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Saturday, July 19, 2008

Murray Chass On Baseball: Sorry, Harvey

Scroll down for the un-hoaxable Murray Chass and his Blog-like gotcha!ring of Harvey Araton.

Once upon a time there was a television commercial for a brand of tuna fish that featured a talking fish. The punch line was “sorry, Charlie.”

But updating the line for these purposes, it’s “sorry, Harvey,” because Harvey Araton, a Sports of the Times columnist for The New York Times, wrote a fishy column. Well, the entire column wasn’t fishy, but one part of it was. In fact, it was fictional.

In a column about Dave Winfield and George Steinbrenner, Araton mentioned the 1981 World Series, in which Winfield had one hit in 22 at-bats. He wrote about “a bad performance by Winfield, a worse one by Steinbrenner.”

“I got rid of Mr. October,” Araton quoted Steinbrenner as saying of Jackson, “and got Mr. May.”

The problem is that’s not what Steinbrenner said, and, worse, when he said something similar he did it four years later.

Repoz Posted: July 19, 2008 at 12:01 AM | 9 comment(s)
Related News: General, History, NY Yankees

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1. IJason Varitek Posted: July 19, 2008 at 12:49 AM (#2864662)

In the three or four pieces that have been posted on that site so far, I have gained a new respect for the sports editors at the Times. While Murray's columns were infuriating and occasionally hard to get through, at no point were they this rambling, lacking of any basic structure, or haphazardly jumping from point to point.

If this is indicative of what he submitted to the editor's desk, then kudos to them for whipping the columns into some coherent shape.

Furthermore, Murray Chass writing about embellished or fictionalized stories, after his obsession with unsubstantiated J.D. Drew tampering claims is hi-larious.

2. Esoteric roots for the two worst teams in baseball Posted: July 19, 2008 at 02:07 AM (#2864678)

He really is a rambling, undisciplined writer, isn't he? I don't mind stream-of-consciousness rambling from Posnanski because his flights of fancy all seem to tumble gracefully into one another and, more importantly, are always set off into discrete sections so he's easy to follow. But Chass' ramblings are well night impossible to pay attention to.

I pity the man. He was bought out of his job for a reason.

3. kevin Posted: July 19, 2008 at 06:59 AM (#2864701)

He's right about one thing: Araton is about as bad a writer, in terms of checking and making reasonable interpretations of facts, as there is out there.

What he does instead is construct a POV, usually based on his own personal preferences, then cherrypick or otherwise morph them into a form that supports that POV, and ignore anything else that doesn't.

4. Harveys Wallbangers Posted: July 19, 2008 at 08:32 AM (#2864715)

And here I thought Repoz as apologizing for linking to Chass. As he should.

But alas, my momentary wisp of hope that someone waa trying to class this up was dashed......

5. Harveys Wallbangers Posted: July 19, 2008 at 08:32 AM (#2864717)

And I cannot spell....

6. Kevin's Innermost Thoughts Posted: July 19, 2008 at 11:16 AM (#2864751)

What he does instead is construct a POV, usually based on his own personal preferences, then cherrypick or otherwise morph them into a form that supports that POV, and ignore anything else that doesn't.

Murray Chass is my favorite writer. Ever.

7. Ryan Jones Posted: July 19, 2008 at 11:26 AM (#2864753)

What he does instead is construct a POV, usually based on his own personal preferences, then cherrypick or otherwise morph them into a form that supports that POV, and ignore anything else that doesn't.

So he's like the majority of people on this planet.

8. Red Juice Posted: July 19, 2008 at 11:26 AM (#2864754)

eeeh. I'll stick it here.

Buzz gets his ass kicked :)

9. bob gaj Posted: July 19, 2008 at 11:54 AM (#2864764)

I have spent my professional life in the print world, where obscenities don’t see the light of day,” Chass said. “They will remain in the dark here as well

so will intelligence, coherent thoughts, and an ability to learn from others.

here's a link to his HOF speech:
http://apse.dallasnews.com/news/2004/080504murraychass.html

from it:
Then when they (younger reporters) write columns, instead of picking their spots to criticize, they often display their ignorance, and worse, show a mean-spirited attitude toward the people they write about. Their style shows a decided lack of professionalism and that absence hurts the credibility of all of us with the people we cover.

stay classy, murray.

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Saturday, July 19, 2008

Murray Chass On Baseball: Sorry, Harvey

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