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	<title>Murray Chass On Baseball</title>
	
	<link>http://www.murraychass.com</link>
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	<pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:57:56 +0000</pubDate>
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			<atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="self" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MurrayChass" type="application/rss+xml" /><feedburner:emailServiceId>MurrayChass</feedburner:emailServiceId><feedburner:feedburnerHostname>http://feedburner.google.com</feedburner:feedburnerHostname><feedburner:feedFlare href="http://add.my.yahoo.com/rss?url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2FMurrayChass" src="http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/us/my/addtomyyahoo4.gif">Subscribe with My Yahoo!</feedburner:feedFlare><feedburner:feedFlare href="http://www.newsgator.com/ngs/subscriber/subext.aspx?url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2FMurrayChass" src="http://www.newsgator.com/images/ngsub1.gif">Subscribe with NewsGator</feedburner:feedFlare><feedburner:feedFlare href="http://feeds.my.aol.com/add.jsp?url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2FMurrayChass" src="http://o.aolcdn.com/favorites.my.aol.com/webmaster/ffclient/webroot/locale/en-US/images/myAOLButtonSmall.gif">Subscribe with My AOL</feedburner:feedFlare><feedburner:feedFlare href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://feeds.feedburner.com/MurrayChass" src="http://www.bloglines.com/images/sub_modern11.gif">Subscribe with Bloglines</feedburner:feedFlare><feedburner:feedFlare href="http://www.netvibes.com/subscribe.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2FMurrayChass" src="http://www.netvibes.com/img/add2netvibes.gif">Subscribe with Netvibes</feedburner:feedFlare><feedburner:feedFlare href="http://fusion.google.com/add?feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2FMurrayChass" src="http://buttons.googlesyndication.com/fusion/add.gif">Subscribe with Google</feedburner:feedFlare><feedburner:feedFlare href="http://www.pageflakes.com/subscribe.aspx?url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2FMurrayChass" src="http://www.pageflakes.com/ImageFile.ashx?instanceId=Static_4&amp;fileName=ATP_blu_91x17.gif">Subscribe with Pageflakes</feedburner:feedFlare><atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="hub" href="http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com" /><item>
		<title>RAVITCH UNFORGETTABLE IN BASEBALL LABOR LORE</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MurrayChass/~3/7HsGjOYPOmQ/</link>
		<comments>http://www.murraychass.com/?p=843#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:55:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Murray Chass</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.murraychass.com/?p=843</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Richard Ravitch is a name that will live in baseball infamy. A lawyer who has held a wide variety of bureaucratic leadership positions, Ravitch was the chief labor negotiator who took Major League Baseball owners into the most disastrous strike in professional sports history.

Ravitch was excused from his position in the middle of the strike, but his contributions lived on.    

As Michael Weiner the incoming executive director of the players union said, "Ravitch was the one who said initially that revenue sharing and the salary cap were inextricably intertwined, which was a little bit surprising because there would have been an argument that revenue sharing was not a mandatory subject of bargaining."

That is, the owners would have made that argument. The union agreed with Ravitch's stated position and didn't have to make any argument on the subject.

Ravitch, who sort of disappeared from public view following his departure from baseball, is back, not in baseball but in public view, at least in New York State, where Governor David Paterson has named him the state's lieutenant governor. And just in time to make this Web site on the first anniversary of its beginning.

Paterson needed a lieutenant governor because he had held that position until he became governor in March 2008, replacing Eliot Spitzer, who committed sexual-political suicide that seems to be the rage among office holders.

Ravitch may yet not get to be lieutenant governor. The Republicans have challenged his appointment, asserting that the state constitution doesn't permit the governor to name a lieutenant governor. But Ravitch's emergence alone was enough to get me thinking about his baseball past.]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>THE FINAL KOUFAX CHRONICLES</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MurrayChass/~3/Id2gRmDwXYU/</link>
		<comments>http://www.murraychass.com/?p=833#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 12 Jul 2009 04:08:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Murray Chass</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[The last time the All-Star game was played in St. Louis, in 1966, the National League team featured a dazzling array of superstars and future Hall of Famers.

Half of the infield - first baseman Willie McCovey and second baseman Joe Morgan - and the entire outfield - Roberto Clemente, Willie Mays and Henry Aaron - would wind up in the Hall of Fame. So would the league's starting pitcher, Sandy Koufax; the others who pitched for the N.L. in the game - Jim Bunning, Juan Marichal and Gaylord Perry - and Bob Gibson, who was selected for the team but couldn't play because he developed an arm ailment.]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>RED SOX FANS SHINE AT ALL-STAR TIME</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MurrayChass/~3/imJs6b3yNrs/</link>
		<comments>http://www.murraychass.com/?p=828#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:27:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Murray Chass</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.murraychass.com/?p=828</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Considering that their owner is a frequent user of Twitter, of course the Boston Red Sox used it to solicit votes for their players for the All-Star game. Not only are the Red Sox one of the best teams in the American League, if not the best, but they are also very good at promoting their players and getting fans to vote for them.

Except for Kevin Youkilis's last-minute loss to Mark Teixeira of the Yankees in their fierce back-and-forth competition for first base, the Red Sox showed themselves to be resourceful and dynamic in pushing their All-Star candidates.]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>PERPLEXING PIRATES KEEP TRADING AND LOSING</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MurrayChass/~3/WvC5kTHNvb8/</link>
		<comments>http://www.murraychass.com/?p=813#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 05 Jul 2009 04:26:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Murray Chass</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.murraychass.com/?p=813</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[On one hand, there is nothing confusing about the Pittsburgh Pirates. They are a losing team and have been a losing team for more than a decade and a half. In fact, they are on the brink of breaking a major league record with their 17th consecutive losing season.

On the other, they are one of the most confounding teams in the majors. They trade players before they have to sign them to expensive contracts, they trade players after they sign them to mildly expensive contracts and they trade players whose contracts are still under their control.]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>SOSA SCOOP AND QUESTIONS IT RAISES</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MurrayChass/~3/_wNVfOQn2IA/</link>
		<comments>http://www.murraychass.com/?p=808#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 01 Jul 2009 05:04:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Murray Chass</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.murraychass.com/?p=808</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When the two San Francisco Chronicle reporters who covered the Balco case published grand jury testimony of Barry Bonds and other players, they were acting within proper journalistic bounds. Prosecutors and defense lawyers are not permitted to disclose grand jury testimony, but reporters are not bound by that restriction.

Thus Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams violated no laws or standards of ethics in reporting the testimony, but the defense lawyer who allowed Fainaru-Wada to review the transcripts, Troy Ellerman, wound up being sentenced to two and a half years in prison after he admitted that he leaked the testimony.]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>TRACY HAS COLORADO ROCKIN’</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MurrayChass/~3/zjz7vXwrVOE/</link>
		<comments>http://www.murraychass.com/?p=800#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 28 Jun 2009 07:21:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Murray Chass</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.murraychass.com/?p=800</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When the Colorado Rockies won 11 games in a row and 13 of 14 in 2007, the streak came in September and catapulted them into a tie for the National League wild-card spot in the playoffs. When they won a playoff game and their next seven games for a 21-of-22 stretch, the streak came in October and propelled them into the World Series.

Now, less than two years later, the Rockies have reeled off another 11-game winning streak and won 17 of 18 games. However, no playoff spot is immediately at stake, only the Rockies' self-respect.]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>THE KENNEDY COUNSELOR AND WHAT IF?</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MurrayChass/~3/DJy4k195rK4/</link>
		<comments>http://www.murraychass.com/?p=795#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 25 Jun 2009 04:02:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Murray Chass</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.murraychass.com/?p=795</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This is a baseball fantasy. No, not fantasy baseball, that silly game that people play, gorging themselves on players' statistics, the foolish game about which I have been interviewed for two different documentaries, the game I sometimes feel is played by everyone but me, but that makes me the rational one.

No, this is a baseball fantasy, something that never happened but about which I can fantasize and wish it had. It's about Ted Sorensen, a man who could've been baseball commissioner, like Marlon Brando "coulda been a contenduh."]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>FEHR FADING OUT</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MurrayChass/~3/jpvK2__1YLA/</link>
		<comments>http://www.murraychass.com/?p=791#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Jun 2009 01:37:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Murray Chass</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.murraychass.com/?p=791</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The most negative thing I can say about Donald Fehr is he made it easy for people who didn't like him to criticize him. Take, for example, his very innocent interlude during a long day of negotiations in the middle of the 1994 baseball strike.

Hours after the day game of a bargaining session turned into a night game, Fehr appeared in the lobby of the Arrowwood conference center in Rye Brook, N.Y. , sat down at the house piano and began playing "Take Me out to the Ball Game." He would later be criticized for doing something so trivial as playing the piano instead of remaining in the room and continuing to negotiate.]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>NOT THE MAGNIFICENT METS</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MurrayChass/~3/NnI0Lz_yZAE/</link>
		<comments>http://www.murraychass.com/?p=784#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 21 Jun 2009 04:06:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Murray Chass</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.murraychass.com/?p=784</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As the mid-point of the season approaches, the Mets do not seem prepared to attain the position they need to avoid a third consecutive late-season collapse.  Before the season began, I boldly proclaimed that the Mets could exorcise the Phillies from their shattered psyches forever more if they built an 18-game lead with 17 games to play.

The 17-games-to-go juncture, after all, was the point of the schedule the Mets reached the last two years leading the National League East before they did their Phillies fade. They led Philadelphia by 7 games with 17 to go in 2007 and by 3 ½ games with 17 to go last year, and they finished first neither time.]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>RED SOX OWNER GOES TWEET, TWEET, TWEET</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MurrayChass/~3/VYNDChNK7A0/</link>
		<comments>http://www.murraychass.com/?p=779#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:17:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Murray Chass</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.murraychass.com/?p=779</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[John Henry, meet Brian Bruney. They don't run in the same circles; they most likely don't even have any mutual acquaintances. And they live on very diverse strata of Major League Baseball. But after their recent remarks about other people in baseball they might want to get together to discuss the wisdom of those remarks.

Let's begin with Henry, the principal owner of the Boston Red Sox. He was so giddy last week after the Red Sox completed a three-game sweep of the Yankees and ran their season record against them to 8-0 that he displayed his feelings for all to see on Twitter, a social-interaction Web site where even an owner of a baseball team can be as goofy as he wants to be.]]></description>
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