LA Times moving to El Segundo

Oh, of course. I remember now. Morning Briefing was a humorous, well-written (usually) quick take on the day's news items. Was there a name for the Simers column that was passed from writer to writer over the years? Or was it just the Page 2 notes column I 'm thinking of, that had been done by other prominent names?

 

I'm told my first daily stop is now a police substation and what reporters are left all work from home. Depressing. The latter, not the former.

 

If I recall correctly, Simers' column was titled "Page 2". I believe he was the only one to write that column.

 

Somebody will know. Alan Malamud might have had the Page 2 hole after he went from the Herald to the National to the Times. After he died, I don't think there was a regular Page 2 column until Simers.

 

Could be, I never got the Examiner.

LOL, I have National issues in a box next to my water heater in the utility room off the garage. Are they collectable?

I've been reading the Times for many years. They used to have multiple entertaining sports columnists. T.J. was certainly the most entertaining anti-sports-establishment one. Now they have sob sister Plaschke and that Hernandez kid is pretty good too.

 

Bryan Curtis took a look around the sports department.

Farewell to a Newspaper Office: The L.A. Times Sports Desk Bids Adieu

 

My first daily newspaper facility is now a children's museum where my son worked one summer.

 

An Otis Chandler story:

Years ago, I bumped into an old friend, Danny Galbreath, at the Hialeah race track. I got to know Danny well when I covered the Pirates and he had followed his dad as president of the club. Danny knew that I had joined the Los Angeles Times a year or two before our chance meeting. "Next time you see Otis," he said, "tell him I got my bongo." I was embarrassed for two reasons: I didn't know a bongo from Bambi; and since I seldom went to the office, I didn't expect to meet Otis--ever. But I didn't want to tell Danny that it wasn't true that I lunched with Otis every other week. Pressed, Danny told me the story. Some time back, he and Otis had been big-game hunting for a bongo, a form of antelope. Since neither of them bagged one, they made a side bet that the first of them to get one would have to pay (the size of the bet was not mentioned). So I was the one who was supposed to tell Otis that he owed Danny. I got back to LA, sat down at home, wrote Otis a note and mailed it to the office. I never got a reply, and never saw Danny again. I can't say for sure, but Otis might have been a poor loser. I left the paper more than 20 years later, still never meeting him. I liked horse tracks, he liked auto tracks, so that kind of figured.

 

Regarding Bryan Curtis' excellent look-back on the Los Angeles Times Sports Department, I was a sports staffer there for 25 years, but only got to the office a couple of times a year. They gave me a desk and a chair when I started, but after a while the chair disappeared, and after a longer while the desk vanished, too. Most of the 60 or so staffers didn't know what I looked like. So one day Kelly Burgess, Bill Dwyre's Girl Friday, got an 8 x 10 of me off my company ID card and posted it on the bulletin board. Several years later, the department was moved to a different floor. "Hey, Kelly, did my mugshot make the move?" "You bet. It's up there, on the new bulletin board."

 

Randy Harvey took a swipe at the Page 2 column after Malamud.

 

Thanks for the stories, Mr. Christine.

Am I wrong to think that while they have been a few page 2 columnists, TJ was the only one to use "Page 2" as his moniker?