I wasn't sure about linking to Murray Chass's latest hatchet job -- I know it's best to avoid feeding the trolls, and maybe especially this particular troll -- but on the other hand this sort of thing is entertaining, and if you don't like it you don't have to read it. Anyway, here's the passage I enjoyed the most, regarding something I wrote about a new book that trashes sabermetrics and sabermetricians ...
One blog, by Rob Neyer, criticizes the book based not on the book itself but on a news release about the book. When Neyer was at ESPN.com, he seemed to be building a respectable reputation, but he has moved to a new Web site, SBNation.com, and I guess that site's standards are lower than ESPN's because I doubt that his blog on the news release would have been posted on the ESPN Web site.
Well, of course that's just silly. There was never anything respectable about my reputation.
Seriously, I had a great deal of leeway at my old job, and there was exactly zero in that blog post that would have raised a single eyelash in Bristol. So Mr. Chass is just flailing here, I'm afraid.
Plus, I didn't actually criticize the book. Not much, anyway. I did point out that the Red Sox have won a couple of World Series with sabermetrics never far from management's hive-mind. And I did close with this: "Anyway, I think I ordered this book months ago. Should be a hoot."
Pretty innocuous, if you ask me.
Anyway, I did receive a gracious e-mail message from one of the book's co-authors, and I have been reading the book. I'm out of the book-review business, but at some point I will publish that co-author's message, along with just a few of my thoughts about the book. That only seems fair. And we're all about fairness, here at SB Nation.