Home Run Derby

Rich “Goose” Gossage was announced as the newest member of the Baseball hall of Fame today.

An eight time All-Star as a reliever (and once as a starter), Gossage compiled a 124-107 record with 310 career saves, 1502 strikeouts, and a 3.01 ERA while mostly playing for the New York Yankees and the San Diego Padres.  His 115 wins in relief is third all-time.

He was one of the first dominant closers in baseball, and would often pitch 2-3 innings rather than the one-inning specialists common in baseball today.

So why did it take nine tries for Gossage to get the Call from the Hall?

Well, sportswriters vote players into the Hall of Fame … and there’s lots of speculation that some of those writers might carry a lengthy grudge against a player who was … less than friendly with some of them.

If that’s the case, maybe they hadn’t forgotten this spectacular tirade Gossage launched at them while a Yankee

Warning: bad language not safe for work - no really, there are like 20 F-Bombs in this 70 second clip.

That is up there with Lee Elia, Earl Weaver and Tommy Lasorda.

Here’s a quick look at some highlights from Gossage’s career.  Entirely from his Yankee days.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 8th, 2008 at 2:08 pm and is filed under MLB Hall of Fame. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.