It’s Time to Get in Touch With Your Feminine Side

The Lakers are in chaos, and I’m trying to reach Mitch Kupchak on the telephone in Europe to find out if he’s on vacation, in hiding or searching London for a replacement for Kwame Brown.

This is important work, but I also have a henpecked Dwyre on my back, wanting me to join him and a bunch of women, including Billie Jean King, to discuss why women don’t get more coverage on the sports pages, as if I don’t already give Salma Hayek more than she deserves.

Dwyre has also invited several women who work on the sports staff, obviously to show King he’s no pig, and so with 11 women in the room you can imagine how tough it’s going to be to get a word in. I decided to sit back and be a good boy, having no idea at the time how difficult that would be.

Right from the start they were all discussing Martina Hingis, the conversation dragging on and on as if anyone cares about tennis, let alone a woman playing tennis, and so I interrupted to ask if she was still seeing Sergio Garcia, and the chit-chat just stopped.

The disgust in the room was almost audible, someone finally saying, “That’s so old,” apparently every one of them there more up to date on the supermarket magazines than I was.

I sure wish Mitch would get back to me ...

*

THE CONVERSATION shifted from Hingis to Babe Didrikson, and I was trying to eat lunch.

King was talking about the attention the Babe got in her time, and talking about babes, look at Anna Kournikova and Maria Sharapova and the progress that has been made.

“Didrikson and Annika Sorenstam got attention for playing against the men,” King said. “Unless women are competing in the male arena, they don’t get a lot of attention. Let’s face it, until I played Bobby Riggs I wasn’t getting much attention.

“Guys want to talk about themselves,” she said, and I had no idea she was such a sexist. “We need more allies in the media.”

I don’t think there is anyone in the media against a good freak show, which explains Michelle Wie’s popularity. And it appears the teenage golfer has figured it out, and if she’s going to get more coverage on the sports pages, then she’s going to have to keep playing against the men, and maybe one day beat them all.

That will get her covered big time, but before I could urge King & Co. to come up with better freak shows for the sporting public, she had another complaint.

“I don’t think women like the way sports is presented to them,” she said, and I’m trying to think of a way to present the Sparks in an interesting way, and frankly, I’m stumped.

“I have an idea,” King said, and I swore I heard Mitch calling

*

YOU HAVE to admire the nerve of King, and I always have. I’m actually a big fan, and if I ever let the wife play tennis, I’d love to see her try to beat some old guy.

King, of course, represents the fight for women’s equality in sports, and founded the Women’s Sports Foundation more than 30 years ago. In her pursuit to get more sports coverage from the media, she has agreed to add her name to a new award, the “Billies.”

The awards will “honor the media for positive portrayal of female athletics,” and although Page 2 failed to earn a nomination in any of four categories, there was talk about a lifetime achievement award for something before I left the room.

I noticed one of the Billies’ nominees for “breakthrough & innovation” is the Nike print ad “Big Butts, Thunder Thighs and Tomboy Knees,” which pretty much describes the women in our house, and for me brought home the impact women’s athletics can have on everyone.

In fact, the first thing I’m going to do when I get ahold of Mitch is ask him if he knew Brown was going to play like a girl when he traded for him. My own way of getting more women’s sports in the paper.

*

IF IT’S true the Kings’ Jeremy Roenick was involved in the betting ring, it’s the first contribution he has made all season.

*

AS LONG as he doesn’t come across as someone who has to say “Pardon the Interruption” every time he talks, Tony Kornheiser should be an entertaining addition to ESPN’s “Monday Night Football.”

Mike Tirico is already one of the best play-by-play broadcasters in the business. But Kornheiser’s addition is the most interesting, and knowing from personal experience his inability to handle criticism -- I once referred to him as an “aging sportswriter,” which set him off even though it’s hard to argue everyone isn’t an aging something or other -- it’ll be interesting to see how he holds up under the critical spotlight that comes with “Monday Night Football.”

*

HOW DO you know when the Lakers are going bad? When Mychal Thompson and Spero Dedes, the Laker homers on 570, suggest Brian Cook, and not Kobe Bryant, should be taking the 22 shots against Dallas, while also criticizing Phil Jackson for keeping Cook on the bench too long.

A day later, Thompson hadn’t cooled down on the “Loose Cannons,” saying of Jackson’s decision to keep hot shooters on the bench, “I can’t take much more of this....”

I have a feeling Ralph Lawler is smiling to himself right now.

*

TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Michael Schwartz:

“Why would anyone want to read previous columns by Simers when they can have root canal surgery instead?”

And miss out on the keen insight provided by e-mailers in the Last Word?

T.J. Simers can be reached at

t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.