Mystery Solved: MurrayChass.com is for real
So after all the speculation and theorizing about whether MurrayChass.com is a real site written by the real Murray Chass, who used to write for the real New York Times, Sarah finally had the brilliantly simple idea of just calling up the real Murray Chass and seeing what he would say.
Wisely mentioning that she writes for the Boston Metro and glossing over the fact that she also considers herself a blogger (preferring instead to refer to “websites,” which, after all, UmpBump is), Sarah said she had heard some internet chatter that the site was a clever hoax, that she’d been discussing it with some colleagues, and that in the end she figured she’d better go to the horse’s mouth.
Chass was very intrigued as to why people thought the site might be fake and peppered Sarah with questions about that, while not giving away any information. In the end, since Sarah works for a newspaper (”something that’s actually printed on paper,”) and since she actually called him (he did acknowledge receiving “some emails” asking the same question) he said he would confirm that it was really his site.
So in the end, UmpBump’s suspicions turned out to be untrue. But you know what they say in journalism: If your mother says she loves you, check it out.
August 6th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Man. That makes it way, way worse. As bad as his baseball opinions are, I had at least assumed he was decent at constructing sentences, but that site reads like it was written by a high schooler. Welcome to blogging without an editor, Murray.
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August 6th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Wait - wasn\’t it commenter jayhawkowensjunior\’s brilliantly simple idea to call Chass? Let\’s give credit where credit is due.
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August 6th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Thank you. Thank you very much.
But seriously, I\’m pretty sure that anyone could have come up with the idea.
That said, even with the confirmation…there\’s a little irrational part of my brain that\’s not buying it…I mean, it\’s just too perfect, right?
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August 6th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Oops, said that wrong. Meant to say that anyone could come up with the idea; someone actually went and did it. Not me. I’m lazy. And supposedly working. Supposedly.
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August 6th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Well, it was jayhawkowensjunior’s idea to use the phone, so “UmpBump Admin” indeed should have given credit there. But I believe jayhawkowensjunior’s estimate was 3-4 calls. I did it in one call.
So me and jayhawkowensjunior: the perfect 3-4 hitter combo?
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August 6th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
I’m impressed. As someone who may or may not be involved in the legal field, I am completely unused to finding out the answer to anything in one phone call.
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August 6th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Nice work, Sarah. Did you ask him why he is doing this?
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August 6th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
S’matter of fact I did, Melissa. He said he’d gotten a strong response from his readers that they were very sad to see him go, so the site is a chance for them to keep up with his work.
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