Murray Chass is back

"One way would be to reward the team with the better won-lost record. But that idea wouldn’t work logistically. Baseball can’t wait until days or even a week before the World Series is scheduled to start to determine where Series game will be played. Airlines and hotels don’t work that way."

Someone mentioned this in the all-star game thread as well. This makes no sense, since, obviously, the NBA and NHL somehow manage to work their way through the nightmare of scheduling flights and hotels at the last-minute. With the NBA, occasionally home-court for the opening rounds isn't determined until the final game, if the 4-5 seeds are still up for grabs or, as was the case in the West this year, the 2-8 seeds are unknown until the end. I don't remember reading any stories about the Suns having to stay in a Mexican hotel because they couldn't find rooms in San Antonio. Why can't baseball manage this? Are the traveling secretaries inept?

 

It's because you'd have to cram all those people on to the one flight that goes to Cleveland or Seattle on such short notice. What are you gonna make them do then, ride the rails?

 

Murray Chass won't read it, but FireJoeMorgan.com offers its take on Chass' opening salvo:
http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2008/07/i-felt-lot-better-about-giving-flooky.html

 

I have to say - The Times Sunday baseball notes column is a much more informative read since Murray left.
Murray never seemed to accept the fact that Marvin Miller had left the building and was not coming back.

 

COSTANZA!

 

Why? Are you proposing that there's no difference between a Web site and a blog? Chass' thing isn't a blog. He doesn't link anywhere, he doesn't riff off other people's writing, he's inviting contributions only from writers with longtime professional experience, apparently he still has access in stadiums, he doesn't have that bloglike structure (WordPress, etc.) and he does not permit posts by readers. It seems to me that it's as much of a blog as ESPN.com is.

 

If they're all like Jay Horwitz...then yes.

So no.

 

Murray is one of the two or three most important baseball writers of the past 30 years. His remarkable body of work stands for itself.

Sure he doesn't like BLOGS! Most of them are a far, far cry from actual journalism, whose tenets and principles he's upheld throughout his career. And I'm sure as a New York writer he got plenty of unfavorable feedback from Red Sox fanbois.

And I doubt very much he cares about the opinions offered by firejoemorgan.com geeks.

 

I found his work as bland as bouillon. In many ways Murray was just a pipeline for the players union. Not sure what Red Sox fans are griping about. In his final years at the Times he became almost a Red Sox toady. It was rumored that he had the ear of Larry Luchino.

 

Two things.
First on the World Series. The difference between a baseball World Series and the NBA or NHL is that Major League Baseball actually needs more than 5,000 hotel rooms blocked for the World Series with all the sponsor and TV demands it now has, in addition to credentials for more than 1,000 media types. I can talk about the old days, remembering back to the `70s when the entire group attending the All-Star Game -- TV, newspaper, players, club officials and sponsors -- at the Sheraton Harbor Island. Now it has grown and mainly it has grown from the business aspect to the point that they legitimately need so much space for the events that city can't handle it on short notice. I'm not saying its good. Heck, I'm old enough to miss the old days when you actually could go to an event and see baseball people and not the sponsors. But that's the reality of it.
As for Murray, the man has had opinions that irritate, but he has always had a very high level of ethics and values. He also has always been able to provide a strong insight to the contractual and union aspects of the game. You can ask Murray, there have been many a strong argument between us on issues but I really feel you have to respect his work ethic and efforts. I do find a bit of irony in that so often the old-school is criticized for not being more open and understanding of others views, but I also find a lot of stat folks who have little toleration of the old school. The truth of the matter is stats have been a part of baseball for ages. They are not some new found toy. They are more intricate now, just like everything else in life, because of tech advances. To be successful there is a need to be open to both sides. I also find an irony in the line basically being drawn that longtime baseball writers don't appreciate stats like the new ones when in reality it is the longtime baseball writers who keep their log books, doing their stat work daily when many of the younger ones don't even keep scorecards from one day to the next, losing the ability to makes notations on different events, chosing to rely on PR departments or internet sites to do that for them. That doesn't make them wrong. That doesn't mean they aren't doing a good job. It's just a point of reference.

 

You've said this before, Boom, but the fact is that Murray has probably more front office sources than any baseball writer in the business, including but certainly not exclusively within the union. Team owners on down. Murray has a lot of sources BECAUSE people in the industry trust him to report thoroughly, fairly and accurately.

It may have appeared to some people that he favored the union because, inf the final analysis Marvin Miller and the union proved to be right on most of the issues and because he was one of the few writers reporting on labor matters.

 

The short version of Murray's work in past 5 years:

Marvin Miller should be in the Hall of fame
The Yankees are evil
Larry Luchino is a genius