Goose Gossage Makes Hall Of Fame

Nine Years In The Waiting


It took a while but Rich "Goose" Gossage finally made the Hall of Fame.

With a solid 86 percent of the vote from members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (75 percent is needed for election), Gossage was the only electee (Jim Rice finished second with 72.2 percent) and only the fifth reliever so honored (the others are Hoyt Wilhelm, Rollie Fingers, Dennis Eckersley and Bruce Sutter, the crème de la crème of his profession). Gossage also is the 45th Yankee (including players, managers and executives), the 36th who played at least one game in a Yankees' uniform, the 15th who pitched for the Yankees, including Babe Ruth who pitched five games for them, and their first reliever.

"I grew up in Colorado," Gossage said, "and I didn't have much exposure to Major League baseball as a kid. My dad and I used to watch the Yankees on the Game of the Week, with Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese announcing the games, and my whole family became Yankees fans. To get to play for them was an out of body experience."

I used to think it was really exciting how he'd come in and just start throwing really hard, almost uncontrolled, hellacious fireballs at the general direction of home plate. He wasn't totally without control. In fact, most nights he was dominant and accurate, and it was only on the odd night, he would just be scattergun. But those scattergum nights were pretty interesting watching too.
So I've always had a soft spot for old Goose.

Apart from Reggie, Catfish Hunter , and Goose, there really weren't any Hall of Fame caliber guys on that late1970s glory teams that won 2 World Series and made another 2 appearances in the post season. I'd happily have Thurman and Nettles in there, but I've been assured they're definitely *not* worthy of enshrinement. Goose on the other hand suffered from being a reliever - and yet he really was like no other.

Here's his WHIP graph that gives you an indication of just how good his stuff was.

Here's his K/BB graph that gives you an indication of his command.

Here's his K/9 graph that gives you an indication of his dominance.

In all 3 graphs you can see he was simply superb in his prime years between '77 and '83 or so. Man, it brings back memories! (The way my Aussie friends talk about Lille and Thompson's intimidation factor is how I remember Goose.)

When you combine this with his workload throughout his career in the days before 'The Closer', he really was an exemplary 'Fireman', and really it's for that, that he should be enshrined. Anyway, it's a nice way to start 2008 as a Yankee fan.