. I wonder how long Booty carried that with him.

It’s not a surprise the Times is in free fall. In the last few weeks a UCLA running back wasn’t playing and without explanation. We have never been given a reason by the people who are paid to report on things like this.

The UCLA defensive coordinator missed last week’s game, the Bruins lost and unless I missed it, there has been no explanation what happened to the defensive boss who is still not available.

It’s just shoddy coverage and depressing how much readers are being deprived in the morning newspaper.

I’m sure there are many more examples of where the Times has come up short, but that means I would have to read it more often. No thanks.

Help wanted: LA Times in need of female columnist …who can write

~ T.J. Simers ~ Leave a comment

By T.J. Simers

One person’s garbage is another’s treasure, someone said in trying to explain why Helene Elliott is allowed to write a sports column in the LA Times.

OK, I get that. We used to say that the really crummy columnists would appear in the back of the newspaper with the tire ads. But now newspapers don’t attract that many ads, but still have crummy columnists. And the Times’ sports section is so small the back is almost the front.

When I wrote I was put on Page 2, no one ever dreaming it could be worthy of Page 1.

Now it’s bad enough Elliott is crummy, but she’s a hoarder as well. She was writing Wednesday in the Times about the only woman ever to play for an NHL team, keeping it in her column writing memory bank for almost 30 years.

It was a forgettable story 30 years ago, Canadian Manon Rheaume playing the second period in goal for the Tampa Lightning in an exhibition game. By LA relevancy and NHL standards, she never existed, just like all the NFL guys who play in exhibition games and are cut before making the team.

But we get Elliott writing about her 30 years later as if it matters, and on the front page of the LA Times sports section.

Now I know the LA Times has a female sports editor and there has been a push to display more women’s sports in the newspaper, and I know Helene Elliott is a columnist usually writing about things readers don’t care about, but when these two get together, yuck.

What’s the importance of this story, well, Elliott tells us in a paragraph: ”It’s not that teams and leagues are becoming ‘woke.’ They’ve belatedly realized admitting women into their stale, restricted old boys’ club adds knowledge, perspective and experiences that can invigorate the sport.”

Hogwash. Stale restricted old boys club? I know Elliott’s columns read like that, but 30 later after Manon Rheaume’s brief appearance in exhibition play, nothing has changed. Women still don’t play in the NHL.

And there’s no clamor for more women in hockey. Nothing wrong with it, but how ridiculous to make more out of it than a team just hiring a qualified candidate to fill a vacancy.

Elliott is supposed to be knowledgeable. She’s in the hockey hall of fame, I presume because of her writing but then that goes to show you the quality of writers covering the NHL.

She’s a boring columnist, who was trying to prove a point in Wednesday’s newspaper. I have no idea what that point was beyond referring to the NHL as a stale restricted old boys club, but if she’s trying to make the case the NHL needs more women, double hogwash.

If it was just a training camp feature, it was lame and the sports editor should have buried it inside.

We can agree, disagree or not care, I for one falling in the latter category. Go ahead and load up the front office with women. The Times ran a big picture of Rheaume taken in February on the front of sports Wednesday because she’s nice to look at. Maybe hockey needs cheerleaders.

Maybe hockey is just trying to impress its fan base, or the media that keeps tabs of such things.

I suspect most people only care what’s going on the ice, and like the NFL, there are no females playing the game.

We all like circus stories, a newspaper a great place to tell them, but Elliott’s hockey player performed almost 30 years ago and by most accounts it wasn’t that memorable.

She’s now in the player development department, and I’m sure she has a lot of riveting player development department stories to tell. Didn’t get any in this Elliott column, but maybe Part 2 is coming tomorrow.

I hear it all the time how reporters have agendas, and I always say the same thing: Most writers are just trying to meet a deadline and are making no attempt to push an agenda.

But this was an agenda column, the female sports editor showcasing it, written by the female sports columnist pandering to female readers by presenting a female hockey player who never played in an NHL game. I’m sure, “Let’s get more women stories in the sports section,” is a newspaper mantra. And one not usually to be argued.

However, this just wasn’t a good, interesting column, ending like it started in going nowhere: “Because she said no to those who doubted her so many years ago, other women have had the opportunity to say yes to significant roles in a game that can’t be for everyone if it doesn’t let everyone have a say in its present and its future.”

WHAT? That’s 47 words of gibberish.

Sometimes one person’s garbage is just garbage.

Plaschke needs to write more, gush more about USC

~ T.J. Simers ~ Leave a comment

By T.J. Simers

I have called for an investigation via Twitter, and once the Russian bots, or whatever is insidious about Twitter get ahold of that, look out.

The Los Angeles Times has a problem: Kevin Baxter.

He is the newspaper’s designated soccer writer, which should mean he seldom is allowed to write.

But I’m not sure there is day when he is not featured in the sports pages, today a full page on the Galaxy and yesterday a story on curling from Oakland.

What does Baxter have on the editors?

I know hm, but not well enough or interested enough to say hi.

I sat next to him in the Times’ sports department, but we didn’t talk; he covered soccer. He is not considered one of the sports section’s better writers, and that is troubling because there aren’t many better writers left in the Times’ sports section.

Maybe he’s not considered a good writer because he writes about soccer and no paper would have one of their better writers covering soccer. Or curling.

The same holds true for the Angels, the Times’ believing no one reads about the Angels so why put anyone who can write on the beat, and they haven’t.

Baxter, though, has a grip on the Times’ sports editor. I blame Dwyre for that. He stepped down as one of the nation’s top sports editors to have a love affair with Zenyatta as a columnist. I remember what his wife said at the time: “I don’t care.”

They have gone through a number of sports editors since Dwyre and I don’t know much about the new one except she approved Baxter writing about curling from Oakland. Dwyre approved of hiring J.A. Adande as a columnist, so he didn’t always know what he was doing, but he had far more hits than misses.

Baxter now gets whatever he wants into the newspaper, and I surmised in a tweet that this works to the newspaper’s benefit because the Times wants to get rid of its print section. It’s too costly to produce, a better chance to make money if the newspaper is only on online.

By putting Baxter into the newspaper every day, I’m sure the thinking is the readers won’t be able to stomach it and flee. I did. I cancelled my print subscription recently because the editors were successful on showing to me there wasn’t much there.

I get maybe two Plaschke columns a week for yucks, one Hernandez column a week because he apparently doesn’t like to write and Elliott dribble from the U.S. Open every day.

I lived through Sam Farmer’s yawner on a raven flying over Wimbledon, which only goes to show you the newspaper has a tennis-writing problem.

You put Farmer’s tennis stuff in the newspaper, along with Elliott’s and then mix in Baxter and Los Angeles collectively nods off. I’m beginning to understand why Plaschke has gone so far over the top gushing about USC’s football team.

No one better at being outrageous than Plaschke, which is a much-needed wake up call for the newspaper’s remaining readers. Given all the glory teams of old at USC under Pete Carroll, John Robinson and John McKay, Plaschke has seen enough from wins over Rice and Stanford to know this is a national championship team beyond anything we have seen.

Now I like that. That’s a reason to still buy the Times, Plaschke willing to make a fool of himself and we can follow his journey through the USC season.

He just doesn’t write often enough. I would suggest the editors take away space from Farmer, Elliott and by all means Baxter and throw in Woike, the guy who will be slobbering over the Lakers’ front office, and let’s have Plaschke write a USC daily diary on its march to predicted glory.

We know it will be a positive story until USC plays Utah, the buildup monumental if written by a gushing Plaschke, and should USC stumble, he’ll trash the Trojans.

It’s a win-win, getting Farmer, Elliott, Baxter and Woike out of the newspaper the rest of the football season, or watching Plaschke take out his prediction embarrassment on USC.

Now that’s good newspapering, so I know the Times won’t do it.

I want to know more about Trout

~ T.J. Simers ~ Leave a comment

By T.J. Simers

It’s a war out there.

It is damn near impossible now to get quality time with athletes as a journalist, the enemy banished outside upon the arrival of Covid—never again to be afforded intimate access.

I knew Kobe Bryant, adored him and disliked him and laughed and yelled and all in the same interview. He was human, and I came to understand that. Even Kevin Brown was human, although I could argue the alternative.

I’m not sure I could function today in the sports arena; I’m sure I will find out when the LA Times brings me back.

We don’t know Mike Trout because he’s a quiet guy, and nobody wants to spend the time to really get to know an Angel with all the hurdles to be jumped. I had a rule when I worked that I would not spend much time with a rookie, knowing how I might take advantage of someone inexperienced in dealing with the media.

I told Trout I would get to him the following year, but then the Times took away my press pass and the Angels certainly weren’t going to complain.

And that’s a big mistake on the Angels’ part. They should welcome the media to get to know Trout better and tell fans what kind of guy he is while hitting homer after homer. That kind of familiarity allows an athlete to become almost family-like with a fan base and the Angels need all the fans they can get.

Mike Trout is a superstar secret. Compare him to some other superstars and he’s a mystery. The Angels might think they are doing him a favor by protecting him and limiting his media availability so that he might hit, but he’s gonna hit even if we move in together.

I find it a real shortcoming on my part that I didn’t get to know him better.

And now it’s going to be harder for reporters to do that without being considered a jerk and push boundaries. I used to meet with individual Dodgers at the team’s hotel in San Francisco and spend a couple of hours getting to know them. Did the same with the Clippers like Chris Paul at a team hotel in Philly.

I got to know players better by traveling to cover their games, the crush of L.A. media staying home because even the Times won’t send a reporter on the road with the Angels.

. It’s tough, clubhouses and locker rooms now more removed from the media than ever before, athletes more conditioned to avoid the media after Covid and reporters given only minutes here and there to report superficially on a city’s main sports characters.

And that shortchanges the fans who want more and more from their heroes.

Covid did athletes a huge favor, driving reporters out of their clubhouses or locker rooms. I never said athletes were smart, so much money to be made off the field but most of it going to who we know best.

It’s not always war. As contentious as I might have been, someone asked me yesterday how many sports figures really hated my guts. I don’t know, but the list begins with Brown, Frank McCourt, Lisa Leslie (because I said “jinx” to her when she had hit 50 free throws in a row prompting her to miss her next attempt), Helene Elliott and Arte Moreno.

A strong dislike is another category, and the numbers might be astronomical, but as much as the Angels’ Garret Anderson tried to avoid me, he testified on my behalf at Trial No. 1.

There were skirmishes, of course, with Jeff Kent, Mike Garrett, Phil Jackson and Chris Pronger. Pronger was a hockey player and I visited him during a Stanley Cup Finals match or game or whatever they call it, and told him I was bored and just bring the Cup to the children’s hospital at UCLA when he was done.

He did, placed it in the beds of sick kids and I even said I might go to another hockey game. You get to know people, even hockey players and people, even columnists, aren’t so bad.

The important thing is to get to know people. As soon as Phil Jakcson and I exchanged pictures of our grandkids and he realized mine were just cuter, we could spar good naturally.

Mike Garrett hugged me after hiring Lane Kiffin, and I guess he knew he was going to need all the friends he could get.

McCourt refused to sit down and chat, his shirts so starched maybe they wouldn’t allow him to sit down. His wife, the Screaming Meanie as I called her, wrote my name on her coffee cup sitting across from her husband in the courtroom while they were in the process of getting divorced.

I loved Kent. He was tough, a bully and far too smart to be such a crumb-bum at times, but one of the most interesting people I have ever met. We talked or argued almost daily for four years while he was in uniform, and I’m not sure that could happen today.

There are too many restrictive guidelines now, so many more people willing to throw up walls around sports figures to protect them from being challenged.

LSU Coach Brian Kelly, the former Notre Dame coach, lost his first game. At his weekly press conference following the game, he teased/criticized reporters for arriving late.

Baton Rouge Advocate reporter Leah Vann spoke up and told Kelly, “Maybe if you win I’ll be on time.”

Someone emailed the reporter to say, “If you worked for me you would be fired. Could you be more unprofessional?”

The reporter later apologized, getting it all wrong. That’s a chance for readers to get to know Kelly, and for that matter the reporter. She was being chastised for having a doctor’s appointment and showing up late to hear a football coach probably say nothing all that revealing or memorable.

We have lost all sense of who is important and what is important, a football coach now being paid oodles of money to leave Notre Dame and become gawd-like at LSU. We’ve always had sacred cows in sports, but every one of them is just a human being being confronted by another.

We need reporters to stand toe-to-toe with guys who can score 50 points a game, and challenge them if they say stupid, or unbelievable or arrogant things at times.

To Kelly’s credit he joked with the Baton Rouge reporter and a week later showed up late for his news conference and fined himself $10. That was more revealing than anything he could have said at the podium, and kudos to the reporter who was more than just a stenographer.

I will grant you that reporters are no longer as important as they might have been, a long list of former athletes now working on TV and in radio to pass along their expertise

. But if I want to know more about Mike Trout and his wonderful baseball talent, I’m going to have to wait for one of those ESPN retrospectives. Or return to work and go on the road with the Angels solely to determine what makes Trout so incredible.

Nine years later — just here to help

~ T.J. Simers ~ Leave a comment

By T.J. Simers

Patrick Soon-Shiong refused comment to the Los Angeles Times, the newspaper he owns, and I just love that.

It’s been reported that Soon-Shiong is exploring the opportunity to buy the Los Angeles Angels, the baseball team his newspaper doesn’t cover with any consistency, and I just love that.

If I can figure out something else to write, I can be annoyingly repetitive like Bill Plaschke, and I just love that.

The Angels are expected to be sold for more than $2 billion, and I’m happy to report that the Times’ Bill Shaikin says Soon-Shiong has about $6.9 billion, which should be plenty for the Angeles and me.

That’s right, if Charles can take on the duties of the king at age 73, and both Biden and Trump are older than I am, why shouldn’t I return as Page 2 columnist for the Los Angeles Times.

The Times’ rep has already paid more than $1.2 million into an escrow account for my lawyers and myself, and as soon as they hand over the remaining $3 million or so they owe us, I can return to work.

I’m not sure who I should call to find out what days I will be writing or what games I will be attending, but as boring as the sports section has become, I’d like to try and spice it up.

I recognize one problem, there is no Page 2 anymore. When the space is offered as part of its enewspaper, sometimes it is page 27 or so. When the printed newspaper is delivered home, it’s the last page of the California section, like B10. There are also days when it begins its own section, D1.

When it runs online, sometimes the column runs there, but they wait a day before putting it in the newspaper.

It’s really a ramshackle operation, certainly not designed to help Times’ readers, and you might be wondering why I would like to return at age 72. Well, that’s what bothers me. I’m still going strong without blood pressure medication and there is a void on the second page of the sports section. I think I can offer the experience needed to get more out of the Lakers. I think I can offer more than Westbrook, and are you going to argue with me?

Dave Roberts is going to need help as the Series approaches, and it’s a good bet USC or UCLA are going to need a good spanking down the road.

The readers of the Times deserve a muckraker, troll or whatever you want to call it, but as wretched as the Times tried to portray me in court, the newspaper never fired me. In fact, as court testimony shows the newspaper tried to give me my Page 2 column back, but I just didn’t trust the editors.

The Times later agreed, firing both of those editors, but rather than wait for one of Patrick’s lieutenants to call me, I thought I’d let the newspaper know I’ll be asking for my old job back.

I wonder if Soon-Shiong will offer comment on that.

I’m serious. As soon as Alden Capital, the hedge fund paying the Times’ legal obligations pays me, I’ll be willing to return to the Times. My problem was never with the newspaper, just the editors and I recognize that Soon-Shiong saved the newspaper and now wants to do the same with the Angels.

I can suck up if that’s what is required to return. At least for awhile.

It’s been more than nine years since I wrote for the newspaper, and I noticed they hired a guy to fill Page 2 or whatever they called it a few years back, but it didn’t work out. He just couldn’t write.

Minor detail given some of the newspaper’s other hirings, but that’s why I love Shaikin’s report. He’s one of the very best, and on occasion the Times still employs the very best.

The Times’ sports section, though, has put a lot of effort in going soft the past few years, a Lakers’ beat reporter dedicated to flattering the Lakers’ front office so they will take his calls. I hate to see stuff like that, knowing people pay money to get the straight scoop from the newspaper.

But I also know Soon-Shiong is a minority owner of the Lakers, and I hope I don’t find out he’s behind the house organ the Times now has covering the Lakers.

I guess I could keep my lawyers on retainer.

That’s something we’ll probably have to discuss before I formally return.

Bitter Viewpoint: Times’ sports section stinks

~ T.J. Simers ~ Leave a comment

By T.J. Simers

I love the LA Times. Don’t like the LA Times’ management, or at least the editors who were fired. I go out to lunch as much as I can with former LA Times sports editor Bill Dwyre. He is a newspaperman, the highest honor I can bestow on a former colleague. I consider LA Times’ columnist Dylan Hernandez a dear friend. Times’ sports reporter Bill Shaiken is terrific.

I should have said I loved the LA Times. It stinks now. And I’m pissed the newspaper seemingly doesn’t care. It has a sports section not worthy of Los Angeles.

The last two days the management of the LA Times’ sports section has attempted to drive paid readers away, and from what I hear inside the newspaper, there aren’t that many readers any more to drive away.

On Sunday, the Times ran a picture of a plate of barbecue food on the first page of sports. Bread, brisket, coleslaw, beans, cream corn, sauces and I think I’m going to be sick. Moo’s Craft Barbeque had to be thrilled with the free advertising, the Times apparently no longer charging for promotional plugs.

The story jumped inside the sports section to three more pictures of food from Valley Village, Simi Valley and Santa Clarita. I guess readership has sunk that much, no reason to cater to the tastes of greater Los Angeles or Orange County.

On Monday, the Times’ sports section gave us almost a whole page of amateur volleyball pictures to hide the fact it had no more copy for the page. We got a picture of two feet, a sandy wrist, a stretched-out arm and to complete the anatomy lesson a body diving for a volleyball.

That is what small-town newspapers do during the summer when short of stories, only they feature better photography. The LA Times’ photographer also has a picture of out-of-focus fans sitting in the stands at the beach over a story about “Newsom’s competing priorities.” Schlocky journalism.

I want better. I’ve always wanted better in my newspaper and refuse to accept the ongoing surrender that is taking place in newspapers.

Some people think I have something against the Times, but on the witness stand after holding up my right hand, I said I love the LA Times. I just want better now as a paid subscriber.

Former LA Daily News columnist Tom Hoffarth tweeted out some of my many negative comments Monday about the decline of the Times’ sports section. Former LA Times baseball writer Ross Newhan took notice and tweeted one of his own: “Overflowing bitterness. Made his own bed.”

I don’t think Newhan was referring to Hoffarth.

He’s right, of course, the bitterness overflowing here after having a career cut short before social security eligibility and the Dodgers winning a world championship. I deserved better after shadowing Manny, the McCourts and Milton Bradley.

Now I see where the Times continues to self-destruct almost daily in an effort to drive its business online where they can deliver the news cheaper. That makes me bitter, too. We were told 10 years ago by Times’ management the newspaper was going to disappear, but damn, they had no idea it would take this long.

Now as far as Newhan knowing about my bed, I never make it. Ask my wife, so Newhan is really off the mark there suggesting I made my own bed.

But I did write as I chose, finding a home on Page 2 until a new boss arrived. Then I got demoted, refusing to accept it and then explaining in court why I chose to write differently. Quite the experience having your career placed on trial. Hard to say, ‘”not guilty,” while making fun of Smush Parker.

The lawyer for the Times made fun of me on the witness stand when I called myself “a newspaperman,” and I guess she had read Page Two. Shocking a newspaper would allow such tomfoolery; Newhan would never be a party to such nonsense as he went about the serious business of writing baseball and gaining entrance to the Hall of Fame.

I would never be his choice for a newspaperman, but I always thought that was the strength of the Times’ sports section It had a variety of writers. Richard Hoffer, for example, who wrote less than a dozen stories a year but each brilliant. Rick Reilly wrote for the Times, Jim Murray, Mark Heisler and Chris Dufresne. Genius writers, but very different.

We also had our hacks, the serious, straight-forward, no frills’ writers who worked beats and who might gain entrance into the Hall of Fame like Newhan and Helene Elliott because they lived a long time. I congratulated Helene when she went into the Hall and wrote that I had heard she wrote a lot of good stories.

Funny now, but Lasorda intensely disliked Newhan and I would argue on Newhan’s behalf. I sure wish Lasorda was here, but that has nothing to do with Newhan. It’s just not the same without Lasorda, Scully and Wooden.

Oddly, there aren’t many journalists today modeling their careers after beat reporters like Newhan and Elliott. And that’s a shame—newspapers need the institutional knowledge and professional reporting. Just read the Angels’ or Lakers’ coverage in the LA Times.

Too often now it’s journalism school with no professors in attendance and LA Times’ paid subscribers getting short changed. Just read the Angels’ or Lakers’ coverage in the LA Times. I saw where Bill Plaschke likes to repeat things, so I thought I’d give it a try.

I like pointing out when the Times excels, and did so in Ben Bolch, Sam Farmer and Plaschke tweets recently.

I might no longer be writing for a newspaper, but I still want to read a good one. And Los Angeles deserves one.

Then maybe I won’t be so bitter.