Suddenly, the big topic in baseball is Mike Piazza’s back acne. From a decade ago.
It turns out longtime baseball writer Murray Chass would have blown the lid off the whole steroids controversy a decade ago. Unfortunately, the New York Times is run by “ultra conservatives.”
Chass is a 147-year-old blogger who used to write about baseball for the Times. On his blog Wednesday, Chass brought up the subject of Piazza’s acne. It was during his discussion of some petty feud he had back in the 1800’s with writer Joel Sherman of the New York Post.
Chass makes a pretty damning circumstantial case against Piazza and his possible use of steroids. However, during the article, Chass attempts to engage in some revisionist history. Although he acknowledges that he and other reporters who covered baseball at the time were naive and even “gullible,” Chass claims that he attempted to write about Mike Piazza’s back acne “two or three times” while he was with the New York Times. Chass claims that on each occassion editors removed the references from his articles or columns.
Chass offers two alternate explanations as to why the New York Times killed his (alleged) references to Mike Piazza’s back acne, and therefore implication of steroid use. Both are equally laughable. First Chass argues his groundbreaking investigative journalistic skills and possible Pulitzer Prize in the field of dermatology was thwarted because the editorial staff at the New York Times is “ultra conservative.” Seriously.
Secondarily, Chass theorizes that the Times wouldn’t allow the back acne references because his baseball editor “was a big Mets’ fan” and may have been “protecting the Mets.” Yeah, because OBVIOUSLY the Times would never publish a negative story about the New York Mets. Not about Darryl Strawberry’s cocaine use when he was a Met. Or Dwight Gooden’s drug problems in New York. The Times also obviously protected Wally Backman from any embarrassing story. They certainly wouldn’t allow anything negative to be published about Keith Hernandez. If Murray Chass is to be believed, the Times wouldn’t mention an incident where a “drunk and angry” Kevin Mitchell held Strawberry and a woman hostage with a butcher knife then cut a cat’s head off. Or David Cone and those pesky sexual assault allegations.
Where was the New York Times when Mets players like Guillermo Mota and Felix Heredia were caught using steroids? Obviously, the New York Times has never written about steroid use involving the Mets. They probably NEVER let Chass speculate about Piazza’s steroid use or possible sexual preferences. At least if we’re to believe bitter old man Murray Chass.
MURRAY CHASS: LYING, BITTER OLD MAN
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