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SHOCKING DEVELOPMENT: EARLY FREE-AGENT SIGNINGS

By Murray Chass

December 29, 2019

I don’t think I’ll have reason to suspect the owners of collusion this off-season. Unless they are playing a new and different kind of game whose tricks elude my comprehension, they are signing free agents to legitimate contracts. Even Scott Boras, the master procrastinator, has done it.

Boras has secured a 9-year, $324 million contract for Gerritt Cole, the best pitcher on this year’s market. In his usual practice, Boras comes up with a mystery team without identifying it but uses it to entice real competitors and drag out the competition.

Cole, however, wanted to play for the Yankees, and the offer was already high enough that Boras had no reason to stall any longer. Cole, however, has been only one of many free agents who have already signed.

Last off-season the two most desired free agents were …

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PRESIDENTS I HAVE KNOWN

By Murray Chass

December 22, 2019

As a political science major in college many, many years ago, I viewed the past week as intriguing as any World Series. No, more intriguing. I mean the World Series is played every year; only three times in the 243-year history of our country has a president been impeached.

Agree with it or not, like it or not. Donald Trump has been impeached and will carry that stain not only for the rest of his life but also for the rest of eternity. The United States Senate is not very likely to convict Trump, but the House has impeached him.

That act last week makes Trump the only president I know who has been impeached. I readily acknowledge I did not know Andrew Johnson, who was impeached in 1868, and I do not know Bill Clinton, who was impeached in 1988.

However, I met Trump at Yankee Stadium some years ago when I was …

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GEORGE’S LETTER GOOD SIGN FOR MARVIN

By Murray Chass

December 9, 2019

I received a letter from George Steinbrenner the other day. No, really, I did. Now I acknowledge that was an unlikely development considering that the Yankees’ owner died nine years earlier, but Steinbrenner did some pretty remarkable things when he was alive so I wouldn’t be so quick to doubt that he wrote that letter.

After opening the envelope and reading the letter, I can assure you that he did write it. Only he wrote it in 2006, Nov. 29 to be precise, meaning he wrote it almost exactly 13 years ago.

I would like to blame the United States Postal Service for the delay in delivery of the letter, but somehow, I overlooked it, and it wound up buried in a pile of papers that were apparently undisturbed for years.

Finding the letter now, though, was timely because the subject matter was Marvin Miller and the Hall of Fame …

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