T.J. dings his paper's blog

Sports columnist T.J. Simers claimed in Thursday's Times column that he just noticed his paper's month-old, Daily News-citing Lakers blog—and says the Times should have gone with the other NBA team in town. Not that he's a big fan of blogs and bloggers.

I would've thought if The Times were going to try something innovative such as that, it would want to focus on the best basketball team in Los Angeles — the Clippers.

I looked closer at the Lakers Blog, and it read: "Adam and Brian Kamenetzky have the dirt on what's going on with the Lakers." No wonder people think newspapers always dwell on the negative, hiring two extra guys just to make sure everyone knows how crummy the Lakers are going to be this season.

Latimes.com also has the "Gold Derby Blog," the "Oscar Beat Blog," and "The Movable Buffet Blog." But no Clippers Blog.

From what I know about blogs, it doesn't appear you need much more than someone who likes to hear themselves talk, who knows how to type and who also owns a computer. It's not as if you have to interview anyone, or even attend a game, so long as you sound as if you know what you're talking about — you know, kind of like sports talk radio.

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But if that's what it takes to put together a Clippers Blog on Latimes.com — repeating what has already been written in the Daily News, I guess the Daily News is going to have to start doing more on the Clippers. I'll have to speak to their editors.

Simers' column ran on page three of Sports because, for the first time in a long time (maybe ever?), his usual second page was given over to a full-page ad. Jon Weisman at Dodger Thoughts thinks the page 2 ad was a first in his lifetime.