Jim Alexander is a sportswriter whose well-written and enjoyable articles appear in The Press-Enterprise newspaper in southern California. You can get your sports fix by reading his articles at pe.com/columns/jimalexander/vitindex.html.

Q: Jim, it's always a true pleasure to peruse your articles at The Press-Enterprise. While so many other sportswriters regurgitate trite clichés and boring banter, you write with an honesty and candor that consistently provides an engaging read. What has been your secret to consistently delivery material that entertains and educates?

JA: Thanks for the compliment, but I'm not sure there really is a secret.

I grew up reading a lot - good writers, bad writers and everyone in between - and somewhere in the course of all of that exploration developed my own style and my own voice. Sometimes it's smart-ass or sarcastic, sometimes sharply critical, sometimes complimentary, but it's always passionate. If you're just painting by numbers, so to speak, people sense it.

It's taken me long enough to find that voice, I guess; this is my 36th year in the business. But if an aspiring writer comes to me looking for guidance, I guess the advice I'd give them would be "Be accurate, be fair, and above all be yourself." Living in Southern California and growing up with Jim Murray's columns in the LA Times, I saw a lot of others try to imitate or ape his style. Nobody could pull it off, and the ones that tried came off looking like pale imitations.

I guess the other thing that I can point to is a pretty strong curiosity, and a willingness to go the road less traveled. There are a large number of columnists in this market who, for example, have no desire to attend a hockey game, or a soccer match or a WNBA game. I'll write columns on all three frequently, if not regularly, and I find those enjoyable to write - and a challenge at the same time, because I know the people who will be reading it, the fan bases of those so-called off-Broadway sports, are truly passionate about them. They may appreciate that someone is willing to write about them, but that someone had better know their stuff or they'll be exposed.

(I was going to say something about being brief and concise, too, but I'm guessing nobody would believe it given the length of this answer. I will say that writing columns at our paper, where the normal length is 22 inches, has made me a more disciplined writer.)

Q: What's a personal revelation that would surprise many of your readers?

JA: I have no aptitude, none, for household or mechanical repairs. It's a running joke around our house. My wife always threatens to buy me a toolbox for my birthday or for Christmas, knowing that if she did, it would gather dust.

Q: While steroids and HGH has been used by athletes in track, cycling, and Major League Baseball, there has been nary a whisper of use in NBA. Do you suspect that pro basketball players have shunned illegal supplements or have investigators not chosen to probe closely enough in the NBA?

JA: Nothing will surprise me on that subject. I can't imagine that there aren't guys in the NBA who haven't at least tried the stuff, but for some reason it's not a point of emphasis. I'm not sure how helpful it would be across the board; basketball isn't as much of a power sport as those others mentioned (and you forgot football). But I wouldn't be shocked to learn it's being used.

Q: You've traveled all across America and have experienced the "fan flavor," of countless arenas. Based on your unbiased view, are Los Angeles sports fans truly blasé and uninformed when compared to others?

JA: No, and I'll just put it this way: If you had to deal with the LA freeways on a regular basis, you'd probably leave games early, too.

LA is a different city from most, because so many people here came from somewhere else and a lot of them brought their previous loyalties along. Plus there's a lot more to do here, and a lot more competition for time and the entertainment dollar.

But there is passion, a lot of it. And I think it's telling that last May and June, even with the Stanley Cup Finals in town, the top story in the market was Kobe Bryant's "I Want Out" tour and what the Lakers would do to make him happy. Over the last decade, maybe because of the whole Shaq-Kobe soap opera, that's where the predominant passion has been here -- people can't read enough, hear enough, know enough about the Lakers.

But the passion isn't a one-way street. If the teams don't hold up their end of the bargain, SoCal fans as a rule aren't inclined to sit around and wait. And I think it's interesting that the two teams here who have ranked the highest on ESPN's ranking of major league franchises the last two years are the Anaheim teams, the Ducks and Angels. They have good ownership, good facilities and field a good product, and the fans respond.

Q: Who immediately comes to mind as your favorite athletes to interview and (if you don't mind flinging a bit of mud) which jocks made the process burdensome beyond words?

JA: Favorites, all time, among SoCal athletes would include Orel Hershiser (one of the rare pitchers willing to talk before a start), Teemu Selanne, Tony Gwynn, Magic Johnson, LaDainian Tomlinson, Derek Fisher - all good people who basically were taught to treat people the way they themselves would like to be treated. Unfortunately, that's rare in sports these days.

Shaq was a delight to deal with most of the time he was here, unless you were in the back of the pack during the interview scrum; what you'd do then was try and get your recorder as close as you could and find out what he said when you played it back. But he was funny, engaging and still had (and has) a lot of kid in him. Kobe has always been more guarded, even in the early years before his image went south.

A particular favorite of mine, even though he could be somewhat prickly, was Davey Lopes. You might not like the answer, but he never dodged a question and he was always, always honest.

Bad guys? I can't ever remember dealing with anyone in SoCal who was Bonds-ian, although Kevin Brown had a pretty sour relationship with the media. But most guys run hot and cold, and the stereotypes generally are true: Hockey players are the best to deal with, baseball players probably the worst, football and basketball athletes somewhere in-between (though the NBA, as a league, is much less fun to cover now than it was 15 years ago, when there was still this "we're all in this together" mindset. Now they're just as corporate as everyone else.)

I will say this: I always felt Tom Lasorda was always difficult unless you were a network guy or a large circulation publication. The local beat guys didn't get much of the charm, just most of the bluster. And as far as media relations from an organizational standpoint - well, I was never around the Raiders and their "Commitment to Paranoia" when they were here, but the San Diego Chargers do a pretty passable impression. They're quite arrogant, PR-wise, for a franchise that has no Super Bowl rings.