Years and years ago, I wrote a newspaper column that — technically, I guess — could have gotten me fired. It was a column about silence. I won’t go into too many of the details but I’ll tell you that the column involved a barber shop, a series of racist jokes and the disgraceful silence of the young man getting his hair cut, the young man being me. I just sat there, in that lost world between embarrassment and rage, while these racist jokes flew around the room. I didn’t say a word. I didn’t express my disgust. I didn’t walk out. I didn’t stand up and break out into a “To Kill A Mockingbird” speech. I just stayed quiet. The column was about my own shame, about the shame of being silent in the face of small injustices, about that “Hey, you can’t change the world,” feeling that I used as a crutch to make myself feel better.
The column did run, and I was told later that it created enough of a stir that the words, “Does someone need to be fired over this,” were spoken behind closed doors. But nobody really said anything to me about it except, “Stick with sports,” which I certainly understand. I think back 20 or so years, and I still don’t know how I feel about that column. Part of me is proud I wrote it. Part of me is embarrassed. Part of my feels like it took some courage to write it. Part of me thinks it was really a cowardly way out. It’s all true. I was very young.
I bring this up now because former New York Times sportswriter Murray Chass has written a post so vile and untrue and devoid of basic decency that I have found myself once again in that strange place where I’m not sure what to do. On the one hand, Murray Chass is a nobody now. He’s a bitter man with a past and a blog he refuses to call a blog. He seems to bring dishonor to himself and his work with such regularity now that I cannot help but wonder if he was in fact a vile hack throughout his newspaper career but few noticed because he happened to be on the right side of the baseball labor issue and the indomitable Marvin Miller.*
*I should say here that Chass has managed to disgrace Miller on several occasions with his recent work as well. It is quite possible that Miller, while closing on his 94th birthday, has lost his compass; either way he should probably stop talking to Murray Chass.
So part of me says that writing to stomp out the disgusting Murray Chass post about Stan Musial and Curt Flood will only draw more attention to it, will only spread his lies and malice to bigger lands. That part of me says that the way to deal with a man like this and a blog post like this is to ignore it and let it curl up and die unseen. Stay silent.
But another part of me says that some people DID see it, and if we let it go then a handful of people will wonder if maybe there’s some truth to it, if maybe this is not just bitterness and bile and revenge and a desperate attempt to be noticed but maybe there is a germ of truth in it.
I’ve obviously gone with the second part of myself or you would not be reading this (though I must say that as I write this sentence I am still not sure if I will ever post this).
Murray Chass wrote a post called Musial No Man Of Honor, Mr. President. The bulk of it is so unethical and vomitous — with almost comically irresponsible phrases like “said a lawyer with no first-hand knowledge of the incident” — that you could only imagine it being written by a man in prison about the judge who put him away. I won’t bother with the bulk of it, because the bulk of it is convoluted and absurd and sick or simply has nothing whatsoever to do with honor. Apparently, Chass and Miller feel like Musial, to their mind, was vaguely on the wrong side of the labor discussion. Whatever. Miller is diminished by allowing his name to be used in such stupidity but that’s his business.
But there is one very specific charge here that people will notice, one of racism against Musial, that is so grotesque that to allow it to stand is to do a great injustice to the man. The charge builds around a famous story Curt Flood told a couple of times. The story involves Flood and a woman walking into Musial’s restaurant in the late 1950s and being refused a seat because of the color of his skin and by order of the owner. Chass in the faux charitable way of frauds concedes that “the incident appears in some books about Flood.” What he does not say is that the story was told in the book WRITTEN BY CURT FLOOD, which seems pretty official.
In Curt Flood’s own version of the story, Flood was indeed turned away from the restaurant by someone (not Musial, of course) and went to Musial the next day to tell him about the incident and Musial was “livid,” and promised to take care of it. It is well known that Musial did not run the restaurant; he lent his name to it. Whatever, Flood said he did not go back to the restaurant for a long time but when he did go back he was treated like royalty, treatment he found ironic.
A couple of things. One, it has to be said that Musial has specifically said that the story did not happen that way — he says that Flood was turned away because the kitchen was closed and that he took it wrong. You can make your own judgment on that but it is true that Flood did not start telling the story for many years, until he began going through his own difficult fight.
Two, even if the story did happen exactly the way Flood describes it, Flood himself did not blame Musial. He made the clear point that Musial was livid. He made clear the point that Musial was always kind to him (though often inscrutable) with hitting advice. He thought Musial was naive but certainly not racist. Years after, he wanted Musial to be the Cardinals manager (admittedly because he thought that Musial would stay out of the way — Flood’s No. 1 goal for a manager).
Bob Gibson, who certainly has never backed down to racism, calls Musial the nicest man he has ever met in baseball. Joe Black, who as one of the first African American pitchers dealt with about as much racism as any baseball player ever, often told the story of the time Musial visited him in the clubhouse to boost his spirits. Lou Brock has personally told me story after story about the kindnesses of Musial.
Nobody would say that Musial was a civil rights pioneer — he’s not the sort to make speeches or waves; the man was a baseball player first and last — but he was unquestionably and unanimously a man of decency. In 1962, for spring training, he moved from his usual spot at the beach to a new location so that he could stay with the black players. No, he was not a freedom rider. He was not on the front lines of the fight. But, as Buck O’Neil used to say, he is a good, good man.
To smear a good, good man with a half-cocked version of a well-known and easily verifiable story is the work of an embittered mind. I would not tell you that Stan Musial is a saint or that he never felt any of the biases of his time, because that is impossible. But I know this because countless people have told me … Stan Musial has spent a life trying to make people happy. And it’s a shame that tragically unhappy people don’t know when they’ve run out of useful words.
(stands and applauds)
I agree the restaurant story is ridiculous, but even more outlandish is the rehashing of the Cardinals’ anger towards Robinson and Musial’s role in it.
Chass makes it seem as if the topic has rarely been discussed, a laughable assertion.
I think you made the correct decision in posting this. Thanks for revealing what a sham this Chass clown is.
Thank you, Joe, from everyone in St. Louis.
Great work Joe. You did the right thing.
It will bring more attention to Chass’s piece, but it will be negative attention.
How-could-he-have-written-such-a-thing attention.
Also, we all know of your decency and kindness.
That makes you even more the person to call Chass out.
You, we can believe.
Good job.
I recall a story (from you Joe) of a black player being heckled in St. Louis. After the game Musial went to the visitors locker room and apologized and told him he would be a very good player.
Joe, any chance you can publish this in SI?
The only way to fight darkness is to shed light. Keep shedding light, Joe.
that piece of junk Chass wrote screams of a vicious agenda, though I have no idea what the agenda is.
Good judgement Joe. Someone has to put Chass in his place.
As for his agenda, I think he is a desperate man who is trying to resurrect some sort of career by going against the grain of popular opinion. He simply lacks the skills and view point to come even close to pulling it off.
I pity the fool.
It was, again, the right thing to do.
Reminds me of a Musial story that refutes Chass position on baseball’s “Perfect Knight.”
Read Denny Mathews book, “Hi, Anybody!” ppg. 16.
every time i hear marvin miller’s name all i can think of is the phrase ‘mustachioed four-flusher’.
Murray Chass is clearly a moron.
Thanks, Joe, for your excellent defense of Stan Musial. People need to be taken to task for the erroneous and hurtful things they say. Good on you!
The internet gives many people a voice. The downside of this is that they can say whatever they want and present it as factual. There are no checks and balances. Chass and others take full advantage of this.
Joe, you have a following because of your talent as a writer. If you can use that position to make something right, you should.
I still remember the column you mentioned at the top. It made me question the courage of my own convictions. I decided then that the test of what a man believes is in how he stands up for those beliefs when it is difficult to do so.
I am glad you did not get fired, but that column changed how I live my life. I am probably not the only one. Talking to others about my philosophy and demonstrating it in difficult situations may have, in a small way, changed how they felt or reacted.
That’s how you change the world.
Outstanding.
That was the honorable thing to write. Thanks, Joe.
I’m so glad you wrote this, Joe. Your point about not wanting to being any attention to the chowderhead Murray Chass doesn’t necessarily apply here because you’re not just arguing about the validity of stats here: you’re setting the record straight on a story that absolutely skewers a man for no apparent reason. Chass needs to be taken to task for this so that no one will ever take him seriously again. Chass is outright calling someone a racist whe it isn’t true. We NEED someone like you, Joe, to provide the WHOLE story.
On a personal level, I’m fairly young (27) and *didn’t* know the whole story. Now I feel like I do. Thank you so much, Joe, and please don’t hesitate to do the same thing if another situation arises. By the way, someone purporting to be Curt Flood, Jr. says the same thing as you, Joe:
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/03/25/comment-of-the-day-curt-flood-jr-talks-about-the-stan-musial-restaurant-story/
I was with you right up to “it’s a shame that tragically unhappy people don’t know when they’ve run out of useful words.” I still have a mortgage to pay, pal.
Chass’ piece would be worse if it were published on a blog, but as we know his site is NOT a blog.
This is just another case of these gosh-darned, basement-living bloggers and their lack of journalistic ethics. A real journalist would have fact-checked first.
Can some hacker just take down Chass’s blog. I’m just so sick of what he writes these days.
I’m giving him some extra hits but he has a post titled “Taking a Saber to Sabermetrics” where he lists a bunch of guys Billy Beane wanted in the 2002 draft. He got Nick Swisher, Joe Blanton and Mark Teahen in the first round. He had 5 picks in that round. That’s a decent haul. All compensation picks.
Thanks for posting this, Joe. The only way to combat this kind of nonsense is to point at it and call it nonsense. Being quiet would have served nobody well (except for perhaps Murray Chass).
Aside from my overall long-term interest in baseball, I have a specific interest in the Cardinals and Stan Musial. Since the Dodgers and Giants had just moved out of NYC, the 7-year-old me needed a National League team to root for, and I picked the Cardinals — largely because of how much I liked Stan the Man.
As I became older, they became even more of a favorite, because of their relatively advanced stance on race relations. In particular, I became a huge fan of Bob Gibson, and then Curt Flood when he refused to be traded. I could go on at much greater length, but I think I have made my point about my connection to the Cardinals and Stan Musial.
I have NEVER (as in NEVER) heard anyone — including and especially Cardinal teammates of Stan’s such as Gibson, Flood, Bill White, Lou Brock, etc. — say anything that could even be remotely construed as depicting Stan Musial as a racist of any kind. Obviously, the only people who know for sure what happened are those involved; I will say that I am highly skeptical that Chass’ account is accurate.
I was never a big fan of his when he wrote for the Times; I (like you) try to avoid him nowadays. But, just to get a better feel for his current output, I read his post, and also the preceding post about how sabrmetrics (and Bill James) have destroyed baseball and… well, read it for yourself. I am pretty sure the BRs here can point out the flaws and utter nonsense in that column.
Suffice it to say, Murray Chass is an idiot and a grumpy old man. Thanks for using your platform to point this out, Joe.
I read the Murray Chass article and believed it. Thank you, Joe, for setting me straight. Writing and posting this was absolutely correct.
So Musial was viewed as a company man and probably a little bit racist by today’s standards. That doesn’t surprise me.
I think focusing on one version of Flood’s story (the one ghost written in a book) – as opposed to the earlier version he told Miller – to discredit Chass (and smear his name) says more about you than Chass, especially since you don’t bother to consider Musial’s role in letting ownership screw over players. Mitch Album would be proud, but, whatever.
There is a big difference between calling someone anti-union and calling someone a racist. IMO, unless you have definitive proof by the accused person’s direct actions or words (not just your perceptions), never ever say that about a person. It is just wrong.
The story about Musial is nonsence, but Chase’s site is somewhat interesting. I thought the Beane information was interesting, but I guess if he omitted three successful picks that year, it is pretty misleading.
The thing is, even if Chass’s story were true, would one racist incident 40 years ago even justify such a vile column? I’m not excusing racism, but I do believe in redemption, in people evolving and growing and learning. It just seems like Chass heard a story from Miller, thought “hey, wait’ll the public hears about this! Their saint is not a saint after all!” and ran with it. The contrast between the thoughtlessness of his “blogposts” and the thoughtfulness behind everything you write Joe is amazing.
God bless you for this, Joe.
I’m glad you posted this, Joe, because you already called attention to this piece by tweeting about it. Had I not been curious to know what Chass had done to “hit rock bottom” again, I never would have gone to his site for baseball columns, not baseball blogs. Thus I was hoping that you would write a follow-up to set the record strait.
I just think it’s hysterical that President Obama is looking at a PR disaster for giving STAN MUSIAL the medal of freedom when baseball’s home run king is on trial for perjury.
I have never heard any such allegations from anyone in the past. Every player who has ever commented on Musial has spoken of him in nothing but the fondest terms. It sounds to me from the length of one particular part of the article that the real issue for Chass was the fact that Musial as a big star didn’t sell out and jump to the Mexican League. There seems to be a labor union axe to grind with Chass and Marvin Miller.
Joe, please don’t listen to morons who want to tell you what you can and cannot write. If they don’t like it, they can get their money back–wait, it’s FREE, so they can just not read it. I think less and less of Chass every time I read him. I think more of you when you post something like this.
I don’t understand why an admission of your own moral cowardice would be a firing offense. I’m curious about that old column. Any chance of posting the text of it?
Murray Chass is a troll. He purposely needles people and says controversial (and idiotic) things with the goal of getting his readership up. He’s been doing it for years, so much so that back when he was still at the NY Times I was mystified why that venerable publication hadn’t fired him long ago.
Thanks for deciding to post this, Joe. As you can see, we have a lively thread going about the Chass article on our Cards forum. Glad someone of your repute set the record straight.
http://gatewayredbirds.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=44719
I don’t pretend to know who Murray Chass is but it seems like Joe is one of those guys that to really get on his bad side, you have to kind of be a scumbag.
ChiefsRule:
My sentiments exactly. I’ve been reading Joe’s blog for about two years, and Joe strains anytime he criticizes anyone else. Normally he’ll spend a paragraph or two explaining why so and so isn’t such a bad guy, BUT . . .
So when Joe just rips into someone as he’s done here with Chass, it makes the punch all the more powerful.
@Ian —
I used to have a Mitch Album, but I got rid of it when I got my Mitch CD.
The rest of your comment is equally insightful. You might want to take Joe’s last sentence to heart.
I think you probably did the right thing in writing that piece that almost got you fired, too.
Ian, you have got the facts so wrong it makes me wonder if you are related to Chass. Seriously, Miller, who has faulty memory, is retelling a story to Chass that he has obviously got wrong. All accounts of Musial have him not being a racist and actually making sure the boycott never even got off the ground but I suppose the facts don’t mean a thing to you, either. I would suggest you look at the thread we have going on at Baseball Think Factory. You will find the entire story concerning Flood and Musial and the “boycott”. And ask yourself this, was the Musial the only player to sign off on what the panel came up eith or did he even sign off on it at all? And even if he did, that is no where near as egregious as the false accusations accusing him of being a racist. Musial may have a good case for suing Chass for libel and defamation of character.
Go to page 36 of this link:
http://www.admsports.biz/PDF/initmh.pdf
Amazing how Musial is not mentioned at all.
Joe, that was fantastic, thanks for writing it. You speak more for me than Murray Chass ever has or ever will.
JewishVampireinMontery – nice handle. As I see it, Chass’ article had two issues. The first was the Flood story. Chass cites Marvin Miller conversations with Flood in 1970. (I found nothing that suggests Miller’s mind is failing. Do you have a link or are you just assuming that since he’s old, he can’t remember important things?) Joe cites Flood’s autobiography from 1971. Chass version is a little different than Joe’s but both agree that Musial co-owned a restaurant that didn’t allow blacks to eat there in 1963. I don’t think that’s a good thing and we can probably both agree that, if nothing else, it was tone deaf of him to do so. We can pretend that Musial truly didn’t know where a source of income was coming from and just lent his name to some restaurant without looking into the business or we can guess that he didn’t much care about racial issues or think about it until it was specifically brought to his attention by Flood. Joe says that Musial can’t be racist b/c he started sitting with black teammates in 1962. (For his part, Chass never calls Musial a racist and cites many black ballplayers). Chass also notes some stories that Musial opposed integration and wanted to boycott teams that had black ballplayers. Chass then cited several sources, including Miller, who said Musial would not have done something like that. My guess is that Musial didn’t much care about racial issues. As Joe said, he was a ballplayer. But I do think he was a product of his times and he probably didn’t much care how society generally treated minorities. Like Joe in the barber’s chair, I suspect Musial was probably quiet as racial issues erupted around baseball during integration.
The second issue Chass brings out was Musial’s role in labor issues. He again cites Miller, who is probably the best possible source for MLB labor issues alive unless you think 93 year old men shouldn’t be sources. Musial was on ownerships side in a pension plan that didn’t help a number of fellow ballplayers and was placed on an important committee to vote how the owners wanted him to. Joe doesn’t discuss this.
As I said in my original post, so Musial was viewed as a company man and probably a little bit racist by today’s standards. That doesn’t surprise me. The hate from Joe’s post does sadden me, though.
@ Ian: You’ve made a few jumps in logic that don’t necessarily follow:
1. Both Flood stories DO NOT agree that Stan Musial’s restaurant didn’t serve blacks, just that they didn’t serve Curt Flood on that night in 1963. If you read Poz’s article again, you’ll see that Musial says the kitchen was closed, and Flood took it the wrong way. Which isn’t hard to understand; as a black man in 1963, I’m sure he’d heard that many times before, and assumed it was code. But it could simply mean that THE KITCHEN WAS CLOSED. Anyway, Flood himself, in his autobiography, clearly lets Musial off the hook. Isn’t that a better source then Marvin Miller’s secondhand account of conversations he had 40 years ago?
2. There’s nothing in what Chass wrote- NOTHING- to suggest that Musial was on board with the pension restrictions, other then that he was on the committee that recommended them. As anyone that’s been on a committee can tell you, it’s not always the case that all members agree with the final conclusions. In any case, Chass does not name ONE PLAYER that was affected by these restrictions. Maybe there were none, maybe there were dozens. We don’t know, because Chass doesn’t tell us. That’s just shoddy reporting.
3. Something you might not know, but Chass recently embarrassed Miller by using him as a means to attack SI’s Tom Verducci, claiming that Verducci had voted against Miller for the baseball HOF, which was in fact not true. This is apropos of nothing, other then to illustrate that the Chass/Miller combo has a bad history when it comes to facts.
4. I agree with your basic point that Chass basically just says that Musial was a company man and soft on racism. Which, slander or not, doesn’t seem like that big a deal. But remember, this comes in a piece in which Chass is criticizing President Obama for awarding Musial the Medal of Freedom, suggesting that Stan the Man has these huge skeletons in his closet. That makes his allegations a bit more serious, don’t you think?
Ian, thank you for the compliment on my handle. The story behind it is literally a story. However, to say Musial turned a blind eye to what went on in the restaurant has no basis in fact as no evidence has been presented to say he could have known and should have known.
As for the pension plan, that may have been the best one the players could have gotten at that time. Look at the history of the agreements and it is one of progressions. To call him a sell out is not supported by any hard evidence. Also, I find it interesting that Ralph Kiner says it elwas Marty Marion who was the player from the Cards that was involved in representing the players in drafting the pension plan and never mentions Musial having been involved.
Musial was always a quiet, reserved person so his not being vocal should not be
mistaken for being soft on racism. There is actually evidence that he personally
killed the so-called boycott before it had a chance to get started.
Here is a link to a thread on a forum that pretty much destroys what Chass writes concerning the racism issue:
http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/newstand/discussion/97233/
Check out posts #39, 119, 124,
I just reread Chass’ blog (that is what it is) and he said Musial discussed the offer from the Mexican league with Gussie Busch in 1946. Huge factual problem, Gussie Busch didn’t own the Cardinals until 1953. That is a fact that is so easy verifiable that it makes you wonder if Chass even spoke with Miller.
Murray Chass sounds like he’s become what one former KC Star columnist not named Joe is en route to becoming.
Thank you Joe, for writing this article on your, *gasp* – blog.
About a dozen years or so, ago, I was in a barber shop, previously owned by a decent man, and gifted barber. The new owner took over the building in what is decidedly and undeniably, a socio-economically depressed area of town.
I sat down, waiting patiently for my turn. The talk soon turned to “those people,” and the “N” word was right behind it. I gathered my things (maybe I just gathered myself), quietly walked out the door, and have never returned.
I don’t do enough to make this world a better place. But sometimes, I feel like I have done a little something to help level the field. Maybe that is all Musial did, level the field he loved so much. Thanks for reminding me of that day in my life, for baring the facts regarding Musial and for Chass-tising a muckraking hack.