Murray Chass' grudge against the NYTimes knows no limits

Dick Young practically invented modern baseball writing. Dick Young was the perfect NY tabloid columnist. Dick Young took stands, wrote in a punchy style that was in your face before anyone invented that term, and always showed up the next day in case anyone wanted to discuss what he had written.

He was a pro's pro. Just read the passage in "The Boys of Summer" where he sits down a young Roger Kahn and explains how to cover the baseball beat. It holds up, more than 50 years later.

But Dick Young near the end of his career was a miserable, intolerant old man who couldn't get over the fact it wasn't 1960 any more. It used to kill me to see him in the Shea press box, and people would either snicker behind his back or try to avoid him so they wouldn't have to hear him. The guy should have been an icon. He should have inspired the kind of respect that Red Smith and Jim Murray had until their last days.

Chass is becoming his generation's version of Dick Young: He's a guy who should be lauded for basically inventing baseball/business coverage. Instead, he's a pissy old man who throws fits because someone has a new way of looking at stats or, heaven forbid, uses "I" in a Times column.

 

Go ahead and hold it. Put a hammerlock on it. Just don't think you have to share it with everyone, because no one will ever care about it as much as you do.

 

Cranberry--I get your point about age and illness, but I can't imagine such petty nastiness from the late Jim Murray or Jerome Holtzman.

 

He spent most of his last year with The Times obsessing that George Steinbrenner would not grant him an interview.

 

seriously, what did i miss here? did murray attack times for dropping its "sports of the times" columns and give its beat folks more latitude? i happen to be an old fogey who agrees, for the most part -- team beat folks should not be writing columns about their teams.

and i most certainly adhere to the philosophy that the use of "i" in columns, for the most part, should not be encouraged. just think it's mostly an ineffective tool, with ecceptions, of course. such as if the columnist is somehow a part of the story.

whatever. put me among those who wish folks would lighten up on murray at this juncture, especially given how irrelevant he has become. is he bitter? no doubt. can't say i blame him. so the eff what? the easiest thing in the world is to ignore his rantings, kids.

shouldn't be too difficult. i have admired murray's body or work for far too long to pile on now. to each his/her own, i suppose.

if i missed another penalty call on murray, i apologize in advance. but if i summed up his crimes against newbies accurately, well, then it must be real slow around here.

 

I assume that Murray's target audience for his site is not the SportsJournalists.com crowd. I would guess that most are coming to his site to read about baseball - not his rants on the Times sports Dept which most readers would not even understand.

 

Congratulations. In defending him, you just shit on him worse than anyone else has.

 

Back atcha

 

i'm not sure of that, though i could be wrong. i think whatever the makeup of murray's audience is a large faction followed him from the times and have ome interest in the direction the times has taken.

regardless, it's his blog. why should we care what he vents about? that's all i'm saying. if what he vents about pleases his audience, good for him. if it turns them off, his site won't be around much longer.

either way, why the outrage? that's all i'm wondering. it's the man's blog, for cryin' out loud.

 

don't agree. what a surprise.

 

These two posts get my endorsement (quite a mushrooming little colony of justifiable grudge-holders seems to be flourishing in this town, by the way).