http://www.murraychass.com Fri, 19 Aug 2022 09:06:13 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 en hourly 1 http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12331 http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12331#comments Sun, 19 Jan 2020 12:56:27 +0000 Murray Chass http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12331 Like it or not, this is one of the saddest eras in baseball history. It’s not the Black Sox scandal of a hundred years ago. It’s not the more recent steroids era. It’s not Pete Rose and gambling. But it’s major league baseball players, the best players in the land, cheating by concocting a scheme to steal pitchers’ signs illegally, using electronic means. I mean these players, these professional players, these major league players, learned when they were in high school or college how to distinguish a fastball from a curveball. But now that they are professionals they need electronic assistance? What would Barry Bonds have done with this system? No ballpark in America would have been safe from his assault. The Bonds era, however, was sad and depressing enough without linking it to another shady era of cheating. What, you don’t think Bonds cheated because he was never caught? He was caught, all right; he just lied his way out of it. Yes, Bonds was a double duty skunk. He lied and he cheated. He used steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs and claimed he was using flaxseed oil. With his lying and cheating, though, Bonds has moved into position to be elected to the Hall of Fame. That stunning development could occur this year, this week in fact. With three years of ballot eligibility remaining, Bonds last year received 59.1 percent of the writers vote, his best percentage in seven years of his candidacy. According to Ryan Thibodaux’s Hall of Fame tracker, as of Saturday, Bonds had ...]]> http://www.murraychass.com/?feed=rss2&p=12331 0 http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12311 http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12311#comments Mon, 13 Jan 2020 14:04:18 +0000 Murray Chass http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12311 Has Major League Baseball reached the point where teams have to cheat to win? MLB is investigating accusations that the Houston Astros won the 2017 World Series by illegally stealing signs and at the same time investigating accusations that the Boston Red Sox won the 2018 World Series in a similar fashion. Who will be next, the 2016 World Series champion Chicago Cubs? No one has accused them of anything, although I suspected them of tampering when they hired Joe Maddon to manage in 2015. No evidence surfaced, however. (but only because the Tampa Bay Rays never filed tampering charges.) As for the need to cheat to win the World Series, a baseball official noted ...]]> http://www.murraychass.com/?feed=rss2&p=12311 0 http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12297 http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12297#comments Sun, 05 Jan 2020 14:13:03 +0000 Murray Chass http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12297 http://www.murraychass.com/?feed=rss2&p=12297 0 http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12289 http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12289#comments Sun, 29 Dec 2019 13:46:29 +0000 Murray Chass http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12289 I don’t think I’ll have reason to suspect the owners of collusion this off-season. Unless they are playing a new and different kind of game whose tricks elude my comprehension, they are signing free agents to legitimate contracts. Even Scott Boras, the master procrastinator, has done it. Boras has secured a 9-year, $324 million contract for Gerritt Cole, the best pitcher on this year’s market. In his usual practice, Boras comes up with a mystery team without identifying it but uses it to entice real competitors and drag out the competition. Cole, however, wanted to play for the Yankees, and the offer was already high enough that Boras had no reason to stall any longer. Cole, however, has been only one of many free agents who have already signed. Last off-season the two most desired free agents were ...]]> http://www.murraychass.com/?feed=rss2&p=12289 0 http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12277 http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12277#comments Sun, 22 Dec 2019 13:43:21 +0000 Murray Chass http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12277 As a political science major in college many, many years ago, I viewed the past week as intriguing as any World Series. No, more intriguing. I mean the World Series is played every year; only three times in the 243-year history of our country has a president been impeached. Agree with it or not, like it or not. Donald Trump has been impeached and will carry that stain not only for the rest of his life but also for the rest of eternity. The United States Senate is not very likely to convict Trump, but the House has impeached him. That act last week makes Trump the only president I know who has been impeached. I readily acknowledge I did not know Andrew Johnson, who was impeached in 1868, and I do not know Bill Clinton, who was impeached in 1988. However, I met Trump at Yankee Stadium some years ago when I was ...]]> http://www.murraychass.com/?feed=rss2&p=12277 0 http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12262 http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12262#comments Mon, 09 Dec 2019 13:47:32 +0000 Murray Chass http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12262 I received a letter from George Steinbrenner the other day. No, really, I did. Now I acknowledge that was an unlikely development considering that the Yankees’ owner died nine years earlier, but Steinbrenner did some pretty remarkable things when he was alive so I wouldn’t be so quick to doubt that he wrote that letter. After opening the envelope and reading the letter, I can assure you that he did write it. Only he wrote it in 2006, Nov. 29 to be precise, meaning he wrote it almost exactly 13 years ago. I would like to blame the United States Postal Service for the delay in delivery of the letter, but somehow, I overlooked it, and it wound up buried in a pile of papers that were apparently undisturbed for years. Finding the letter now, though, was timely because the subject matter was Marvin Miller and the Hall of Fame ...]]> http://www.murraychass.com/?feed=rss2&p=12262 0 http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12253 http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12253#comments Sun, 08 Dec 2019 02:28:42 +0000 Murray Chass http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12253 Fred Wilpon has been an owner or the owner of the New York Mets for 40 years, and now he is selling the team. It’s a baseball story and despite it being baseball, The New York Times had to publish it. The Times, many readers of this website have complained, has abandoned baseball coverage. But this development the Times couldn’t ignore. What the newspaper did, though, was publish the worst article about a major baseball development in 50 years. Appearing under the bylines of four – count ‘em four; one used to suffice – reporters, the article was more a biography of the prospective purchaser, Steve Cohen, a hedge-fund billionaire, than it was a report of the sale of the Mets. It could be speculated that the article might have been more ...]]> http://www.murraychass.com/?feed=rss2&p=12253 0 http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12241 http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12241#comments Sun, 01 Dec 2019 13:54:16 +0000 Murray Chass http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12241 Just a week ago I determined that Commissioner Rob Manfred’s off-season minority-hiring batting average was .091. Days later the Pittsburgh Pirates hired Derek Shelton as their manager and Manfred slumped to .083. With all major positions filled – manager, general manager, chief of baseball operations, club president – teams have hired 11 white men and a single minority, making Manfred 1-for-12 in minority hiring this off-season. The one-sided results of the off-season hiring have made a farce of any pledge or boast that Manfred made when he became commissioner six weeks short of five years ago. What we have seen in the past few months has to make us wonder if Manfred understands what a minority is. Carlos Beltran, whom the New York Mets hired as their new manager, is a Puerto Rican, therefore a minority. The Pirates’ club president, Travis Williams; Boston baseball operations chief Chaim Bloom, general managers Ben Cherington (Pirates) and Scott Harris (Giants) and Managers Joe Girardi (Phillies), Gabe Kapler (Giants), Joe Maddon (Angels), David Ross (Cubs), Mike Matheny (Royals), Jayce Tingler (Padres) and Shelton (Pirates) do not qualify as minorities. Teams in at least some instances followed M.L.B. guidelines and ...]]> http://www.murraychass.com/?feed=rss2&p=12241 0 http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12233 http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12233#comments Sun, 24 Nov 2019 13:21:12 +0000 Murray Chass http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12233 Once upon a time, the commissioner of Major League Baseball emphasized the importance of diversity hiring. If this sounds like the start of a fairy tale, it is. Rob Manfred’s pledge of diversity hiring has turned out to be a fairy tale. Heading toward the 2020 season, clubs have hired seven managers, one chief of baseball operations, two general managers and one club president. Only one of the 11 men (no women, of course) is a member of a minority, Carlos Beltran, the New York Mets’ new manager. Blacks need not apply. One managerial position, in Pittsburgh, remains open. Of the other seven managerial vacancies, six have been filled by white men, and white men also have assumed the four front-office positions. Is this any way to run a diversity program?]]> http://www.murraychass.com/?feed=rss2&p=12233 0 http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12219 http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12219#comments Sun, 17 Nov 2019 13:26:47 +0000 Murray Chass http://www.murraychass.com/?p=12219 By losing the American League most valuable player award to Mike Trout, Alex Bregman avoided entanglement in a sensitive and possibly embarrassing quandary. Just a couple of days before last week’s announcement that Trout gained his third M.V.P. award a story broke involving Bregman’s Houston Astros. According to the website The Athletic, the 2017 World Series champion Astros cheated. Violating Major League Baseball rules, they used a sign-stealing scheme that involved the use of electronics. Where would Bregman and the M.V.P. award fit into the outcome of baseball’s investigation?]]> http://www.murraychass.com/?feed=rss2&p=12219 0