Finally, Goose gets just recognition
Posted: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 10:46 PM
A major Hall of Fame injustice will be righted Sunday with the induction of Rich Gossage. Sixteen years after Rollie Fingers, four years after Dennis Eckersley and two years after Bruce Sutter, Goose will stand alongside his peers in Cooperstown.
Like Fingers and Sutter, Goose helped define the original art of closing. Two stats stand out: In one of baseball’s most famous games, Gossage retired the last eight Red Sox batters to clinch the 1978 AL East title and 52 of Gossage’s saves were of at least seven outs or more.
With his kind of credentials why did he have to wait nine years to make the Hall of Fame after his name first appeared on the ballot? Was the last act of his career, a half dozen years of slow fade into his mid-40s, held against him?
Or was he the victim of the new voting fad emphasizing quantity over quality?
Bob Costas hosted a sterling 90-minute show discussing many things baseball last week. One segment was related directly to the Hall of Fame but devoted a disproportionate amount of time to Pete Rose and never touched on the ongoing quantity/quality debate. Do you think Bert Blyleven, Jim Rice, Tommy John and Jim Kaat would have enjoyed hearing their worthy candidacies discussed?
My strong sense is that the current Hall of Fame members endorse Gossage. Conversations with many members through two decades leave me certain of one fact: great players judge each other through instinct, knowledge and respect -- not through numbers. It takes a Hall of Fame member no more than 10 seconds to judge the worthiness of a candidate.
And I am certain that Eckersley would agree with Gossage’s induction. It completes unfinished business from Eck’s induction. He belongs but not before the trinity of Fingers, Gossage and Sutter.
There was no more intimidating pitcher in his era than Goose. He had a decade of excellence, slightly longer than Sutter and equal to Fingers’ prime. At baseball-reference.com, scroll to the bottom of Fingers’ page and leading the “comparable stats” list is Gossage.
It all changed for Goose in Oakland. Tony La Russa and Dave Duncan, for whom Gossage would briefly play, had an idea in 1987. Jay Howell was scuffling as a closer and Eck was struggling as a starter who couldn’t retire lefties. La Russa and Duncan convinced a very reluctant Eck to accept a trial period as a closer, where limited views of him by opposing hitters would heighten his effectiveness, especially against lefties.
By the next year the A’s had crafted a bullpen that would become the model for the next two decades. They went for depth: righties Eric Plunk and Gene Nelson teamed with lefties Rick Honeycutt and Greg Cadaret to give Oakland five late-inning pitchers. La Russa pioneered the mix-and-match use of all five, often limiting Eck to one and two out saves. The plan worked brilliantly with Eck lasting five quality years while his supporting cast changed. And it greased Eck’s path to the Hall of Fame.
After being forgotten and slightly minimized for a decade, Gossage is finally earning his just recognition and on Sunday. Act I of the Book of Closers will officially end.
FIVE MORE SWINGS
1. JOSE REYES went 1-for-13 in the first three games after the All-Star break. His 4-for-6 performance last Sunday helped the Mets salvage a split in Cincinnati. Now that Carlos Delgado has regained his stroke, the Mets need the real Reyes to return.
Interesting words from Jimmy Rollins to the New York Times, echoing a thought raised here earlier this year, “He (Reyes) is the complete package but he won’t fully mature until his failures start making sense to him.” Rollins should know. It took him years to do what he takes about Reyes having to do and Rollins stretched the Phillies to the point of exasperation and finally helped prompt a change that moved out Larry Bowa as manager but Rollins arrived and is now the model for Reyes.
If the Mets get a Rollins-like performance from Reyes in the second half, they win the NL East.
2. MILWAUKEE keeps going after winning this year. Its latest move, acquiring Ray Durham from San Francisco, is a prod to Rickie Weeks. Durham can still hit enough to contribute in a playoff race.
Meanwhile, how unsettling must St. Louis feel after Jason Isringhausen blew a save last Sunday and Ryan Franklin coughed up a 10th-inning home run to Milwaukee’s Bill Hall Monday night?
3. WALKS are never a sizzling topic of conversation, but serious fans pay attention to this: Minnesota’s pitchers have issued the fewest walks in the AL, Boston’s hitters have drawn the most walks, St. Louis and the Cubs are tied for the NL lead in drawing walks and San Francisco’s struggles can be summed up in the deadly double of issuing the most and drawing the third least number of walks in the NL.
4. RANDY JOHNSON grabs headlines with win No. 291, but the Dodgers are showing signs of life. Their ninth-inning shocker over Arizona last Sunday could be a season-changing win.
5. RECORDS THAT GRAB YOUR ATTENTION: Boston has a 24-32 road record yet is one of the game’s strongest teams. San Francisco has an MLB-worst 19-31 home mark. And the Angels are the only team with a comfortable divisional lead.
