Murray Chass

Murray Chass

• School University of Pittsburgh

• Born October 12, 1938 in Pittsburgh, PA USA

Biographical Information

Murray Chass was a long-time sportwriter for the New York Times. In 2003, he was named the winner of the J.G. Taylor Spink Award by the Hall of Fame, honoring meritorious service by a baseball writer.

He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1960 with a degree in political science. During his time there, he worked for the school paper then began working as a local correspondent for the Associated Press, covering sports. His first assignment was covering Games 6 and 7 of the 1960 World Series. In 1962, he joined the Baseball Writers Association of America before moving to New York, NY as an AP sports correspondent in 1963 and joining the Times in 1969. In 1970, he became the beat writer covering the New York Yankees, then became the paper's national baseball writer in 1986. His time covering the Yankees coincided with the turbulent years during which George Steinbrenner bought the team, spent lavishly on free agents, restored the team's lost glory, but also fired managers, general managers and others at the drop of a hat and was continually stirring up controversy. This was of course wonderful for a writer like Chass, who never lacked good copy. He also covered baseball's labor negotiations and other financial matters with great intensity.

From his very prominent job, he became a target of sabermetricians, as he was one of the "old-school" reporters denigrating the shift towards advanced statistics in the early 2000s. In 2008, he was effectively fired from the Times as the paper made deep cuts to its writing staff, and he turned to on-line blogging as an alternative outlet, although he still published the occasional article in the paper. His views became increasingly reactionary over the years, including publishing a widely condemned accusation of racism directed at Stan Musial in 2011, based on the flimsiest of hearsay evidence, and turning in a blank ballot in the 2017 Hall of Fame Election, when the ballot was packed with worthy candidates.

He has published a number of books on baseball, football and basketball. He was voted to the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2012.

Further Reading

• Dave Anderson, Harold Rosenthal and Murray Chass: The Yankees: The Four Fabulous Eras of Baseball's Most Famous Team, Random House, New York, NY, 1980. ISBN 9780394511337

Related Sites

• Murray Chass's blog about baseball