Friday, January 11, 2008

Goose is Loose on the Hall of Fame


Congrats to Rich “Goose” Gossage as he has been elected to the Hall of Fame. The Hall just became a lot more fun with the Goose being there. As he said you can not compare his save numbers to the modern closers. When he retired he was # 3 on the all time saves list. The closer is such a specialized roll, when he was a “closer” he came in when he was needed and when the game became on the line. 52 of his 310 saves were 6 outs or more, that is pitching both the 8th and 9th inning and possibly coming in for the seventh. That is unreal.

Rich Gossage was a quote machine in his days and always said what was on his mind.

Once a reporter asked him how Steinbrenner felt about something and he said “I don’t know, why don’t you go upstairs and ask the fat man”

Joan Kroc (owner of the Padres and she was in control of McDonalds) when he found out she banned Beer at Padres games. “She is poisoning the world with her hamburgers and we can’t even get a lousy beer”

On his relief pitching “I was brought into situations God couldn’t get out of, and I got out of them”.

Recently he was asked could he check his ego at the door and set up for Mo Rivera “I would rather set up, I always wanted the harder job”

He was just a great guy who would tell it like it is. Should he have said he would have done steroids, probably not, but I respect the fact that he can acknowledge the choices these guys have and how hard it would be to say no. To prolong his carrer and makes tons of money he likely would have done it. He did not take the holier then thou stance of, I never did and never would have, these guys are all stupid…blah blah blah. Oh and Ethan I stole the Goose is loose line from Strat days, thanks.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

glad the Goose finally got in and those were some great qoutes he had.
If I remember correctly E was very drunk when the classic,"Goose is Loose" comment was made. I also believe he had a stuffed bird doll that he was throwing around as he shouted about the Goose.
Jason

Anonymous said...

All I remember is those metal blinds in his house and him throwing that duck over and over again into those blinds, I can still hear them!!!!!!!!

THE GOOSE IS LOOSE, THE GOOSE IS LOOSE, Classic.

Now all he is throwing is diapers in the trash!!!!

Anonymous said...

Yeah it was in 1989 when they resigned him--it was that 40 ounce bud that killed me! I think I traded away my entire strat team that night as well!! GOOD TIMES!!
PS--diapers get thrown out?