There was no middle ground with TJ Simers.
If you were a sports fan in Southern California, if you were a big-name athlete or coach (if you were someone who read his column), you either loved him or hated him.
And that was exactly what I wanted.
The acerbic and controversial Simers, who spent 23 years at The Times before characteristically leaving, feuding with editors and suing the paper, died Sunday of a brain tumor. He was 73 years old.
“TJ was turning left when everyone else was turning right,” former Times sports editor Bill Dwyre saying. “People read it. It was something different.”
A series of newspaper jobs, including stints at the Rocky Mountain News in Denver and the San Diego Union-Tribune, led Simers to the San Diego edition of the Times in 1990. He started as Chargers Beat writer, then went on to cover the Rams.
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Athletes, coaches and team owners got to know the big guy with glasses, who liked to make fun, who could take over a press conference by asking direct, if sometimes grandiose, questions. He liked to confront people and then write about their responses.
Not surprisingly, his relationships with sports figures were often difficult.
In 2000, Dwyre and former assistant sports editor Randy Harvey wondered whether this unconventional style might fit well in the Page 2 spot that had been the home of Allan Malamud’s beloved Notes on a Scorecard.
Simers began picking fights with his first column.
“It is a duty to punish, to turn to Dodger losses, Clippers losses and events in Orange County,” he wrote. “Someone suggested going to a Sparks game too, but I don’t like being alone in big gyms.”
Arrogant was the word I used to associate with the name of USC athletic director Mike Garrett. Dodgers player FP Santangelo was pressured relentlessly despite having a minor role on the team. Chargers quarterback Ryan Leaf was labeled “the punk.”
No one came out unscathed. Not his family, which included a son-in-law nicknamed “The Grocery Store Bagger.” Neither his editors, nor his colleagues nor the editors of other newspapers.
“TJ Simers was acerbic, witty, short-tempered and knew how to make people angry,” Southern California sportswriter Janis Carr tweeted on Monday. “When he put me in one of his columns I was honored even though he destroyed.”
Others were offended. Although Simers was named California Sportswriter of the Year in 2000, critics accused him of going after people who were in no position to defend themselves, of crossing the line between humor and be mean.
“The reaction was incredible throughout the community and on the local teams,” Dwyre recalled.
Simers’ aggressiveness also irritated ESPN, which had hired him as a panelist for a new show called “Around the Horn” in 2002. Within a year, Simers publicly criticized the show: “I hate that show. But I hear the cash register ringing in my head when I do it,” and they took him out of the lineup.
Still, his columns in The Times each week remained a destination for readers who enjoyed or loathed them. It was not until 2013 that a rift arose with the newspaper’s editors, who let him write twice a week with the stated intention of improving the quality of his work. Some of his articles, they said, were “poorly written or poorly reflected” in the newspaper.
Simers was then suspended with pay for violating ethics by not fully disclosing an agreement to develop a television comedy loosely based on his life. Editors later pulled his column and demoted him to reporter. He was later offered a one-year contract to resume the column on the condition that he complied with ethical guidelines.
Instead, Simers resigned on September 6, 2013, after accepting a job at the Orange County Register. She sued the Times for age and disability discrimination, alleging that his problems began after suffering what was initially diagnosed as a mini-stroke while covering spring training in Arizona. She was later diagnosed with complex migraine syndrome.
The case went to trial three times over several years, and jurors awarded him millions in damages, but twice those awards were overturned by a judge. At the time the lawsuit was filed, The Times was part of Tribune Publishing. When The Times was sold to Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong in 2018, Tribune Publishing assumed responsibility for the Simers case as part of the sale. The case is currently on appeal.
Once his journalism career ended (he left the Register in 2014), Simers devoted himself to his wife, Ginny, their two daughters and four granddaughters. He also continued to be a longtime supporter of children’s health care.
“We got into a fight during my Dodgers days,” former Dodgers general manager Dan Evans posted on social media. “But later we found a common bond through (Children’s Hospital LA) that completely patched things up.”
Last fall, as Simers’ health began to deteriorate, doctors found a tumor in his brain. She spent the final months of her life at home under palliative care, still attacking friends and former colleagues via social media.
This story originally appeared on Los Angeles Times.
