Murray Chass is back

So you're saying the recent work of a man (who's been a reporter since 1960) who has undergone surgery for brain cancer as well as a quadruple bypass in the past four years hasn't been up to speed. I agree.

 

One has nothing to do with the other. Shame on The Times then for leaving him has their national baseball writer. Readers were not aware of his health issues.

 

Considering how much we all bash newspapers and management these days for its bloodless treatment of employees, I can't work up too much snark for a paper that, maybe, cut a lifer like Chass a little slack on his performance when he was dealing with truly frightening, life-threatening ailments. Most of us learned a long, long time ago that life ain't no meritocracy, so if a guy like Murray was shown the respect for his body of work even if he wasn't hitting a home run today or tomorrow -- and even that is debatable -- I've got no problem with it.

There are lots of fuckwads whose performances suck in a lot of areas in our psychotic industry, and nothing is happening to them. Some of them are even getting promoted and laying off staffers.

 

Yeah, but those "geeks" are funny and have a point. Murray is a hypocrite. There will be no profanity at MurrayChass.com yet the guy said he applauded Buzz Bissinger for ripping blogs on Costas Now. That's the same Buzz Bissinger who opened his commentary with "I think you're full of shit" before a profanity-laced tirade on the entire blog medium.

 

Jack Curry has done a terrific job as a national writer for several years now and was the writer who picked up a good part of the slack while Murray recuperated. And the Times has augmented its coverage of off-the-field issues with several other very able reporters in recent years.

 

Your statement that Chase is a hyprocrite because of Bissinger's is a stretch.
Chase said there would be no profanity on his site.
He applauds Bissinger, who uses profanity on HBO.
So he can't endorse or favor anyone on his site who swears or he's hypocrite?
If I understand you correctly that would be a stretch Plastic Man couldn't make.

 

He said there would be no profanity on his site as a slam on all the sites who use profanity to make their point. And he looks up to a man who went on a profanity-laced tirade to make his. So yes, that's hypocritical.

I'm still scratching my head at why he would feel the need to take that dig at Sox fans, too.

 

Jack Curry is a great writer who should have been given the Sunday baseball column 10 years ago.

I am still not understanding your point on Murray- are you saying that as a reader I should have given him a pass on columns that I disagreed with because of his health issues?

Murray did not seem to want to give George Steinbrenner as pass for his lack of visibility in recent years even though most understood it was due to health issue.

 

BYH, as someone who mostly lurks here I've always thought you one of the more elegant voices of reason on this site. But I would urge you to go back and re-read Murray's Hall of Fame speech. Because to me, it was an embarrassment of such a high degree that I would have voted there and then to close forever the writer's wing of the Hall. And I'm not exaggerating.

It was a mean, bitter, angry diatribe on The Next Generation, and it was so wholly inappropriate for the occasion as to make you squirm; I still squirm just thinking about it. There were Times editors and colleagues who'd driven through the night to be there and he snubbed them. And there is a whole generation of people who write baseball for a living -- starting with myself -- who spent many years admiring him, and his work, and who were instantly and forever alienated by his scathing self-aggrandizing screed. Personally, I think it was one of the low moments in the history of the Hall of Fame. I thought that then, and I think that now, having just re-read the speech myself.

I'll never take anything away from his career; he is a monument in our business. But even before he got sick he was an angry, bitter scowl of a man who couldn't be bothered even being civil toward that Next Generation he reviled so much. Sorry, I know he has friends here, especially Casty, and I am sure those friendships are real and invaluable, and I certainly respect them. I can only go by what I saw, and how I was treated. And by what those egregious words in his speech sounded like. The best way to sum it up is this: a long time ago, I made a vow to myself that no matter how old, tired, skeptical or cynical I get in this business, there are two people I will never, EVER act like to a fellow member of the profession. I trust you can guess one of them. And the other was Murray.

-- Mike Vaccaro

 

The only point I've tried to make is that Murray's body of work over several decades makes him perhaps the single most knowledgeable writer with respect to off-the-field baseball issues. I took issue with your suggestion that he wasn't objective and with your singling out his less-than-inspired work recently while he recuperated from surgery for brain cancer as being representative of his overall contribution.

 

Is it bigger than a breadbox? Barely?

 

There you have it straight from one of the best sports columnists in the country and without a doubt the best in New York.

Ironically Mike also had a serious health issue to deal with but his work did not suffer one bit.