Richard Justice to MLB.com

Long-time Houston Chronicle columnist Richard Justice has left the newspaper to write a column for MLB.com

http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2011/12/richard_justice_mlbcom.php

In fact, Richard has already written his first piece for MLB.com, on Kirk Gibson. http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20111206&content_id=26102940&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb

Richard's first love has always been baseball, so this is a good move for him, and a great hire for MLB, which has had a crying need for a quality lead columnist. On the other hand, it's a blow for the Chron, and yet another newspaper lifer heading to the internet. Last one gone turn out the lights.

 

Justice was one of my two or three favorite metro sports columnists left. Jerome Solomon is actually outstanding for Houston, too. But this is a tough blow. Justice's blog was excellent.

 

Holy shit. That is a HUGE loss for the Chronicle. To many people, including myself, Richard Justice WAS the Chronicle's sports section. My best to him in his future work with MLB.

And no, I'm not Richard, nor am I his press agent, yadda yadda yadda...

 

Sign of a good columnist: I just looked at the comments below that blog post, and the first says Justice was too nice to the Longhorns. The second says Justice ripped on the Longhorns just for hits.

 

Nice parting shot at the end of the blog:

Great move for Richard and another huge blow for the Chron and newspapers in general. Obviously, the important thing is that the vast majority of those who previously read his work will still be able to do so.

And I'm sure he'll still be making regular appearances on PTI and Tony Kornheiser's radio show, which frankly was my most regular exposure to him.

 

We've long gotten past the point where anyone needs to justify a move to a website, that's affiliated with the team or the sport that it covers...

He should have said, "If I had to bet on baseball or the newspaper industry, that would be the easiest decision I've ever had to make."

It's a great move for Justice. While I've always liked him as a columnist, his strength is clearly baseball and this is the perfect place for him.

Congrats Richard!!!

 

Congrats!!!

Nice get for MLB.com.

 

Guess I'm in the minority. I've always felt that, as a columnist, Justice was a fine baseball writer.

To me, he seemed clearly out of his depth on NFL, NBA in particular. I hate when newspapers take someone who's really good at one thing -- like being a great beat writer or a fine national columnist on one sport -- and foist them on readers as all-everything experts. VERY few can pull that off. I thought Justice was a 9 or 10 when writing about baseball, a 4 or less on other stuff.

So I'm glad he made this move, for him and for baseball writing in general. To hell with the Chronicle.

 

Terrific baseball writer.

The Chronicle was a mess when I lived there 6 years ago -- nearly all wire copy. Can't imagine what it looks like now.

 

I'm curious as to whether you're right. I imagine he'd be doing a lot of MLB Network now and perhaps less MLB.

 

I actually think he did a great job on the Rockets. I can buy that he wasn't the best football columnist, but he gravitated toward baseball, and that's what I always thought of him as.

I think of Jim Souhan similarly (though not as positively). He's a baseball writer first who does a good job on basketball and succeeds in football writing mostly when he is writing about management or off-field issues. The Vikings have more of those than the Texans.

 

Was in Houston this summer. Paper was a real disappointment. Granted it was August and the Astros were in last place and the NFL lockout had just ended and colleges hadn't started practice yet. So there wasn't a lot to talk about. But was disappointed in the size and scope.