Athletes have strong feelings about Simers. But strong feelings aren’t restricted to those he interviews. Many of Simers’ coworkers at the Los Angeles Times don’t care much for the guy, either. At least two sports writers, columnist Diane Pucin and hockey writer Helene Elliott, didn’t talk to him for years, and Pucin still doesn’t. "As precious as space in the newspaper is these days," says Elliott, "I think there are better uses for it than for sexist, bullying, one-note, self-absorbed writing"....

At the end of most columns (he writes three times a week), he runs apiece of hate mail. These letters tend to suggest that Simers (a) doesn’t know anything about sports, (b) writes too much about himself, his family, his freakin’ son-in-law—aka the grocery-store bagger—and (c) is no Jim Murray. They think, in short, that he is a jerk. Which is okay with Simers. He’s one of the Times’ most recognizable figures, not to mention the least Timesy writer in the paper. He is so popular that when CBS’s Sports­ Line Web site tried to steal him away recently, the paper gave him a raise—after it cut the staff and the size of the section.