It's Better if You Don't Take These Yahoos Personally

By T.J. Simers

Jan. 29, 2006 12 AM PT

Today’s first words come in e-mail from [email protected]:

“Who are you to judge Kobe’s sincerity? I hope everyone in your family drops dead. Better yet, I hope your kids get run over by a bus and die and that cancer and AIDS eat away at you and the rest of your family. I hope I run into you on the street before that happens.”

Reading between the lines, I’m guessing Mr. [email protected] didn’t agree with my sports opinion.

I’m surprised, of course, because my sports opinion is usually without question the correct one, and I can’t imagine someone not agreeing with it.

In fact, I’m shocked, because I received similar e-mail from a number of people this week -- apparently out on parole or with computer access inside -- and they also replied in nasty fashion.

“You’re a nobody, making bad articles about athletes just to get your name known,” wrote someone in an e-mail from [email protected], and I’m beginning to think it’s a Yahoo problem. “How about you come down to my local sports bar, talk all that [crud] about Kobe, so I can beat [you up]?”

I get these invitations all the time, as you might imagine, but if I accepted them all, I’d never get home.

I DID pause this week to reflect, though, on the degree of hate mail received and took another look at the “It’s a Good Thing for Him That Kobe’s Not All Talk” column I had written, suggesting Bryant should keep scoring but shut up.

And now I understand the angry response I received, because when I wrote that column, I wrote it in anger.

I had received an e-mail earlier from Michael Dewart, opening it to read: “My wee baby girl, just about to begin the second semester of her freshman year at LMU, died 16 days ago as a result of injuries suffered in a head-on crash. One day this past week I felt the need to laugh.... Thanks for lightening a heavy burden, if only briefly.”

I cannot imagine, but yet do -- such a horror, driving my own children to the point of exasperation with the nagging plea to drive safely every time they get in a car. Just thinking about it now, I want to reach for the telephone.

And so when I read Michael Dewart’s e-mail, I became angry, reminded in the worst possible way that no matter how hard you try as a parent, some things are out of your control. In reply to Michael Dewart, I told him I was going to renew the effort here to lighten his burden once again, if only for a few seconds.

Then I picked up the newspaper, read comments from Kobe Bryant, who seemingly has it all, took offense because he acted as if what he had to say was really important, and went on the attack -- forgetting my vow to Michael Dewart.

I wrote in anger, the humor not funny, taking Bryant’s shallow remarks personally and far too seriously, and while it makes no sense at all to hold the kid accountable for another man’s tragedy, some times things just don’t make sense. You know that if you’ve read Page 2 before.

In fact I still have a problem with Bryant, but then I’d have a problem with any man who doesn’t mind appearing in public wearing black leotards.

TIGER WOODS bought a home in Florida for $38 million, which includes 13 bathrooms. You would think if he was going to spend all that money he would have demanded five more, so he’d have 18 holes in his house.

THE CLIPPERS (25-16) are off to the best start in franchise history, the timing just right for Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA.

It began with Corey Maggette, although injured at the time, pledging $500 for every Clipper win. Maggette’s donation inspired others to join him, the team of Maggette/Sterling/Soboroff & Adelstein pledging $1,800 for each victory to the hospital’s pediatric cancer ward, already earning the hospital $45,000.

RALPH LAWLER has broadcast more than 2,000 Clipper games, and it has been a struggle for the team. I’ve now done one, and the Clippers were winning by 39 at one point. Just some food for thought.

WE WERE led to believe it was up to five judges behind closed doors to determine whether Michelle Kwan was fit enough to skate in the Olympics, but at the same time she was being tested Friday, I was sitting in a Brea movie theater watching an NBC advertisement promoting Kwan’s upcoming Olympic appearance.

It makes you wonder if NBC had a bigger say in who made the women’s figure skating team than the five judges assembled.

THE OTHER day, the New York Daily News quoted Peter Bergen, author of “The Osama Bin Laden I Know,” as saying Bin Laden is a big fan of Larry King.

I found the timing of the Daily News blurb interesting, because we’ve got a guy at the track every day in Bob Mieszerski, aka “Misery,” who doesn’t seem to know as much as a guy in a cave, picking Mino Ona to win the first at Santa Anita.

The winner of the race, of course, was Larry King.

NED COLLETTI, the Dodgers’ GM, who attended Northern Illinois University at the same time as the wife and Page 2, will be a guest on the father/daughter 570 gabfest this morning at 9. I’m sure the daughter will want to know, if he’s such a good judge of talent, then how come I spotted her mother before he did?

THE ANGELS have failed to land a power hitter, once again making them vulnerable, but I’d imagine if you asked owner Arte Moreno, he’d tell you right now he’s doing just what you’d expect from a Los Angeles baseball team.

T.J. Simers can be reached at [email protected]. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.