The state of our world

What didn't you see coming?

 

Spnited praising a Simers piece.

 

Look up, Beej!

Here come the frogs.

 

Not only did the world not end, the board didn't even crash!

 

Seriously? Okay, I'll read it.

 

I know Dilbeck and don't like the fact that he was laid off. I don't like it one little bit.

But reading and knowing the past TJ Simers, I wonder if he cares about Dilbeck or is just using it to get in a shot at the LA Daily News (which would be deserved) and Jeff Kent (which would also be deserved). I can't help but feel this is a bit of grandstanding by Simers. Even a blind pig can find an acorn every once in a while.

I am a bigger Simers-basher than spnited. If I said something nice, the universe would explode AND implode.

 

Gold, I respect the hell out of your contributions here and I know you'd rather eat glass a-la orange than praise anything coming from Simers' fingers. But this column was nails.

Your hatred for Simers is clouding your ability to read the column for what it is, which Harbinger summarized rather nicely.

Discount the between-the-lines motivation you're taking a guess at and take it for what it is: a good, dead-on nails column that praises a class act and someone who did his profession proud for 30-plus years and turned in his own Hall-of-Fame career.

 

Maybe you're right, bird. It just reminds me of when Eddie Haskell would try to flatter Mrs. Cleaver on Leave It To Beaver.

It's not hate, it's just skepticism. Simers usually has a condescending attitude toward any other writer, and my first reaction is "What's this guy up to?"

I think the top story on the front page of today's LA Times where so many people lost their jobs by several large companies tells the story of hard times.

Reading it a second time, there might be some merit to it because Kent is a bigger jerk than Simers - quite an accomplishment in my book.

 

I covered a USC game with Dilbeck, shadowed him for a while, and had hoped to chat with him for a while as we were both finishing up. As I was packing up, I noticed he had gotten up and started to chat with T.J. The conversation lasted more than 30 minutes, full of laughs and pats on the back, and I ended up leaving without my accomplishing my goal.

This was not T.J. being T.J. This was T.J. being a good dude.

 

Simers has long been my favorite writer in the country and I've been told about a thousand times by a thousand different people "If you knew him, you wouldn't like him so much."

I'm glad I don't know if that's true or not. I don't think he was taking a shot at the Daily News, because he took a shot at the LAT as well.

It's an amazing column and I love reading an actual interesting take on a douchebag like Kent retiring.

 

If that's an "agenda" column . . . I'll overlook that, in a heartbeat.

First-class stuff. And I'm another who, when Simers pushes, I
frequently want to push back.

 

That's true, but columnists occasionally get the latitude to make unnewsworthy into newsworthy. Rick Reilly made an entire career out of it. So Dilbeck is now symbolic of the 42,000, many of whom are better people than a petulant, dyspeptic, circumcise-marks-on-his neck millionaire second baseman. Sometimes, the columnist is more than the paper's voice. He's the voice of the 42,000. If that's what he was going for here, then he indeed nailed it.