Our Times And Tired Storyline
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Finally, someone other than us has come out to question the ongoing bias by the L.A. media, the former world champion (a.k.a. the Los Angeles Times) in particular, regarding Matt Kemp. Bob Timmermann is one of the few writers to have the balls to come to Kemp’s defense, wondering why the Times continues to frequently pile on Kemp and make him the scapegoat for all of the Dodgers’ woes. Where’s Casey Blake when you need him? James Loney? George Sherrill and Jonathan Broxton? Frank McCourt?
Sunday’s piece by T.J. Simers regarding Kemp, and more directly Dave Stewart, was another hack job. Typical Simers though. For a while, it was all fun and games with the sarcastic and acid tongue Page 2 columnist, who left San Diego years ago in another attempt by the Times to fill the void left by the late Jim Murray, at a tune of more than $160,000 per year (what does inflation blow that up to now?).
We all got a good laugh with T.J., but like any comic, the laughs get old. Simers, like the Tribune doorknobs who employ him and the ones who have run Times into the ground, has a leash with no bounds. And for the past year or so, his stitch has become jaded, even with readers who found the act funny but now could care less. We were one of them.
In Sunday’s hatchet job of Kemp’s agent Stewart, Simers sarcastically referred to an incident involving of an arrest of Stewart 25 years ago for soliciting a prostitute, who happened to be a transvestite.
All is fair in love and war, right?
On Aug. 19, Steve Dilbeck, the Times’ emotionally-lacking (yep, sarcasm indeed) baseball blogger, upped the ante with this gem regarding Kemp: “Is it even possible for anyone to say or write anything remotely critical of Matt Kemp without his hoard of oversensitive defenders screaming: ‘They’re making him a scapegoat! It’s unfair! He’s being singled out! They only yell at Matty!’
“Wah-wah-wah.”
Yep, cry me a river. Dilbeck went on to defend Simers’ piece. But since he’s playing defense attorney for the home team, let the record show that Dilbeck got his job at the Times because of Simers. Plenty of writers were more qualified. But in sports journalism, it’s who you know, not necessarily who or what you’ve done.
While the Times was laying off writers and editors left and right, Simers wrote a real tear-jerker about the L.A. Daily News laying off Dilbeck. We’d be the first to tell you how the newspaper business sucks and those in charge have no clue about their most productive employees, but to write a column on a friend and not defend your co-workers is lame in our book. How about that for a teammate?
We’ll let Mr. Timmermann tell the rest of the story. We’re getting a bit nauseous.
L.A. Observed.com
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