Murray Chass

Last updated

Murray Chass (born October 12, 1938, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) [1] is an American baseball blogger. He previously wrote for The New York Times and before that the Associated Press on baseball and sports legal and labor relations. In 2003 the Baseball Writers' Association of America honored him with the J. G. Taylor Spink Award. He took a buyout from the Times, along with Supreme Court writer Linda Greenhouse and dozens of others, in April 2008.

Contents

Chass graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1960 with a bachelor's degree in political science where he was a writer and editor for the Pitt News . [2] In 1956 he "audaciously" made an appointment with the editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to pursue his "future of a newspaperman". He joined the Baseball Writers' Association of America in 1962, when he worked for the Associated Press in Pittsburgh. He joined the New York Times in 1969, and started covering the New York Yankees the following year. In 1986, he was made the paper's national baseball writer. [3] Chass was also inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2013 and the Western Pennsylvania Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in Pittsburgh in 2004.

From 1979–1980 he served as chairman of the New York chapter of the Baseball Writers' Association of America. Chass has authored numerous books on the business, labor and legal relations of sports, baseball in particular, among his works: The Yankees: The Four Fabulous Eras of Baseball's Most Famous Team, which was published by Random House in 1979; Power Football, published by Dutton in 1973, and Pittsburgh Steelers: The Long Climb, published by Prentice Hall in 1973. He has contributed to Great Pro Football Games and Greatest Basketball Games. He also authored several articles in Dutton's Best Sports Stories series. [1]

During his nearly 40 years writing for The New York Times , Chass covered the entirety of the George Steinbrenner regime, covering the Yankees daily until the end of the 1986 season.

Chass made some other significant contributions to baseball writing. For one, he created the coverage of contracts. Salaries in sports had been largely guess work before he began reporting contracts of baseball's free agents once free agency began in 1976. For another, he pioneered the intensive coverage of baseball labor negotiations, later covering labor matters in the other three major sports as well.

Chass was one of the early authors of a Sunday baseball notebook and was unique in writing the notebook throughout the year, not just during the baseball season. From August 1984, through March 2008 he wrote 1,155 Sunday notebooks, developing more than 4,000 items ranging in length from one paragraph to more than 1,000 words.

In January 2004 he switched from reporting baseball news to writing baseball columns, writing from two to five columns a week.

Chass is a noted baseball traditionalist who laments the shift in baseball news coverage from daily beat-report biographies to more statistics-driven analysis like sabermetrics. In 2007, Chass asserted that, among "certain topics that should be off-limits," are "statistics mongers promoting VORP and other new-age baseball statistics." Chass particularly believes that in "their attempt to introduce these new-age statistics into the game," these "statistics mongers" threaten "to undermine most fans' enjoyment of baseball and the human factor therein." [4] Baseball Prospectus editor Nate Silver published an open letter responding to Chass' comments. [5]

In 2008, Chass started a blog, "Murray Chass on Baseball" where he has written nearly 1,000 columns similar to what he has written for The New York Times.

Chass is a voter for the Baseball Hall of Fame, and turned in a blank ballot for the 2017 HOF class [6] and 2022 HOF class.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Baseball Writers' Association of America</span> American journalist association

The Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) is a professional association for journalists writing about Major League Baseball for daily newspapers, magazines, and qualifying websites. The organization was founded in 1908 and is known for its annual awards and voting on membership in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gene Michael</span> American baseball player and manager (1938-2017)

Eugene Richard Michael, known as Stick, was an American professional baseball player, coach, scout, manager and team executive. He played in Major League Baseball as a shortstop from 1966 to 1975, most prominently as a member of the New York Yankees, for whom he anchored the infield for seven seasons. He also played for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Los Angeles Dodgers and Detroit Tigers. He was a light hitter but also a quick and smooth defensive player.

Leonard J. Koppett was a Soviet-born American sportswriter and author who wrote 17 books on sports, mainly baseball.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dan Shaughnessy</span> American sports writer (born 1953)

Dan Shaughnessy is an American sports writer. He has covered the Boston Red Sox for The Boston Globe since 1981. In 2016, he was given the J. G. Taylor Spink Award by the Baseball Hall of Fame. Shaughnessy is often referred to by his nickname "Shank," given by the 1980s Boston Celtics team for the often unflattering and critical nature of his articles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donald Fehr</span> American sports labor leader

Donald Martin Fehr is an American former sports executive. He was the fifth executive director of the NHL Players Association from 2010 to 2023. He became nationally prominent while serving as the executive director of the MLB Players Association from 1983 to 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Baseball Prospectus</span> Baseball analytics media company

Baseball Prospectus (BP) is an organization that publishes a website, BaseballProspectus.com, devoted to the sabermetric analysis of baseball. BP has a staff of regular columnists and provides advanced statistics as well as player and team performance projections on the site. Since 1996 the BP staff has also published a Baseball Prospectus annual as well as several other books devoted to baseball analysis and history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fred Lieb</span> American sportswriter

Frederick George Lieb was an American sportswriter and baseball historian. Lieb published his memoirs in 1977, which documented his nearly 70 years as a baseball reporter. He received the J. G. Taylor Spink Award from the Baseball Writers' Association of America in 1972. Born in 1888 in Philadelphia, Lieb died at age 92 in Houston.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scott McGregor (left-handed pitcher)</span> American baseball player

Scott Houston McGregor is an American former professional baseball player and coach. He played his entire career in Major League Baseball as a left-handed pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles from 1976 to 1988.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2004 Baseball Hall of Fame balloting</span> Elections to the Baseball Hall of Fame

Elections to the Baseball Hall of Fame for 2004 proceeded in keeping with rules enacted in 2001. The Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) held an election to select from recent players; Dennis Eckersley and Paul Molitor gained induction to the Hall.

James Patrick Murray was an American sportswriter. He worked at the Los Angeles Times from 1961 until his death in 1998, and his column was nationally syndicated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dale Berra</span> American baseball player (born 1956)

Dale Anthony Berra is an American former Major League Baseball player who primarily played as an infielder from 1977 to 1987. He is the son of Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra and brother of former Baltimore Colts return specialist Tim Berra.

Jack Lang was an American sportswriter who spent more than forty years covering New York's baseball teams.

Richard Lowell Hummel was an American author and sports columnist best known for his work for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Hummel was honored in 2007 with the J. G. Taylor Spink Award for baseball writing. Known throughout baseball by his nickname "The Commish", he was a former president of the Baseball Writers' Association of America.

Ross Newhan is an American former sports writer, best known as a columnist for the Long Beach Press-Telegram and baseball writer for the Los Angeles Times. He began his career in 1961 and retired in 2004.

John Perrotto is a sports journalist who has written for The Beaver County Times, Baseball Prospectus, DKPittsburghsports.com, and Basketball Prospectus in his checkered career. He is a member of the Baseball Writers' Association of America and a voter in the annual Baseball Hall of Fame election and occasionally other annual Major League Baseball awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Meany</span> American sportswriter (1909–1964)

Thomas William Meany was an American sports writer who mostly covered baseball in the New York City area.

Paul D. Hagen is an American sports columnist who covers baseball.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claire Smith (journalist)</span> American sportswriter

Claire Smith is an American sportswriter, who covered Major League Baseball for the Hartford Courant, The New York Times, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. She is currently a news editor for ESPN. Smith was the first woman to be honored with the J. G. Taylor Spink Award by the Baseball Writers' Association of America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wendell Smith (sportswriter)</span> American sportswriter

John Wendell Smith was an American sportswriter and civil rights activist who was influential in the choice of Jackie Robinson's career as the first African American Major League Baseball player. Similarly, Smith was one of the first African American sport-writers to be a member of the Baseball Writers' Association of America, and was posthumously awarded the J. G. Taylor Spink Award by the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1993.

References

  1. 1 2 Interview at nytimes.com
  2. Interview at fangraphs.com
  3. "Chass to Enter Hall of Fame". The New York Times . December 15, 2003.
  4. Murray Chass (February 27, 2007). "As Season Approaches, Some Topics Should Be Off Limits". The New York Times .
  5. Silver, Nate (February 27, 2007). "Unfiltered; An Open Letter to Murray Chass". Baseball Prospectus. Archived from the original on March 4, 2007. Retrieved 2008-02-26.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  6. Baer, Bill (January 8, 2017). "Murray Chass intentionally turned in a blank Hall of Fame ballot". NBC Sports . Retrieved 2021-01-13.

Further reading

Ruttman, Larry (2013). "Murray Chass: Hall of Fame New York Times Scribe". American Jews and America's Game: Voices of a Growing Legacy in Baseball. Lincoln, Nebraska and London, England: University of Nebraska Press. pp. 137–145. ISBN   978-0-8032-6475-5. This chapter in Ruttman's history, based on a November 17, 2009 interview with Chass conducted for the book, discusses Chass's American, Jewish, baseball, and life experiences from youth to the present.