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Informed Decision
Informed Decision: Julien Leparoux guides Informed Decision to the win in the Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint on Friday at Santa Anita Park.
(Benoit Photo, xx)


Recent Columns


T.J. Simers' provocative sports commentary has been entertaining readers since 2000.

Named 2000 California Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, he has been with The Times since 1990.

He was formerly the professional football writer for The San Diego Union, the Denver Broncos beat writer for the Rocky Mountain News; a college football beat writer for The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tenn.; sports editor for the Morristown (N.J.) Daily Record, the Beloit (Wis.) Daily News and the Coeur d'Alene (Idaho) Press, and assistant sports editor for the DeKalb (Illinois) Chronicle.

He attended Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Ill.

His Breeders' Cup picks rate high on scale of 1 to 10

Two of Page 2's first-day selections pay off for charity, which, he can only hope, will impress Bo Derek.
By T.J. Simers
November 7, 2009
I'll get to Bo Derek. Yes, I will.

But right now we've got a little more than a month before the twins arrive, so I thought it'd be good for G.P. to weigh less than Big Bird.

Saw a sign on a Yorba Linda shop window, $18 a session with a personal trainer, no contracts.

I thought I'd try an hour or two, but the personal trainer said he didn't allow such a thing. There would have to be at least a month contract, more than $20 a session, and I'm still handing him my credit card.

Now he asks me to circle, 1 to 10, my level of motivation. I go with 7 -- knowing how willing I am to be ripped off.

He says he can't take me unless I circle the 10, so I wish him a good life, and leave fat while knowing the Screaming Meanie might never make a play for me now.

That's all right, and I'm already over it because I'm just right for the wife, who doesn't like to eat alone and likes to eat often. And so we're out chowing down again, I'm telling her how close I came to being Size 0's love interest and she shrieks, "The strawberries will die!"

We have to leave the restaurant, she says, because she needs to work her farm. I had no idea we had one.

I'm married to the woman for 37 years, and she's telling me she owns an elephant and a hot-air balloon, her sunflowers need to be harvested and she needs to rake up the neighbor's leaves.

There's also something about a little man with a big head, and why she would bring up Barry Bonds, I don't know.

But I think you're beginning to understand why her daughter appeared on Dr. Phil.

"FarmVille, a computer game," the wife snaps while typing away on her farm. "If you were on Facebook you would know."

If I'm on Facebook, I worry Dwyre is laughing so hard he might never recover to write another column. So where do I sign up?

As for the wife, I've never seen her so passionate, and while that's another story, I figured as long as she was going to be working her farm she'd understand if I went out and checked on the horses.

I'm not sure I've ever come up with a better excuse to play the ponies, and work, of course.