Reviewing Plaschke and Simers

Jay: As an aside, I’ve really started noticing the good, the bad, and the ugly about the L.A. Times coverage of L.A. since I took the Dodgers’ Prospectus Triple Play beat on Baseball Prospectus. I liked much of Tim Brown’s latest piece but found myself still disagreeing with a good amount of it.

Jon: I disagreed with some of it too, but I felt his approach, from the Times’ standpoint, was so fresh. In a sense, I didn’t feel I had to agree with it all, because at its core, the article was open-minded, which the columnists typically have not been.

Jay: I agree with you - I didn’t mind disagreeing with some of the nits that could have been picked because the main thrust, that one win in October wasn’t worth a bunch of stupid decisions to preserve the core of that team at all costs, was right on.

As for the L.A. Times in general, I can’t think of a single NY writer as odious as either Bill Plaschke or T.J. Simers … except for Mike Lupica on his bad hair days.

Jon: Plaschke and Simers were both better as beat writers. They’re good reporters, and they had to rein it in a little bit, which was good.

Jay: Judging from their output over the past year, time has clearly passed them by. These guys beat DePodesta like a rented backup catcher and can’t even acknowledge the fact that hey, they actually won something, in stark contrast to the preceding seven seasons.

Jon: Simers, I think I’ve figured out. Nothing less than unadulterated, unmitigated success impresses him - most recently represented in Los Angeles by USC football. Everything is black and white - and if you’re not the best, you deserve ridicule. With some occasional exceptions made for honesty - such as when Milton Bradley had a forthright discussion with him. In a sense, I can even see where Simers comes from - but it’s just way too cutthroat and nasty an approach for me. Ultimately, I think his columns are poisonous.

Plaschke simply is not governed by past opinions in his columns, not governed by anything but what he feels in that moment. And he’s not the best logician.

Jay: Simers would probably play better in NY.

Plaschke would probably play better in some country where the concept of the two-sentence paragraph had yet to be introduced.

Jon: Okay, I’m going to speak up in defense of Plaschke on that one.

Jay: Knock yerself out.

Jon: For one thing, I don’t think the one-line paragraph is inherently evil. And I think if you counted them up, he doesn’t do it nearly as often as his rep indicates. I could be wrong.

Jay: Just pulled up his latest article and five of his first seven grafs are one sentence. That’s just lazy.

Jon: I guess I’d just say that it’s the least of my worries. He can write haiku for me if he makes sense doing it.

Jay: It’s like nails on a blackboard to me. Unless it’s done with extreme care, it’s the sign of an utterly vapid line of reasoning, one that can’t even find a sentence to support it.

Jon: Well.

The sentence might be in the next paragraph.

I think.

Or maybe the one after …

… that.

Jay: Here’s what I think.

He can’t be bothered.

Like high-powered magnets, his thoughts are too weighty to put side by side.

Deal with it.

Jon: Hey, that’s good stuff!

Jay: I could do his job without wearing more than a bathrobe and a hangover.

Jon: Don’t we?

Jay: Oops, I’ve revealed too much ;-)

Jon: Back to the team?

Jay: Sure.

Their discussion continues at Weisman's Dodger Thoughts, then moves over to Futility Infielder.