Murray Chass Is Still Bitter

New York Times sportswriter Murray Chass is still taking the 2004 Yankees' unprecedented choke -- and the subsequent Red Sox World Series championship -- very hard.

He recently received a copy of the 11-DVD set of the 2004 ALCS and World Series games. But he can barely bring himself to look at it. It gathers dust on his shelf. He says he doesn't even own a DVD player.

Reading his Tuesday column, you can almost taste the bitterness:

A warning was issued in this space earlier in the season that Red Sox fans shouldn't assume that the wild card, if not first place, was theirs. And if they are looking at the races sensibly and not fanatically - as if they are capable of having any other kind of view - they know the Red Sox have to play two months of top-tier baseball to return to the playoffs.

Red Sox fans, on the other hand, aren't thinking wild card. Who needs the wild card when you have first place? The Red Sox have been in first place for nearly six weeks, except for one day, since June 24, and their supporters are confident that they will remain imbedded there for the remainder of the season. That may be a positive position to take, but it would also be foolish. ... [Boston] certainly can lose enough games to slip behind the Yankees. ...

If the Yankees don't maintain their regular-season mastery over the Red Sox, the reason will be clear: the inability of their $64 million rotation to stay healthy and to perform. But if they do - and it says here they will - the Red Sox will face greater embarrassment than in the years before 2004.

If Boston finishes behind the Yankees this season, will it really be as bad as 1949? 1978? 1986? 2003? Really? ... I am positive Chass knows better than this, but his anger blinds him to the truth. Nothing the Red Sox do will ever be as embarrassing as the Yankees' historic collapse last fall. Nothing.

A two-and-a-half-game [now 3.5] lead with two months to play is nothing for a team like the Yankees to overcome, whatever the state of their starting pitching. ...

[T]he DVD set has been a hot seller in the few weeks it has been available. It has become the first sports DVD to be No. 1 on the Amazon.com sales list, and it has outpaced sales projections. MLB.com thought it would sell 1,500 copies by the end of this calendar year. It has already sold twice that number.

The Red Sox should only do as well.

Um, Murray, poor, sad, bitter Murray, the DVD is selling that well because the Red Sox did so so well.

Chass also makes an uncalled-for attack on Manny Ramirez: "He might be a bad human being, but when bad human beings drive in 150 runs they are good players, and good players are what teams need to win."

Maybe Murray can sell his DVD box set and use the money for a therapy session. He really needs to talk this out in private.