He’s Back, Ready to Start Taking His Shots Again

As a public service, I stopped the barbs and stepped aside for three weeks, allowing the Dodgers to gain 4 1/2 games in the standings.

By doing nothing, I believe I have accomplished more than Tom Goodwin or Andy Ashby this season.

I would have stayed away longer, but the wife has the summer off, and for tax purposes it’s better if we remain married, which means I needed to get out of the house.

While off, however, this was definitely no three-week vacation. Right away the grocery store bagger approached me to talk wedding dates and to inform me he’s going to have a new job and will soon be carrying a gun.

I guess this is his idea of a shotgun wedding, and while as a father I can tell you that comes as a great relief, the thought of the grocery store bagger being armed raises new questions about the tone of future columns.

It’s too late now, but when the “new sheriff” came to town as Dodger GM, had Dodger Boy strapped on a pair of six-guns I have a feeling some of the folks at The Times would have gone a lot easier on him.

THE PROBLEM with picking a wedding date for the gun-packing grocery store bagger and my daughter who couldn’t do any better in securing a fiance is picking a time when I will be available to attend.

I have a pretty good feeling this is also what is holding up Phil & Jeanie. I just can’t be everywhere, though, especially when you consider the fact I already have hockey fans telling me where to go and people like Chad Kreuter and Mr. Grumpy willing to take me there.

You start making commitments to attend a wedding somewhere down the road and you’re liable to miss one of the bobble-head giveaways.

There just doesn’t seem to be a good time for a wedding between a gun-carrying grocery store bagger and a daughter who expects her father to pay for a big wedding.

For example, if you pick a wedding date late in August you run the risk of conflicting with the WNBA finals, and pressed to decide whether I would give away my daughter or give the Sparks their due, as you might imagine, I wouldn’t want to disappoint our girls.

Sports Editor Bill Dwyre, judged recently the 13th most powerful sports figure in L.A.--and I will pause here for an hour to allow you to double over in laughter and then regain your composure--demands that everyone on his staff watch Notre Dame football games, so that rules out just about every wedding Saturday in September, October and November. Dwyre’s daughter had to get married this past May.

I don’t go to every Laker game, but I wouldn’t want to miss one that has Salma Hayek in attendance, which means I wouldn’t want to be pinned down by some other ironclad engagement any time in December, January, February, March, April, May or June.

I like to set aside July each year for all my “HBO Real Sports” interviews, which leaves only early August--ruling out Aug. 7, 2004 when I predict Los Angeles’ new NFL team will be playing its first preseason game.

The gun-packing grocery store bagger suggested an Aug. 5, 2002 marriage date--coincidentally, the same day the Angels are expected to be officially eliminated from the division race once again.

I thought that was a good idea, and said I had no interest in hurting the pride of the gun-packing grocery store bagger, so starting Aug. 5, 2002 he could begin paying for the remainder of my daughter’s graduate schooling, car insurance, living expenses and lost weekends at the race track.

I guess that’s why the wedding has been officially set for Aug. 6, 2003 with the understanding of all parties that if the Avengers are in the playoffs we will have to make an adjustment.

Go Avengers Go.

I HAVE to agree with Chris Webber. It would take $122.7 million for me to agree to live in Sacramento.

HOW GOOD are Samaki Walker, Mitch Richmond and Lindsey Hunter? The Three Stooges playing with Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant and coaxed by Phil Jackson would still be the NBA’s best team.

PRESEASON FOOTBALL magazines College Sports Preview and Lindy’s have UCLA winning the Pacific 10 with USC placing sixth. Athlon has UCLA finishing second to Oregon with USC sixth. The Sporting News, which must be edited by a Trojan who failed to graduate, has USC third behind Oregon and Oregon State with UCLA fifth.

THE TIMES has devoted a million words and tons of space to Olympic politics in the past month. I guess some of us in L.A. now have something in common with a billion people in China.

THE NETS have signed Todd MacCulloch, who averaged almost four points a game, to a six-year, $35-million offer sheet. This should pull him even with Plaschke, who averages almost four columns a week.

THE DODGERS beat the Rockies, 22-7, Saturday, just in time for the start of the seventh race at Del Mar, which was already named in the organization’s honor because it had a party of 150 at the track.

I figured it was an omen, and bet the 2-7--heavily--and then watched as the 1-7 crossed the finish line. It’s a good thing I was using company money.

TODAY’S LAST word comes in an e-mail from Phil:

“I noticed Curtis Crayon is no longer picking horses for The Times.”

Apparently it’s not only horses they shoot.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com.