Sparring, because his father was a pugilist, get it? Good. In a bit of a red on red turned cardinal and gold on powder keg blue and gold moment, USC linebacker coach Ken Norton Jr. aired grievances this week with dear old alma mater UCLA. Reports the Los Angeles Times:
"If DeWayne leaves, I would consider several candidates for the defensive coordinator job. Kenny probably would have been among those considered, with no guarantees. However, his quotes in the paper say he is staying at USC, so we wish him well."
Translation: good luck ever getting hired by UCLA. Ahhh, catty man fights. Usually this stuff is so NFL.
Los Angeles Dodgers second baseman Jeff Kent has never been known as the most congenial guy on the planet. If I were to describe Jeff's personality in one word, well, one word that I can use here, I'd take cantankerous. The dude just gets mad at everything. He's like the old man next door always yelling at you to get off his lawn or turn the damn music down.
Jeff's fought with teammates, most memorably Barry Bonds, and has a general disdain of all things media. One member of the media that's generally been considered untouchable though is Dodgers play-by-play man and living legend Vin Scully.
Well, like a lot of people following the Dodgers, Scully has said during Dodgers games that Kent hitting third in front of the newly acquired Manny Ramirez has really helped Jeff out. Well, after Jeff talked to the T.J. Simers about what Vin and others have been saying, Scully was no longer untouchable.
"Vin Scully talks too much," Kent said.
Now that's funny, the guy who normally doesn't say much, this time saying way too much.
Not so long ago, Joe Torre told Manny Ramirez that the slugger was going to have to cut his patented dreadlocks if he wanted to be True Dodger. This naturally stems from Torre's time in New York, when the True Yankees were clean cut, presentable, and looked like the type of baseball players you'd want your she-male, muscular type to be photographed on the front page of the New York Post with. The Yankees are wholesome like that.
Sure feels like we've been talking about Curt Schilling a lot this year. You know, for a guy that hasn't pitched a single freaking inning yet. That's probably because his blog, FakeBloodySock.com38Pitches, has been getting to much pub for being a whiny, hit n' run joint.
But Schilling might not throw a single regulation pitch this season -- and maybe ever again -- because his next scheduled surgery (June 23) could effectively end his career.
On WEEI radio's "Dennis & Callahan Show," Schilling said, "We're still nailing down exactly what kind of surgery it's going to be. When asked if he thought it would end his season, Schilling said yes.
"My season is over and there is a pretty decent chance I have thrown my last pitch forever," he said.
It would seem odd not to have Schill prominently featured as one of baseball's faces. Some people see him as a gasbag type that will spout off on any topic, and others (raises hand) can at least smell our own, so we throw him a little First Amendment love.
Los Angeles Times columnist T.J. Simers deserves credit. No matter what you think of the guy, he's not afraid to get into it with players in the locker room, and he's not afraid to write exactly what he thinks. Which is why he can write columns like this, in which he calls Andruw Jones "Tubbo" and "clueless" after having a summit with Jones in the Dodger clubhouse. Awesome:
Without the fans, I said, there's no reason for you to be here in Los Angeles playing baseball and no way you're getting paid $36 million over the next two years. "I don't care," he said. "You play for the team, you don't play for the fans. The fans never played the game. They don't know."
Both a Tubbo and clueless, which really isn't a very good combination for the player with the highest annual salary in Dodgers history.
Um ... yeah. Probably not the most polite way to write a column, but Jones couldn't have handled that interview any worse. Rather than claiming to do his best for the fans, or something like that, Jones officially said he doesn't care, just before pointing at Simers' belly and guessing that Simers was "going to die tomorrow." That's a fantastic way to exacerbate fan hatred, not to mention draw columnist ire. Officially, Jones now has both.
I'll admit it. I drafted Andruw Jones in one of my fantasy baseball leagues. It was stupid, I know. But when that Gold Gloved donut-destroyer fell to me in the thirdfourth fifth ... yes, fifth ... round, I couldn't help it. Jones, at his peak (which he should still be reasonably near), reminds me, as a Braves fan, of some great baseball. Plus, I thought a shorter contract would mean two monster years in Los Angeles. I really had no clue how freaking fat he is though.
According to T.J. Simers of the L.A. Times, Jones weighed in at a deuce and a daggum half yesterday. And Simers let him know, too, calling him funny fatness-related names in the paper while asking him when he was going to start making contact with the ball again.
Football may be America's new passion, but baseball is still the national pastime. Even if it's not democratic in nature most of the time, the sport at least boasts the hypocritical juxtaposition of capitalism (no salary cap) and equality (everyman's sport ... and seriously, we have plenty of room at the stadium). But it would appear that the ownership of the Los Angeles Dodgers are trying to let everyone know exactly where they stand, by dividing up the Dodgers' stadium by class status.
T.J. Simers relays a reader email in today's L.A. Times, whereby a fifth grade teacher named Russell Wise scored tickets to last Wednesday's Dodger game for seats which he called "the closest I have ever been to Major League action". These seats, however, would not allow him the privilege of getting any autographs from the Los Angeles players, due to a new rule that the club put into effect this year.
Well, that didn't take long. A few unanswered questions and tense moments in the locker room, and Gary Matthews -- he of the $50 million contract and HGH suspicions -- went and pissed off T.J. Simers of the Los Angeles Times:
Matthews, now occupying Darin Erstad's locker, which is a disgrace when you consider what a stand-up guy Erstad was here, begged Modesti to ask a question after I said, "Do you think you have to earn the fans' respect here after being Mr. HGH" this spring?
...I asked Matthews whether he was familiar with Ryan Leaf, since Matthews reminded me of the punk, and got nothing. I asked him whether the questions were too tough, and got nothing. Now he began to remind me of Mike Garrett.
He told Jenkins, "Growing up in this game helps me deal with things," and so I said, "Didn't growing up in this game help you to deal with tough questions?"
"I've got nothing to say to you; you started off on the wrong foot," said Matthews, who signed a $50-million contract to spend the next five years filling up Page 2. "Maybe next time you will start off on the right foot."
As you can imagine, none of this went over well with Simers; he proceed to rip Matthews and the Angels organization for another 20 paragraphs or so. As much as I appreciate his desire to be every bit the tough journalist his first metro editor knew he could be, the column comes off more petulant and bitter than it does measured and informed.
Don't get me wrong: Simers has the moral high ground here, and has every right to ask the needling questions Matthews doesn't like, just as Matthews has the right to decline questions without taking a verbal beating for it. Still, when you write a column like you're a teenage girl composing a "Burn Book," well, you don't exactly state your case well.
Sparring, because his father was a pugilist, get it? Good. In a bit of a red on red turned cardinal and gold on powder keg blue and gold moment, USC linebacker coach Ken Norton Jr. aired grievances this week with dear old alma mater UCLA. Reports the Los Angeles Times:
Los Angeles Dodgers second baseman 
Not so long ago, 
Los Angeles Times columnist 
Well, that didn't take long. A few unanswered questions and tense moments in the locker room, and Gary Matthews -- he of the $50 million contract and HGH suspicions -- 
