This Trojan Title Needed Time-Consuming Drive

The Grocery Store Bagger tells me all the time he’s trying to make a grandfather out of me, but if the daughter is anything like her mother then I know he’s just talking -- still he might get lucky, and I worry about what they might produce.

But you know how they tell you there’s always someone out there worse off than you? Well, I picture a poor baby boy born to a set of parents with UCLA degrees who has no choice but to grow up a Bruin fan.

I know whenever I see a grown man crying, I usually take for granted he went to UCLA and he has just been reminded that Karl Dullard is still coaching the team.

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I’M LUCKY, of course. I haven’t been a diehard Trojan fan for a full year yet, and our football program has already laid claim to two national titles this year -- twice as many as UCLA won in the 80-plus years it has fielded a team.

Even if you’re a Bruin sympathizer, you have to give USC its due for what it has accomplished this year. USC not only hung tough to win the national crown, but it never gave up, and also claimed the 1939 national championship.

I wasn’t even born yet in 1939, but I thought it’d be interesting to read some of sports editor Bill Dwyre’s stories about that Trojan powerhouse when he was a young reporter, but then I realized they probably had him writing about UCLA.

“Mike Garrett gets the full credit for this,” said Ambrose Schindler, 87, and quarterback for the ’39 Trojans. “No one else in that university would do it, but Garrett had the courage to do what was right and declare us national champions.”

I don’t think there’s any question that Garrett has courage -- he hired Paul Hackett, didn’t he?

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THE NICE thing about declaring yourself national champions, as Garrett has done, is bypassing the BCS. I’m surprised UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero didn’t think of it first; it’s probably the school’s only chance for a while to win a title.

“We never gave it a thought until USC started hanging up the championship banners in the Coliseum some time in the ‘60s,” Schindler said. “We noticed there wasn’t a banner for the ’39 team, and it ticked off all the guys.”

Coach Howard Jones’ team in 1939 went 8-0-2, winning the Rose Bowl, 14-0, over Tennessee, scoring the first points of the season against the Volunteers and breaking a 23-game win streak for Tennessee. Fight on!

The team finished No. 1 atop the Dickinson System, and if UCLA objects because the Dickinson System no longer exists, UCLA’s only national championship in 1954 is based on finishing No. 1 in the UPI poll, which no longer exists.

“The recognition is nice, but I already know we were a damn good team,” said Joe Shell, 85, and captain of the ’39 squad. “Howard Jones said we were the best team he ever coached, and that was good enough for me.”

USC finished the ’39 season playing UCLA to a scoreless tie, before going on to win the Rose Bowl. (Makes you wonder if an offensive dullard was coaching the Bruins in ‘39, too.)

“I was hunting buddies with Bob Winslow, our right end, and he put a lot of time on getting recognition for the ’39 team,” Schindler said. “But then Bob got seriously ill. We both knew he was dying, so I vowed to him literally on his death bed that I’d follow through on this.”

A number of people joined Schindler on the championship crusade, and now the ’39 champs will be honored at the Trojans’ game with Arizona State in October with each member of the team receiving a ring.

“There’s 10 to 12 of us left from a traveling squad of 35,” Schindler said. “I know for sure 19 are deceased, and there are several in wheel chairs who just don’t want to be seen that way. But I’ll be there, and for my buddy [Winslow], too, so he gets the credit he deserves.”

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FOR THE last 39 years, Joe Siegman and Jack Gilardi, longtime figures in Hollywood, donated their time to organize the annual Hollywood Stars contest at Dodger Stadium. But this year they haven’t even been invited to attend because Lon Rosen, you know, the guy who thought the Dodgers needed a mascot and loud music between innings, told them the Dodgers’ new management team was taking over.

“They told us they want a new look -- a softball game like MTV,” Siegman said. “Rosen has sold the new owner on youthifying the experience at the Stadium, but the new owner told us he wants to be a part of Dodger tradition. Then he canceled this without ever seeing it.”

A friend of Siegman and Gilardi contacted The Times, calling it an “injustice” the way they’re being ignored by the Dodgers. Rosen said the team would continue to give them tickets to attend the game as fans, although he has failed to tell them that.

“We haven’t received an invite,” Siegman said. “It’d have been nice to make it 40 years, but it’s been fun. We had over 600 celebrities participate in this over the years -- everybody from Frank Sinatra to Cary Grant to Kevin Costner to ... “

Maybe Rosen can explain to the kids who Sinatra and Grant were.

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IT LOOKS as if the Angels’ Bobblebelly, Bartolo Colon, is back to pitching his little gut off. Just what the Angels needed -- a couple of months ago.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Eric Jen:

“Why is it that you never have ANYTHING positive to say about LA sports teams? When a team is not doing well, you put them down and call them losers. When a team does well, you predict they’ll choke. You seriously sound like a sad, whiny, lonely man whose life is probably as miserable as your writing. Cheer up will ya?”

Thanks for the pep talk.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.