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Gossage makes Hall of Fame on his ninth try
By MAURY ALLEN
of TheColumnists.com
The laughs will
be loud and long at the Baseball Hall of Fame inductions in Cooperstown
July 27. The Goose is loose.
Rich (Goose) Gossage, who read his top 10 list on David Letterman
the other night with No. 1 being “testing positive for being
a flame-throwing sum’bitch,” will lighten up his 54
living colleagues at his induction ceremony.
Gossage was always good for a laugh around the Yankees. There’s
no reason to stop now that he has been elected to baseball’s
Valhalla on his ninth try.
Gossaage will join Hoyt Wilhelm, Bruce Sutter, Dennis Eckersly
and Rollie Fingers as relief pitchers of renown. Gossage, who
said he grew his Fu Manchu mustache around the Yankees just to
piss off Boss George Steinbrenner, now will challenge Fingers
for the best Hall of Fame mustache wearer. Fingers made his handlebar
almost as famous as his slider.
Gossage was the famous figure on the mound in the most exciting
baseball game I ever saw in half a century of coverage. It was
the 1978 playoff game in Boston’s Fenway Park between the
Yankees and Red Sox. Bucky Bleeping Dent, forever known that
way in Boston, put the Yankees ahead 3-2 with his homer against
former Yankee Mike Torrez.
The Yankees pushed the lead to 5-2 before Gossage came in and
allowed the Red Sox to close to 5-4. He had the tying and winning
runs on in the bottom of the ninth with two out when he faced
future Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski.
“I took a deep breath, turned around on the mound and asked
myself, ‘What’s the worst thing that could happen to
you?’ I answered myself by saying, ‘Well, tomorrow
I’ll be back home in Colorado hunting elk.’ Then I
got Yaz on a popup,” he said.
On his top 10 with Letterman he described the no. 2 item on the
list, “After the last out I kissed Bucky Dent on the mouth.”
Gossage always told a wonderful story about that Yaz popup to
Graig Nettles at third base, sending the Yankees to the ALCS
title over Kansas City again and the World Series win over the
Dodgers, the last for the Yankees for 18 years.
“When Yaz came up Nettles was yelling from third base, real
loud, so I could hear him and Yaz could hear him. ‘Pop him
up, Goose, pop him up.’ Then I did pop him up,” Gossage
recalls. “Now Nettles is yelling, ‘But not to me.’
But he did catch it.”
Gossage was a 1970s and 1980s reliever over 22 seasons, coming
in early and staying late. He was 124-107 in his career with
310 saves.
He joined the Yankees as an expensive free agent in 1978 after
Sparky Lyle had led the Yankees to the 1977 pennant with a Cy
Young year.
Nettles, another Yankee jokester, told Lyle, “You’ve
gone from Cy Young to sayonara.”
Gossage, who threw as violently as anyone in the game’s
history, had stolen Lyle’s bullpen job in that 1978 season.
It was all about intimidation with the fastball, that big body,
the flowing Fu Manchu and his flailing motion, arms, legs, head
and hat all seemingly coming at a batter in a rapid rate.
The Yankees won the Series in 1977 under Billy Martin, repeated
again in 1978 under Martin and Bob Lemon and fell apart in 1979.
Everything bad that could happen to a team happened that year.
Several players were injured. Nobody seemed able to hit, the
pitching fell apart and the usual managerial turmoil just forced
the players to step back from the intensity of competition.
DH Cliff Johnson and Gossage got into a little needling battle
over whether or not Johnson could hit Gossage as an opponent.
Agitator Reggie Jackson helped the battle escalate as he butted
in to the verbal contest. The conversation got testy and Gossage,
a heavyweight pitcher, pushed and punched Johnson, the heavyweight
hitter. Johnson struck back and suddenly these two huge men were
rolling on the Yankee Stadium locker room floor. Goose was out
with a broken hand.
“Thurman (Munson) died that year. It was a lost season,”
he said. “Now all I can think of are the good things.”
Gossage, 56 years old now, waited a long time for the honor.
His fellow Hall of Famers won’t wait long to invite him
to the Hall of Famers’ Sunday night wine drinking party
over induction weekend.
They know the loose Goose will supply loads of laughs.
©2008 by Maury Allen. The Maury Allen caricature is ©2001
by Jim Hummel. The photo is courtesy of Wikipedia. This column
first posted Jan. 28, 2008.
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