At ESPN, everybody is joining in and taking sides

As that sage of sports journalism, T.J. Simers, says and demonstrates almost daily, when you don’t have enough to ramble incoherently on one subject, do it on several.

Questions, comments, thoughts:

Fight ‘em, then join ‘em: Why is it that sports figures who make a career out of hating the media invariably join it when they end their careers of news-conference snarling and reporter intimidating? When Bob Knight disagrees with another talking head sitting around an ESPN table and analyzing college basketball, will he pick up his chair and throw it?

Speaking of ESPN: If it is true that Thomas Edison gave us the light bulb and Germany gave us the bratwurst, can we blame ESPN for the table? Currently, we cannot have a sports telecast of any importance without three or four guys sitting around a table, commenting -- before, during and after . . . and again the next morning. It used to be that we watched the game and figured it out. Now, we are dumber. Now, we need to be told that “Joe is hitting his outside shot” and that “State U. needs to get off to a fast start in the second half.”

Speaking of ESPN, part II: Hope you caught the burning controversy last week over the Yankees’ Hank Steinbrenner, son of George, saying that the concept of a “Red Sox Nation” was merely a concoction of ESPN, which was full of Red Sox fans. Well, the gang in Bristol, Conn., set out immediately to right that grievous wrong, led by Mike Tirico, who set aside his 17 scheduled interviews from the ever-exciting NFL combine to point out lots of people who were walking past his broadcast studio wearing Red Sox caps.

And we thought investigative reporting was dead.

Speaking of ESPN, part III: Which is more self-indulgent, a 6-month-old who has just dropped his pacifier or an ESPN broadcaster?

Speaking of self-indulgent: There was a column in this newspaper last Saturday about jockey Alex Solis, who had gotten tired of sitting at the back of the pack, had gone on a winning streak and was set to make a run in the $1-million Santa Anita Handicap aboard Celtic Dreamin. Guess who finished at the back of the pack?

Speaking of self-indulgent, part II: A year ago, the same columnist wrote about tennis star Lindsay Davenport, who was having a baby and clearly would not make a comeback, under any circumstances. Guess who last weekend won her fourth women’s tour title since the birth of her son?

On the surface, Los Angeles doesn’t do well: First, we had the racetrack at Santa Anita that didn’t drain well. Then we had the racetrack at Fontana that drained too much. And Sunday, we had the L.A. Marathon, which is unable to attract any sort of international field or stature because the course is too hilly.

Some cities have fields of dreams. Ours are nightmares.

Opportunity missed: When C. Vivian Stringer of Rutgers recently won her 800th game in women’s college basketball, why wasn’t Don Imus there with two dozen red roses for her and a dozen for each of her players?

Opportunity missed, part II: Fifteen years from now, golf will trail tennis in popularity because Tim Finchem, who has missed little in his reign as head of the PGA Tour, missed one thing. The tennis-playing children of Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf will be dominating the sports world and the Golf Channel will be running reruns of Jim Furyk’s putting routine because Finchem failed to arrange a timely meeting between Tiger Woods and Lorena Ochoa.

What is Dr. Jerry Buss a doctor of? Does he do surgery or just carve up the rest of the NBA every couple of years with a big trade?

Boxing is about to shoot itself in the foot twice. First, the Floyd Mayweather Jr. thing with some pro wrestler for $20 million just adds to the sport’s already knee-deep reputation of selling baloney. Then comes Oscar De La Hoya, matching himself in a non-pay-per-view bout against some tomato can at low admission prices in a soccer stadium, pawning it off as a “fight for the people.”

It is a fight to get him a win and set up the pretense of a competitive rematch against Mayweather. The first match set records for pay-per-view buys.

Knowing boxing, if the wrestler squashes Mayweather and the tomato can beats De La Hoya, we’ll have wrestler versus tomato can in roller derby on pay-per-view.

You may have noticed the similarity in the legal defense strategies of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, accused performance-enhancer-perjurers. Bonds’ lawyers asked for dismissal on the grounds that the questions he was asked were confusing and he didn’t understand them. Clemens’ case is based on the people around him “misremembering.”

In our world, ignorance is bliss. In the world of Bonds and Clemens, it is a legal brief.

Early nomination for Sportsman of the Year: Rep. Henry A. Waxman.

Finally, a sad goodbye and fervent wish: L.A. Daily News sportswriters Matt McHale, Billy Witz, Heather Gripp and Matt Kredell all were asked to depart their jobs Friday, as the newspaper business continues to scrape flesh off its bones. They were competitors, some friends, all respected.

May they all land well, feed their families and harbor lifelong bad thoughts about the people who did this to them and their business.

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Bill Dwyre can be reached at [email protected]. For previous columns by Dwyre, go to latimes.com/dwyre.