FanHouse MurrayChass

Albert Pujols rightfully won the National League MVP this past season, but there is still a raging debate and many people think Ryan Howard deserved the award. The overwhelming majority of those people are Phillies fans, who think their team is entitled to every single award due to their World Series victory (Howard is the MVP! Brad Lidge should win Cy Young! Charlie Manuel is manager of the year!!) and older writers who can't evolve past their own stubbornness.

Murray Chass, famed baseball writer from the New York Times, falls into the latter group. His argument centers around the fact that Howard carried the Phils into the playoffs and Pujols didn't accomplish the same feat with his Cardinals. He also accuses Pujols supporters of not being able to grasp the concept of value, and instead being obsessed with stats. Of course, later he uses September stats to explain why Howard was more valuable down the stretch.

Where I unequivocally disagree is the claim that Pujols backers don't understand value. Isn't this just a pompous claim, by the way? If someone disagrees with you, you just assume they are ignorant and don't understand the intricacies of "value" the way you do.

Hey, all you whippersnapping bloggers. Surely you remember this one old guy that worked for the New York Times. No? His name was Murray Chass, he was a baseball writer, and he really, really hated bloggers. Then he lost his job. Perhaps you had forgotten.

But guess what? Murray now has a web site, where he will be logging his thoughts on the game of baseball. Ingenious! Don't worry, he won't be blogging. He'll just be typing, and then publishing to the web. Not blogging! Never!

This is a site for baseball columns, not for baseball blogs. The proprietor of the site is not a fan of blogs. He made that abundantly clear on a radio show with Charlie Steiner when Steiner asked him what he thought of blogs and he replied, "I hate blogs." He later heartily applauded Buzz Bissinger when the best-selling author denounced bloggers on a Bob Costas HBO show. [...] Otherwise, this site will most likely appeal primarily to older fans whose interest in good old baseball is largely ignored in this day of young bloggers who know it all, and new- fangled statistics (VORP, for one excuse-me example), which are drowning the game in numbers and making people forget that human beings, not numbers, play the games.

The Big Lead reported today that longtime New York Times baseball columnist Murray Chass is taking an involuntary buyout, which is almost entirely sad. It's a tough dawn in the newspaper industry; buyouts for older staffers are a regrettable, if suddenly inevitable, fact of life, but that doesn't make them any more appealing.

So here's where, normally, I'd rip on Murray Chass for being closeminded and silly, and for letting his column quality drift dramatically in recent years, but in the solemn spirit of the hour, there's no use dancing on the -- WHAT! Murray Chass said WHAT?:

"I hate bloggers." "Worst development in media business, anyone can be a blogger." "No credentials required, just spouting off their opinions." "Our wives could go on and do it if they wanted to." "I know they're not going away but I wish they did."

Oh, Murray. Murray Murray Murray. Perhaps you just needed to vent, but its that attitude -- that refusal to change, that insistence that all the news value in the world belonged in column inches and newsprint -- that's what got you canned, dude. (I won't go in to all the reasons Murray's wrong, not least of which because bloggers do exactly what he does but in a different f----- format. F---.) It's too late to change now, of course, but maybe give it a shot? Eh, Murray?

No? Whatever then. Enjoy the golf, you miserable old stodge.

Somewhere in the last year, it became some sort of unwritten baseball-blogger rule that one agrees with Murray Chass at one's own peril. Columns decrying the use of statistics to measure performance, well, that'll get you blacklisted by blogs for life, or at the very least will get a few pixelated darts thrown your way.

But Chass has a good point in today's column about the World Anti-Doping Agency. That point? WADA would annoy us all less if they just kept quiet for a while:

"It depends on where you stick your stake in the ground about your values," he said in a recent telephone interview. "There were times when people paid money to see the lions fight the Christians. That doesn't mean it was right. It doesn't mean Major League Baseball values are right just because they're making millions of dollars."

"Major League Baseball can say, 'We're happy with what we're doing,' " he added.

"I'm not so certain society agrees with them."

That's David Howman, WADA official, speaking. It's not so bad that Howman wants to help reform MLB's drug testing policy. The policy needs reform. Even Bud Selig will admit that. No, this is so annoying because WADA has had their own share of failures in drug testing. Cycling is one of their former consultancies, after all; these are the people that can tell MLB what to do?

Major League Baseball is the guy that cheated on his taxes. WADA is the buddy scoffing at screaming at him to come clean. It might be right, but that doesn't mean it's not obnoxious.

Do you love Dane Cook yet? Are you buying Tourgasm DVD's by the dozen? Lining your closets with t-shirts adorning that weird shocker symbol he always does? Did you take major umbrage at Saturday Night Live's overdue spoof?

Fear not, lover of Dane and lover of baseball. Murray Chass what the kids want: More Dane Cook!

There is only one postseason, there is only one October and there is only one star. His name is Dane Cook.

The pace was hectic, especially combined with Cook's other pursuits, but the job could not have been more enjoyable for a genuine baseball fan.

"I have a love of the game, and I love what I do, and even though I'm tired, I wake up ready to go and I'm enthusiastic," Cook said. "I just make sure I drink water and get some sleep during the day."

"Major League Baseball has hooked me up," said Cook, who grew up in Arlington, Mass. "I've gone to about 15 games since I've been in Boston. They've been great about getting me to games. I said I'll basically do this for nothing if you can get me the two seats my dad and I sat in in St. Louis, and they did."

That is what you would call a friendly review. A far more annoyed viewer might call Cook's commercials irritating, frustrating, worthy of a sharpened railroad spike to the temple ... something like that. But such viewers would obviously be incorrect, because when Murray Chass says you are are cool, you are most definitely cool. Way cool.

Or so goes the refrain. Hey, we're guilty of it too: Alex Rodriguez chokes, he fails in October, he needs to earn his money with titles ... so on and so forth.

Murray Chass is already lighting the fires in today's New York Times, snarkily setting the table for A-Rod's latest postseason failure. It's like he can already taste it:

Rodriguez began this series with 4 hits in his previous 44 postseason at-bats. By the time he struck out in the ninth inning Friday night, he was 4 for his last 50. That computes to a batting average of .080 on your handy calculator. "Some of the people who kept him in check are future Hall of Famers," Cashman said.

Which of these pitchers do you think will make the Hall of Fame when their careers are over:

Justin Verlander, Nate Robertson, Kenny Rogers, Jeremy Bonderman, Joel Zumaya, Jamie Walker, Bartolo Colón, John Lackey, Ervin Santana, Paul Byrd, Francisco Rodríguez, Scot Shields, Derek Lowe, Mike Timlin, Keith Foulke, Alan Embree, Tim Wakefield, Bronson Arroyo, Pedro Martínez or Curt Schilling?

Ugh. If you want to take about Alex Rodriguez's previous postseason slumps -- and, keep in mind, no one seems to remember his good postseasons (some of which were with the Mariners) -- whatever. Do your thing. It's a tired refrain, one we'll keep hearing no matter what A-Rod does, but one you're certainly allowed to keep spouting if it makes you feel better about yourself.

But if you want to talk about his 2007 postseason (one that wouldn't even exist were it not for his legendary regular season), please, please keep in mind the governing truth behind all postseason baseball: Small. Sample. Size. And in the same sample size, A-Rod's teammates have not only not exceeded his play, they've done little to prevent opposing pitchers from focusing on A-Rod entirely. It's not like A-Rod's early, small failures are costing the team the series; the whole team is costing the team the series!

Small sample size, people. The playoffs are a crapshoot, and Rodriguez's numbers are no different. Why do we keep forgetting this?

Sure, we knew Joe Morgan and Murray Chass had a deep, burning hatred for computers and statistics, but who knew those not in traditional media also disliked the practice of sabermetrics?

No, let us not forget: there are misguided souls who blog, too:

Sabermetrics, is the Scientology of baseball. It all started in a tiny, airless, room, where the guy who got picked last in Little League, perfected his revenge. This handy guide will help clear up the wildest misconceptions spread by this extremely annoying and exceedingly irrelevant cult.

Definition.
Sabermetrics is also known as, long winded pointless dissertation, insufferable boors with calculators, or guys with pocket protectors. If you're like me, you don't need to know the equation for cracking oil to figure out you got a batch of bad gas in your car. Or live near the Devil Rays or Royals, to realize beauty might be skin deep but bad goes all the way through.

Worship the Stat Gods
Barry Bonds is a perfect example, the thought of losing all those succulent steroid drenched numbers sends the average Sabermite into a slobbery, mad dog, frenzy. They would rather chew off the non-math lobe of their brain than let go, or admit, that Barry might indeed be full of nincompoop.

It's difficult to know if this guy is joking, trying to write a satire, whatever, and I'm almost regretting taking notice of it here ... but in case you are new around these internets, looking for baseball analysis, this is a fantastic example (whether inadvertent or not) of the sort of thing you want to stay away from at all costs. Turn off your computer, throw it out the window, do what you have to do. Just don't read stuff like this on a regular basis.

This sort of attitude towards baseball, or life, will destroy your soul like the Dark Side of the For -- wait, that's too nerdy a reference. It'll be like trying to fight Lord Voldemoor -- no, that doesn't work. It'll be like embarking on a quest with Scythehands Voxslay -- blast! Curse this nerdy existence!

(HT: BBTF)

Out here in the land of bloggers, news that Curt Schilling was planning to take on a blog - and seems relatively informed about the process in general - was encouraging. More information the better, I say, and if players are providing that information, that just makes the entire process more egalitarian. Sure beats learning everything through a tight-lipped PR person, right?

Not for Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy. He would prefer access be tightened, it seems:

Getting a little tired and bored here in the final week of the Grapefruit League circuit so I thought I'd take the day off and let Curt Schilling do the work. Schill started writing his own blog a few weeks ago, so today he fills the space with his latest Q & A session with fellow bloggers.

(Note: This is an abridged text. Because of space limitations, we are unable to reprint the entire posting, which was approximately the same length as Doris Kearns Goodwin's "Team of Rivals.")

Larry Broadway couldn't withstand a late charge by Dmitri Young to become Nick Johnson's understudy this season while Johnson is still recovering from injury. And Broadway is a tad confused as to why he was sent to the minors today.

"I was very surprised. They said they wanted to see what Dmitri Young could offer," Broadway said. "They didn't see enough power out of me. I felt this was one of my best springs. I was getting hits. I was patient at the plate. I was trying to put together good at-bats, working on my eye. I'll get my work done in Triple-A and force them to do something."

And if that doesn't work, it just might force Broadway to punch out Jim Bowden (That's a reference I'm running into the ground until it's roadkill ... just to warn you.)

Now I'm hardly an expert on those "new-age" stats that Murray Chass loves so much. But I do know this: when your on base percentage is higher than your slugging percentage, chances are you're not showing enough power (Broadway has a .391 OBP, and only a .381 SLG). Maybe it's an unfair stereotype, but first basemen are supposed to be more powerful individuals.

Unless you're Mark Grace, it's always going to be a harder road for a singles hitter to get a fair chance to be a first baseman. Remember 1990, when the Mets felt they had to get a power hitter to play first base when they had a perfectly good first baseman in Dave Magadan? The result ... was quite possibly the worst 163 at bats in Mets history: which belonged to Mike Marshall. (Magadan, meanwhile, batted .328 that season and almost led the Mets to the playoffs after Mets brass realized their ungodly mistake).

Just something to think about when Meat Hook steps to the plate.

In an amazing display of willful ignorance of his trade, New York Times writer Murray Chass penned a condescending take on those who take the study of baseball a little more seriously than simply knowing a guy's ERA and batting average:

I receive a daily e-mail message from Baseball Prospectus, an electronic publication filled with articles and information about statistics, mostly statistics that only stats mongers can love.

To me, VORP epitomized the new-age nonsense. For the longest time, I had no idea what VORP meant and didn't care enough to go to any great lengths to find out. I asked some colleagues whose work I respect, and they didn't know what it meant either.

Finally, not long ago, I came across VORP spelled out. It stands for value over replacement player. How thrilling. How absurd. Value over replacement player. Don't ask what it means. I don't know.

I suppose that if stats mongers want to sit at their computers and play with these things all day long, that's their prerogative. But their attempt to introduce these new-age statistics into the game threatens to undermine most fans' enjoyment of baseball and the human factor therein.

People play baseball. Numbers don't.

I'm actually impressed at the level of public disdain Chass shows to not only his readers but also his profession. Chass is paid to think about baseball, yet he's seemingly proud of the fact that his understanding of the game hasn't advanced past what he learned by the third grade. Imagine a writer in the business section outright refusing to acknowledge a new economic theory, or someone in the health section not giving creedence to the latest medical breakthrough simply because he doesn't want to learn anything new.