Closer than ever
Gossage hoping the Hall Fates smile on him this time
By Jack Etkin, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published January 5, 2008 at 12:45 a.m.
Photo by Linda McConnell, Special to The Rocky
Rich "Goose" Gossage said being elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame would be "an unbelievable thing."
Photo by Linda McConnell / Special To The Rocky
Gossage, at home in Colorado Springs, was a dogged competitor at a time when closers had more opportunities for decisions.
Photo by Ray Stubblebine / Associated Press File/1978
The appearance of wildness in the delivery of Rich "Goose" Gossage came because he threw hard from a low angle, his arms and legs flailed and he seemingly had no focus on the catcher's glove.
Photo by Linda McConnell, Special to The Rocky
Rich "Goose" Gossage said being elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame would be "an unbelievable thing."
Photo by Linda McConnell / Special To The Rocky
Gossage, at home in Colorado Springs, was a dogged competitor at a time when closers had more opportunities for decisions.
Photo by Ray Stubblebine / Associated Press File/1978
The appearance of wildness in the delivery of Rich "Goose" Gossage came because he threw hard from a low angle, his arms and legs flailed and he seemingly had no focus on the catcher's glove.
Photo by Linda McConnell, Special to The Rocky
Rich "Goose" Gossage said being elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame would be "an unbelievable thing."
Photo by Linda McConnell / Special To The Rocky
Gossage, at home in Colorado Springs, was a dogged competitor at a time when closers had more opportunities for decisions.
Photo by Ray Stubblebine / Associated Press File/1978
The appearance of wildness in the delivery of Rich "Goose" Gossage came because he threw hard from a low angle, his arms and legs flailed and he seemingly had no focus on the catcher's glove.
Photo by Linda McConnell, Special to The Rocky
Rich "Goose" Gossage said being elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame would be "an unbelievable thing."
Photo by Linda McConnell / Special To The Rocky
Gossage, at home in Colorado Springs, was a dogged competitor at a time when closers had more opportunities for decisions.
Photo by Ray Stubblebine / Associated Press File/1978
The appearance of wildness in the delivery of Rich "Goose" Gossage came because he threw hard from a low angle, his arms and legs flailed and he seemingly had no focus on the catcher's glove.
Fast-forward to the Hall of Fame induction ceremony July 27. Imagine Goose Gossage, at long last, about to be honored. He's on an outdoor stage with dozens of Hall of
Famers behind him, looking out at family, friends, former teammates and thousands of fans.
Gossage was an intimidating closer at a time when that role involved much heavier lifting than
today. His freewheeling delivery, his overpowering, hit-it-if-you-can fastball, his scowl and even his Fu Manchu mustache added to his pitching persona, which, in a word, was menacing.
But that's all in the past on this summer
afternoon in Cooperstown, N.Y. Gossage's wait to
enter the Hall of Fame, laughably long to some, is over. He is about to deliver his induction speech. No matter how much supremacy or swagger a player had, and Gossage had plenty of both, this is a
humbling moment. So it will be curious to hear what Gossage has to say.
"I know he's outspoken," said former Yankees ace Ron Guidry, who was Gossage's teammate for six seasons in New York.
"I know when he gets (upset), he can talk, but I don't know if he can talk when he's humble."
Should get in
Chances are, Guidry and everyone else will find out this year. Gossage, in his ninth year on the ballot, is expected to join relievers Hoyt Wilhelm, Rollie Fingers, Dennis Eckersley and Bruce Sutter in the Hall of Fame when the vote is announced Tuesday.
He came close last year, falling 21 votes short of the 75 percent needed for election and finishing with 71.2 percent of votes cast in the Baseball Writers' Association of America election. Gossage is the 20th player to receive 70 percent to 75 percent; all previous 19 subsequently were elected to the Hall.
It helps Gossage's cause that he heads a ballot that lacks any first-time, take-it-to-the-bank candidates such as Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn last year. Although plenty of people who crossed paths with Gossage would argue he belongs in Cooperstown, regardless of the ballot.
"I managed a lot of guys in relief," said Chuck Tanner, who managed Gossage in five of his first six seasons in the majors. "Rollie Fingers. Sutter. Kent Tekulve. (Terry) Forster. I had a lot of them. He was No. 1. He was something. He was the best. Should have gone into the Hall of Fame his first year."
In his Cajun drawl, Guidry echoed Tanner's sentiment and said, "He should have been a one- or two- ballot guy. It shouldn't (have) taken this long."
Eckersley can only imagine the wait Gossage has endured. Because of Eckersley's unique career, he was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2004, the first year his name was on the ballot. He was an effective starter as a younger pitcher before segueing in his mid- 30s to the bullpen and setting a new standard with Oakland as a one-inning closer. With the A's in 1992 and 1993, Gossage, his heyday as a closer well behind him and the end of his career near, was a setup man for Eckersley.
"What he did on the field, he should have been in the Hall of Fame much earlier," Eckersley said. "But as long as he gets in. . . . I didn't have to sit around like he did, so it's easy for me to say.
"I know what it was like to go through that, and if that phone didn't (expletive) ring, I don't know what that would feel like for another year to go by again. That would be excruciating."
Mother missed his honor
It was for Gossage until last year. On Sept. 21, 2006, his mother, Sue, died at the age of 92. Gossage, whose father, Jick, died of emphysema when he was a junior at Wasson High School in Colorado Springs, said his mother was his biggest fan.
When the possibility of Gossage, 56, gaining baseball immortality began to gain traction, he said his mother would say, " 'God, Rick, I'm still around if you do get into the Hall of Fame.'
"It didn't happen," Gossage added. "If there was an urgency, that was the only urgency, because it's totally out of my control.
"Now, certainly, to go in would be an unbelievable thing. I can't comprehend my career. I can't fathom this. In my wildest dreams, to think that I would be considered for the Hall of Fame, when you start out (thinking), 'I don't know how good I am. I'm scared to death what I'm getting myself into.' "
Gossage had those misgivings in 1970, when the White Sox drafted him in the ninth round a few weeks before his 19th birthday.
After Bill Kimball, a Chicago scout based in North Platte, Neb., signed Gossage for $8,000, he boarded an airplane for the first time in his life, left Colorado, also for the first time, and went to Sarasota, Fla., to play in the Rookie Gulf Coast League.
In 1971, Gossage went 18-2 with a 1.83 ERA in 25 starts for low Single-A Appleton. The White Sox invited Gossage to camp in 1972 as a nonroster player, and he made the team. Tanner decided to put Gossage in the bullpen, then largely populated by starters in decline.
"He could throw hard," Tanner said, explaining why he made Gossage a reliever. "He was a competitor. And I liked the way when he came on the mound, he was dominating. He went out there with a purpose, and you just couldn't hit him."
Bookend performances
Gossage made his major league debut April 16, 1972, in the first game of a doubleheader at Kansas City, and threw the final pitch of his career with Seattle, his ninth team in the big leagues, Aug. 8, 1994, at Texas. There was vintage Gossage in those bookend outings.
In Gossage's debut, he entered a tie game in the fifth with nobody out and runners on second and third. He gave up a walk and a run on a groundout before ending the inning with a double play.
In his 1,002nd and last game, he earned a just-for- old-times-sake save by pitching three innings. He came on with the Mariners leading by eight runs, retired the nine batters he faced on 35 pitches and allowed two balls to leave the infield.
Multiple innings and tight situations with little room for error were the norm for Gossage. In his prime, he attacked hitters with a mid- to high-90- mph fastball and an occasional slider and came at them with an ornery edge and cruel intentions.
"When he came in, and he was (upset), he just wanted to bury you," said Guidry, a left-hander who threw hard and went 170-91 in a career that spanned 14 seasons, all with the Yankees. "He just wanted to bury you. And that was good.
"Guys used to tell me, 'It wasn't easy hitting off you two guys. It's just you never scared us. Goose scared us. We were comfortable off you because you were around the plate. But Goose, you just didn't know.' "
Actually, Gossage's control was an asset. During his 10-year heyday as a closer, 1975-1985 - Gossage was a starter in 1976 - he averaged 3.27 walks and 8.52 strikeouts per nine innings. And for his entire career, which spanned 1,8091/3 innings, Gossage had a better than 2-to-1 ratio of strikeouts (1,502) to walks (732).
The appearance of wildness came because Gossage threw so hard from a low three-quarters arm slot - it's a reason he held right-handed hitters to a .211 average - with a maximum-effort delivery, his arms and legs flailing and, most troubling to hitters, seemingly no focus on the catcher's glove.
Gossage developed his delivery by throwing to his brother, Jack, who was 16 years older. Jack, a former catcher, would tell Gossage, "You're throwing like a sissy," which made Gossage grit his teeth, reach back for everything he had and let the ball fly with tears in his eyes while throwing in his brother's front yard.
"That's where my delivery came from," Gossage said. "Hitters used to tell my catchers, 'He's not even looking where he's throwing.' But the ball was always right there. And when it wasn't, I was wild enough that they weren't going to dig in.
"So, intimidation was a big part of my game."
Tanner: Intimidate hitters
In that sense, Gossage simply was adhering to one of Tanner's tenets. Tanner had a way of poking a finger in the chest of a player to drive home a point. Gossage remembers Tanner doing just that "when he told me, 'Son, if you're going to make a living up here, you've got to make that hitter as uncomfortable as you can.' Those were his exact words."
For a decade, Gossage made life absolutely miserable for hitters. In his prime as a closer, his ERA rose above 2.62 once and was 2.06 for the entire period. During those 10 seasons, he pitched more than 100 innings four times and topped 80 innings seven times.
Current Yankees closer Mariano Rivera has thrown more than 80 innings in that role once.
Save totals were much more modest, and there were more decisions for a closer in Gossage's time because they went into tie games and typically worked more than one inning.
Gossage's single-season high was 33 saves, and he reached 30 one other time. He was fourth all time in saves, with 310, when he retired but now ranks 17th.
Gossage's career was marked by stability early on, but he began to hop around in his mid-30s. Indeed, he spent five seasons with the White Sox, who traded him to Pittsburgh, where he spent one season. He then signed free-agent contracts with the Yankees (six seasons) and San Diego (four).
His last great season was with the Padres in 1985, but he ended up making short stays with the Chicago Cubs, San Francisco, the Yankees again for a month and a half in 1989 and even in Japan for the 1990 season. He returned to pitch for Texas, spent two seasons with Oakland and finished with Seattle at age 43.
Performing past his prime
Critics say Gossage stuck around too long and that detracted from his greatness. Gossage felt otherwise.
"This is the way I looked at it," he said. "I set the standard in relief pitching. I think I had a big role in where that bar was; I set the bar high. Now I came back to the rest of the pack and I was an average pitcher. But I was still contributing. I still had enough stuff.
"I helped Oakland. I wasn't setting the standard anymore, but what I had done was come back to the pack of average major league pitchers. Now what's wrong with that?"
As the seasons stretched on, Gossage again simply was following advice he had heard decades earlier from Tanner.
"He poked me in the chest one day," Gossage recalled, "and he said, 'Let me tell you, son. This is the most special thing you'll ever do right here. You make them tear that uniform off.' "
Gossage was in an Oakland uniform and nearing his 41st birthday when he went into a spring training game against Milwaukee in 1992. Tanner was in camp with the Brewers, assisting Phil Garner, who was managing for the first time at any level.
Garner had played six seasons for Tanner. In 1977, Garner and Gossage starred on Tanner's Pirates, who won 96 games. It was a terrific year for Gossage, who went 11-9 with a 1.62 ERA and 26 saves while logging 133 innings in 72 games.
"The A's brought him in," Tanner said. "I said, 'Phil, I want to apologize, but I'm rooting for Gossage.' And Phil Garner said, 'So am I.' "
etkinj@RockyMountainNews.com
Indelible memories
Asked to recall his three most notable games, Goose Gossage cited his major league debut in 1972, the first of nine All-Star Games, in 1975, and the one-game playoff game in 1978 with Boston at Fenway Park for the American League East title.
* April 16, 1972, White Sox
Gossage vaulted from low Single-A Appleton to the Chicago White Sox, but the start of the season was delayed 13 days by the first players' strike in history.
Gossage's debut in the big leagues was at Kansas City in the first game of a doubleheader and second game of the season.
He relieved starter Stan Bahnsen with no out in the fifth and runners on second and third and the score tied at 1. Gossage walked Lou Piniella, got Bob Oliver to ground into a run-scoring forceout at second base and escaped further trouble when Bobby Floyd tapped into a double play that went from catcher to first base.
"I remember going to the mound shaking, and that feeling of adrenaline was incredible," Gossage said.
He was just glad to be able to walk to the mound. An inning earlier, White Sox manager Chuck Tanner called down to the bullpen for Gossage to warm up, which he did while Bahnsen got out of a jam.
"I go to sit down and I miss the top step (there are seven or eight) of the bullpen dugout, and I fall all the way down into the dugout," Gossage said. "Now I'm laying in tobacco and spit. My uniform's all dirty. That was a veteran club and everybody cracked up, and did they bury me. 'You stupid rookie.' "
* July 15, 1975, All-Star Game
That was the day the All-Star Game was played at County Stadium in Milwaukee. Gossage and his wife, Corna, drove up from Chicago a day earlier, and she dropped him off at the ballpark early for the Monday workout. Gossage went into the American League clubhouse, which was empty, save for one person.
"He had his shirt off and his cutoff long johns," Gossage said. "He's putting on his sanitary socks and he's bent over and all I can see is his back. He's real broad. When he heard the door open, he turns around."
Gossage found himself staring at Mickey Mantle, who was the honorary AL captain. Gossage's father was a huge Yankees fan, as was Gossage. And while growing up in Colorado Springs, Mantle was his favorite player.
"He said, 'Hey, son, how you doing?' " recalled Gossage, who was too startled to reply. Worse, he turned around and walked away, never saying a word. Gossage eventually dressed on the other side of the clubhouse and was standing near the AL dugout watching as the National Leaguers were taking batting practice.
"All of a sudden, I feel this real hard finger in my back," Gossage said. "I turn around and, oh, my God, it's Mantle again. And he's acting like he's mad. He said, 'What's the matter, son? Don't you talk?'
"I start babbling now. 'Mr. Mantle, I'm so sorry. You were my favorite player' and blah, blah, blah. He's got this look on his face like he's mad, and now I'm really freaked out. Then he just burst out laughing. He said, 'Hey, I just wanted to congratulate you on making the team. Let's kick the (bleep) out of these guys.' "
* Oct. 2, 1978, New York Yankees
Gossage relieved Ron Guidry and got the final eight outs, earning a save as the Yankees beat the Red Sox 5-4. It was anything but easy. Gossage stranded a runner at second in the seventh with the Yankees ahead 4-2. They made it 5-2 in the eighth, but Gossage allowed four hits and two runs in the bottom of the inning, stranding the tying run at second base.
With one out in the ninth, Gossage walked Rick Burleson, then Jerry Remy singled to right. Piniella, in right field, lost the ball in the sun and put his glove out, hoping to stab the ball. He did, and that deke move kept Burleson from taking third. He tagged up and took that base when Jim Rice flied to right, but he would have scored had he been on third.
Gossage said the night before the game, he thought he would face Red Sox captain Carl Yastrzemski with the game on the line. That's exactly what happened. While the left-handed-hitting Yastrzemski, then in his 18th season with Boston, received an extended ovation and got ready to hit, Gossage had a conversation with himself on the mound.
"I said to myself, 'Well, what's the worst thing that can happen?' " Gossage's answer was that if he lost the confrontation, the next morning he would be headed to Colorado to hunt elk.
"And for the first time all day, I felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders," Gossage said. "It was the first time all day that I'd taken a deep breath."
Gossage threw his first pitch low in the strike zone but thought the ball was moving, his velocity was better and, best of all, he was relaxed.
"The next pitch was basically right down the middle, and what it did was it took off and rode in on Yaz," Gossage said.
"That's what jammed him, that little movement that made me so tough. That's why my ball was so hard to hit."
Yastrzemski swung at that second pitch and hit a pop foul near third base that Graig Nettles caught. A jubilant Gossage ran over and lifted Nettles in his arms.
Closing in
In the past three seasons, Gossage's vote total has increased markedly, putting him on the doorstep of the Hall of Fame.
The rise comes after a four-year holding period during which the percentage of votes Gossage received declined slightly three consecutive years.
A player must receive 75 percent of the votes cast to be elected and must receive 5 percent to remain on the ballot.
Gossage's vote total has more than doubled since his initial appearance on the ballot in 2000.
Ballots Votes
Year cast needed Votes Pct.
2000 499 375 166 33.3
2001 515 387 228 44.3
2002 472 354 203 43.0
2003 496 372 209 42.1
2004 506 380 206 40.7
2005 516 387 285 55.2
2006 520 390 336 64.6
2007 545 409 388 71.2
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Suggest removal
dilligaf writes:
The problem is Goose lives in Colorado. Everyone knows what those east coast clowns think of us. Ask the Broncos about the Colorado snub. Goose I hope you make it. But if you don't try moving to New York you'll get in for sure.