This may send some internet bloggers into a fit of rage, but I’m going to defend longtime baseball columnist Murray Chass, who was recently bought out by the New York Times. The paper can do what it wants with its employees, but for me, it was all about the timing of his dismissal. Why get rid of him at the beginning of this season, and not after last season or at the conclusion of the current one? I’m not sure if the New York Times even gave a reason. Was it his age? Quality of work? Or a combination of the two?
Some bloggers are going to take credit for Chass’s departure, who in a 2007 column wrote of his distaste for the statistics-based direction the game has moved to during the last decade. The website “Baseball Prospectus” penned an open letter to Chass and criticized him on this point. Like sheep, other internet writers followed suit. My point is, so what if Chass, who was inducted into the writers’ wing of the baseball Hall of Fame in 2003, didn’t care for what he labeled, “new-age baseball statistics?’’ To be honest, I’m not sure if VORP really adds anything, or simply confuses one’s enjoyment of this beautiful sport. Baseball is a game packed with numbers, some valuable and some not. Does every statistic have meaning?
Under General Manager Billy Beane, the Oakland Athletics have placed a heavy emphasis on on-base percentage, but have little or no concern for base stealing, or advancing a runner via a sacrifice bunt. What can we take from this? I think there were instances when had the A’s used the latter strategy, the team would have advanced in the playoffs. But they were stubborn, and paid the consequences. When Joe Torre was managing the Yankees to multiple World Series titles, he never had a problem moving a runner over or swiping a bag. Oh yeah, the A’s never got past the opening round, and only advanced to the second round in 2006 before getting swept by the Detroit Tigers.
As a sportswriter, it’s important to keep up with what’s going on, but it’s also vital to dismiss what I think isn’t critical. Each writer makes up their own mind, because every tidbit of information isn’t valuable. This also applies to sportswriters. Some are good, and others not so. I’ve been reading Chass for decades, and always found his work to be first-rate, despite the fact that he’s no longer a spring chicken. I enjoyed his insight and passion, and never failed to read his Sunday column, which I felt was consistently strong until the end. Mind you, I didn’t always agree with everything Chass wrote, but did with the vast majority of columns.
That Chass, who had been the national baseball columnist for the Times since 1986, is a baseball traditionalist shouldn’t be held against him. I’m a traditionalist, and likewise honor and respect the game. When Chass came up the ranks as a baseball writer, it was proper for the press to speak with the players, manager, coaching staff and front office. Some of this has changed, and not for the good. Few internet writers bother to attend games and sit in the press box. To me, this is a must, otherwise it’s going to be tough getting players on the record. Many bloggers simply just take pot shots, and have no basis in what they’re spouting.
Last week I went to writer and Boston native Seth Mnookin’s blog, and essentially said the same thing. Everybody comes in with their own bias. Maybe Mnookin doesn’t care for Chass because he perceives him to be anti-Boston? Who knows? What is clear is that Chass, who graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1960, then worked for The Associated Press, and later the Times beginning in 1969, is an expert on all matters pertaining to baseball’s labor and business issues. During baseball’s strikes, and the events leading up to the work stoppage, reading Chass was mandatory. His work was directly on the pulse of what the players’ union and team owners were saying. His sources were impeccable, and his writing keen, clear and impeccable. He always hit a home run.
Last season during spring training, I e-mailed Chass and asked if he’d do a question-and-answer for a weekly column I write for The Tolucan Times in Southern California. About a week before the season began, and after his stay in Florida was over, he agreed. Most writers, and especially one approaching his seventies, would have begged off. Not Chass, who answered my queries. I give him much credit for this and also not abandoning his trade.
At a time when Peter Gammons, Buster Olney, and Tim Kurkjian, have all left the newspaper business and headed for the more-profitable television gig, Chass stayed put. That is until his employer asked him to leave.
