Headlines

  • Giants Exercise 2026 Option On Manager Bob Melvin
  • Astros Place Jeremy Peña On Injured List With Fractured Rib
  • Tucker Barnhart To Retire
  • Tyler Mahle To Be Sidelined Beyond Trade Deadline
  • Reds Release Jeimer Candelario
  • Dave Parker Passes Away
  • Previous
  • Next
Register
Login
  • Hoops Rumors
  • Pro Football Rumors
  • Pro Hockey Rumors

MLB Trade Rumors

Remove Ads
  • Home
  • Teams
    • AL East
      • Baltimore Orioles
      • Boston Red Sox
      • New York Yankees
      • Tampa Bay Rays
      • Toronto Blue Jays
    • AL Central
      • Chicago White Sox
      • Cleveland Guardians
      • Detroit Tigers
      • Kansas City Royals
      • Minnesota Twins
    • AL West
      • Houston Astros
      • Los Angeles Angels
      • Oakland Athletics
      • Seattle Mariners
      • Texas Rangers
    • NL East
      • Atlanta Braves
      • Miami Marlins
      • New York Mets
      • Philadelphia Phillies
      • Washington Nationals
    • NL Central
      • Chicago Cubs
      • Cincinnati Reds
      • Milwaukee Brewers
      • Pittsburgh Pirates
      • St. Louis Cardinals
    • NL West
      • Arizona Diamondbacks
      • Colorado Rockies
      • Los Angeles Dodgers
      • San Diego Padres
      • San Francisco Giants
  • About
    • MLB Trade Rumors
    • Tim Dierkes
    • Writing team
    • Advertise
    • Archives
  • Contact
  • Tools
    • 2025 Trade Deadline Outlook Series
    • 2025-26 MLB Free Agent List
    • Contract Tracker
    • Transaction Tracker
    • Agency Database
  • NBA/NFL/NHL
    • Hoops Rumors
    • Pro Football Rumors
    • Pro Hockey Rumors
  • App
  • Chats
Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Murray Chass Q&A

By Tim Dierkes | March 13, 2009 at 1:40pm CDT

Murray Chass covered baseball for the New York Times for almost 40 years, and now his work can be found at MurrayChass.com.  Chass answered questions for MLB Trade Rumors over email recently.

MLB Trade Rumors: You could be called a trailblazer with MurrayChass.com, as it’s the first time I recall a veteran baseball journalist going independent while continuing to make calls, report, and do newspaper-style stories.  It seems that Tracy Ringolsby and others are following suit…is this the beginning of a trend?

Murray Chass: I think it’s premature to talk about a trend because we don’t know how many newspaper people might follow, but given the state of the newspaper industry and the rapid rate at which jobs and entire papers are disappearing or threatening to disappear, I can see the practice developing.

MLBTR: Why did you create MurrayChass.com?  Given that there is no revenue source, is it the sheer enjoyment of writing?  What is it like to be free of editors?

Chass: You are right about there being no revenue source, although that might be a reason not too many people would follow. In my case, I decided to take the attractive buyout the Times offered because I figured it might not be offered again. I also didn’t like the direction in which the sports editor was going. But I wasn’t prepared to quit writing. I enjoyed writing baseball columns my last four plus years at the Times and I wasn’t ready to stop. Rather than try to hook on with an existing Web site, I decided to start my own site so I could write the kind of columns I wanted to write. Most of the columns on existing sites are geared to where this player or that is going, and that’s not what I wanted to do.

As for editors, I don’t miss them. They can serve a purpose, saving a writer from mistakes, for example. But I see enough mistakes in the Times, which is heavily edited, so editors aren’t the answer.

MLBTR: Has it affected your access, not being affiliated with the New York Times anymore?

Chass: Not at all. The people who know me still take and return my calls, and others who don’t know me but are aware of my name and reputation do the same. The only thing I have changed is if I call someone I have never talked to I identify myself as Murray Chass from murraychass.com and formerly of the Times. I don’t presume that everybody knows my name.

MLBTR: You’ve said you hate blogs.  Is it just certain ones, or do you hate the entire medium?  Do you think that, like Buzz Bissinger discovered, there may be a few out there you would enjoy reading?

Chass: I laugh at the whole blog thing now. I think I objected to blogs initially because my newspaper colleagues and I had worked for many, many years learning and polishing our craft, and suddenly anyone who wanted could write a blog on the Internet with no experience, no credibility and no accountability. I have made mistakes occasionally in my Web site columns — fortunately very few — and I correct them. I don’t know that bloggers acknowledge and correct their mistakes.

I don’t read blogs as a steady diet because I don’t have time. I spend too much time as it is working on my columns, talking to people and keeping up with baseball news and developments. Instead of reading blogs, I’d rather spend my time going to concerts and Broadway shows and doing other things to live a varied life.   

MLBTR: Regarding sabermetrics and the advanced stats used these days…do you believe it’s possible to fully embrace these stats without discounting the human side of the game?  Can a person have full appreciation for both?

Chass: I think the whole statistical analysis thing is generational. Older guys like me have little use for the new-fangled stuff. I’m certainly not the only one. Younger writers go more for the stats stuff. I think baseball people — general managers, for example — have to use all means of evaluation available for their own protection. I would hope that even Billy Beane occasionally listens to his scouts. One of the things I didn’t like about "Moneyball" was the way Michael Lewis put down Oakland scouts. I have great respect for scouts. The good ones are pretty darn amazing.

Perhaps my biggest problem with the stats generation is they ignore the fact that human beings play the game.  I think stats have a place, and I use them to bolster a story when called for, but they are not everything and the newer ones have little benefit to most readers.

MLBTR: Some writers rejected the new advanced stats of recent years.  Were you met with similar resistance when you introduced more detailed coverage of free agent contracts and labor negotiations?

Chass: That’s a very good and interesting question. Contract coverage for sure. People, including some writers, made fun of my use of dollar signs so often, but today you can’t read a story about free agents as well as non-free agents without seeing what the guy signed for or the amount of the guy’s new contract. I, on the other hand, am less interested in contracts, though I use the information when it is relevant (like statistics).

In labor coverage, baseball writers definitely tried to avoid covering negotiations. They were interested only in the games on the field. In the 1981 strike, the New York Daily News had three baseball writers, but none of them wanted any part of the strike coverage so the News used its newsside labor writer. He didn’t know anyone in baseball, and the owners’ chief negotiator quickly saw him as someone he could feed stuff to and get his spin in the paper. The strike was about half over when the reporter discovered he was being used.

During the 1994 strike the two sides didn’t negotiate for months once the strike began and the NBA was negotiating a new labor deal so the Times had me cover those negotiations. I quickly learned that the NBA writers wanted to cover those talks even less than baseball writers wanted to cover baseball talks. I loved covering labor because it was like being a real reporter, and I loved being a reporter.

Share 0 Retweet 0 Send via email0

Interviews

A’s Place Rob Bowen On Waivers
Main
Odds & Ends: Darvish, Rockies, Angels, Nats
View Comments (0)
Post a Comment

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Please login to leave a reply.

Log in Register

    Top Stories

    Giants Exercise 2026 Option On Manager Bob Melvin

    Astros Place Jeremy Peña On Injured List With Fractured Rib

    Tucker Barnhart To Retire

    Tyler Mahle To Be Sidelined Beyond Trade Deadline

    Reds Release Jeimer Candelario

    Dave Parker Passes Away

    Griffin Canning Diagnosed With Ruptured Achilles

    Pirates Reportedly Have Very Few Untouchable Players At Trade Deadline

    Griffin Canning Believed To Have Suffered Achilles Injury

    Mariners Looking For Corner Infield Bats; Ownership Willing To Bump Payroll

    Wander Franco Found Guilty Of Sexual Abuse

    Mariners Place Rowdy Tellez On Release Waivers

    Max Meyer To Undergo Season-Ending Hip Surgery

    Whit Merrifield Announces Retirement

    White Sox Sign Noah Syndergaard To Minor League Deal

    Corbin Carroll Placed On IL With Wrist Fracture

    Hoops Rumors Has The Latest On NBA Draft, Free Agency

    Mets Option Francisco Alvarez

    Reds To Promote Chase Burns For MLB Debut

    A.J. Puk Undergoes Elbow Surgery; Gabriel Moreno Diagnosed With Fractured Finger

    Recent

    Jorge Mateo To Miss 8 To 12 Weeks With Hamstring Strain

    Reds To Sign Buck Farmer To Minor League Deal

    Pirates Trade Hunter Stratton To Braves

    Rockies Designate Sam Hilliard For Assignment, Select Austin Nola

    Orioles Select Jacob Stallings, Designate Emmanuel Rivera For Assignment

    Rangers Select Billy McKinney, Transfer Tyler Mahle To 60-Day IL

    Marlins Claim Nick Nastrini

    Giants Exercise 2026 Option On Manager Bob Melvin

    Poll: What Will The Twins Do At The Deadline?

    Brewers Select Anthony Seigler, Designate Daz Cameron For Assignment

    MLBTR Newsletter - Hot stove highlights in your inbox, five days a week

    Latest Rumors & News

    Latest Rumors & News

    • Sandy Alcantara Rumors
    • Luis Robert Rumors
    • Alex Bregman Rumors

     

    Trade Rumors App for iOS and Android App Store Google Play

    MLBTR Features

    MLBTR Features

    • Remove Ads, Support Our Writers
    • Front Office Originals
    • Front Office Fantasy Baseball
    • MLBTR Podcast
    • Trade Deadline Outlook Series
    • 2025-26 MLB Free Agent List
    • Contract Tracker
    • Transaction Tracker
    • Extension Tracker
    • Agency Database
    • MLBTR On Twitter
    • MLBTR On Facebook
    • Team Facebook Pages
    • How To Set Up Notifications For Breaking News
    • Hoops Rumors
    • Pro Football Rumors
    • Pro Hockey Rumors

    Rumors By Team

    • Angels Rumors
    • Astros Rumors
    • Athletics Rumors
    • Blue Jays Rumors
    • Braves Rumors
    • Brewers Rumors
    • Cardinals Rumors
    • Cubs Rumors
    • Diamondbacks Rumors
    • Dodgers Rumors
    • Giants Rumors
    • Guardians Rumors
    • Mariners Rumors
    • Marlins Rumors
    • Mets Rumors
    • Nationals Rumors
    • Orioles Rumors
    • Padres Rumors
    • Phillies Rumors
    • Pirates Rumors
    • Rangers Rumors
    • Rays Rumors
    • Red Sox Rumors
    • Reds Rumors
    • Rockies Rumors
    • Royals Rumors
    • Tigers Rumors
    • Twins Rumors
    • White Sox Rumors
    • Yankees Rumors

    Navigation

    • Sitemap
    • Archives
    • RSS/Twitter Feeds By Team

    MLBTR INFO

    • Advertise
    • About
    • Commenting Policy
    • Privacy Policy

    Connect

    • Contact Us
    • Twitter
    • Facebook
    • RSS Feed

    MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

    Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information

    hide arrows scroll to top

    Register

    Desktop Version | Switch To Mobile Version