Thursday, December 09, 2010

Murray Chass is a Fuckin Moron

I have written before about my hatred for New York Times baseball writer Murray Chass. Now the old fool, who is somehow in the Hall of Fame, has embarrassed himself again.
In a recent article Chass ripped Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci for voting against former union leader Marvin Miller for the Hall of Fame.
Only problem is, Verducci voted for Miller. Chass was fed some bad info by Miller himself who was passing along hearsay about who may have voted against him.
Verducci returns fire, repeatedly referring to Chass as “the blogger.” This actually confused me when I was reading it, thinking he was referring to someone else because surely he would use “Chass” on second reference.
But apparently Chass hates bloggers (like all old-school (read: dead) media types) so this insult is likely to cut Chass to the core.

But beyond the petty dispute between sportswriters, and my ongoing hatred for Murray Chass, let me make a quick remark about Marvin Miller.
I do not think he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. In order for a non-player to make it, I think his contributions have to be undeniable and his legacy untainted.
Miller was integral in creating free agency, a major victory for the players and for fairness. His biggest legacy is the strong labor union.
The downside of that: the players’ strike of 1994 which led to the cancelation of the World Series, the Steroid Era which occurred in large part because of the union’s resistance to steroid testing and the lack of a salary cap which led to an unbelievable salary imbalance causing the near-death of baseball in about ten markets.
With all those negatives on his legacy there is no way Marvin Miller deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.
And neither does Murray Chass.

5 comments:

Juice said...

where do you stand on georgy porgy?

Bill said...

How can Marvin Miller be blamed for greed by the players and stupidity by the owners?

Paul said...

Juice, I wouldn't vote Steinbrenner in either. He has some major positives on his resume. But mostly he was just a very successful owner for one team.

Billie, Wasn't Dr. Frankenstein held responsible for the terror unleashed by his creation? Should the same not be done to Miller? The strong union is part of his legacy, and his legacy includes those aforementioned negatives.

But remember, we're not just judging good or bad here, we're talking about the Hall of Fame. I think in that case there needs to be overwhelmingly positive contributions to the game, which I don't see in either man.

Nor in that fuckin idiot Murray Chass.

Scott said...

I can't support Miller anymore because every year he doesn't get in, he has the MLBPA blast out a whiny e-mail statement he writes. I have to send it along if I can find it - hilarious.

Scott said...

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/sports_blog/2010/12/union-reacts-to-marvin-millers-continued-exclusion-from-the-hall-of-fame.html

This captures the spirit