The Colorado Rockies’ fantasy baseball camp doesn’t exactly sound like the ideal setting to understand Rich Gossage, but there’s a story you should hear.
Gossage, then in his 50s, fell back into character as he stood on a mound in Tucson, Ariz. He still popped the glove, and didn’t like giving up hits. So when an inning got a little sideways and the next hitter got a little too comfortable, Gossage became the Goose.
“He was nasty. He hit a girl in fantasy camp. Yes, he did!” Rockies manager Clint Hurdle recalled. “I said, ‘What the [heck] are you doing?’ He said she kept moving forward and that he wanted to move her off the plate a little bit. I said, ‘For the love of God, Goose. You broke her hand.'”
More than 5,000 days after he threw his last pitch, Gossage will exit the bullpen Sunday and walk into the open doors of the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. His statistics long created a compelling argument for his overdue induction.
Gossage is best remembered for his intimidation. He was straight out of central casting. The low hat, the Fu Manchu mustache and a fastball with plenty of gas behind it.
As Gossage prepares to embrace his place in baseball history, thanking his parents, coaches and family in a speech that he promised will last longer than Bill Mazeroski’s 2 minute 15 second blink, we asked victims what it was like to dig in against him.
“When he became a closer he was absolutely lethal. There were only two guys that I faced where I moved back in the batter’s box,” said Don Baylor, a former American League MVP. “Nolan Ryan was one and Goose was the other. You had to give yourself a chance. I don’t know if Goose knew if he was throwing a sinker or a four-seamer. He just threw it hard.”
According to legend, Gossage’s heater blinked radar guns anywhere from 96 to 102 miles per hour. A lot of guys bring it. What made Gossage different was everything that happened before he released the pitch. His arms and legs moved like whirling nunchucks, creating a visual that was awkward at best, unfair at worst.
“I faced him many times when he was with the White Sox and the Yankees. He was very, very intimidating,” said Rockies coach Jamie Quirk. “He would snort, just coming at you with everything he had.”
Gossage was bent on recording the final three — or six or nine in some cases — outs. Perhaps nothing speaks to the fear Gossage inspired than his work in the clutch. He posted a 2.87 ERA in 19 playoff games and clinched seven division titles, playoff series and world championships.
“There were times when we were teammates that (catcher) Thurman Munson wouldn’t even give Goose signs. He would just wave his hands and say, ‘Come on, bring it,'” Yankees’ Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson said. “You knew the game was over.”
It is with a bit of irony that Gossage’s most memorable confrontation came against a hitter, Carl Yastrzemski, who wore him out. Yastrzemski finished his career 12-for-32 against the right-hander, second only to Roy White (10-for-21). The duel came in 1978 in the one-game playoff at Fenway Park for the American League crown.
With the Yankees leading 5-4 with two runners aboard and two outs in the ninth, Gossage fell behind 1-0 against the Sox legend. Calm came over him as he fired a fastball that ran so hard in on Yaz you would have thought it was fleeing the police. Yaz popped up to third. The Yankees popped champagne.
“I was put into situations that God couldn’t get out of, and I got out of them,” Gossage said. “The intimidation factor was a big part of my success.”
