» The Goose Finally Makes Baseball’s Hall of Fame

The Goose Finally Makes Baseball’s Hall of Fame

The 2008 MLB Hall of Fame balloting results were announced today with dominant closer Rich “Goose” Gossage the only player elected to enter the Hall. Former Red Sox great; outfielder Jim Rice, with a lifetime average of .298, 2452 career hits, 382 HRs and 1,452 RBIs in 16 seasons, missed by an eyelash and former Montreal Expos and Chicago Cubs outfielder Andre “the Hawk” Dawson, with a career average of .279, 2,774 career hits, 438 HRs and 1,591 RBIs didn’t miss by much. Click here for the 2008 balloting results.

The nod this year went only to “the Goose”, who narrowly missed entering the Hall in 2007 and was perhaps the most dominant, yet durable closers in MLB history. ESPN brings a video round-table interview about Gossage, his career and his important part in defining
the roll of closer.

Between 1975 with the White Sox thru 1977, his one season with the Pittsburgh Pirates and 1978 with the Yankees, his innings pitched were over 130. In 1976, the White Sox made him a starter and he finished with a 9-17 mark with 15 complete games, 224 innings pitched and a 3.94 ERA.

Gossage’s career stats over 22 seasons were 124-107, 3.01 ERA, 310 saves, 1,502 strikeouts, 732 walks in 1,809 1/3 innings pitched. Gossage, while defining the evolving role of the closer, had the durability to not just get 3 outs in the 8th or 9th innings, as the closers do today, but to often give his team 6 or 9 outs over multiple innings. Gossage in the game late most times meant lights-out for the opposition.

AP Baseball writer Ronald Blum describes for Yahoo sports the scene when Gossage received the news of his Hall election;

Gossage was sitting in a recliner in his living room overlooking the Rocky Mountains when he received the call. He turned to reporters in the room and said, “Oh my god, I’ve been elected.”

“A shock wave went through my body like an anvil just fell on my head,” Gossage said about his reaction. “I think having to wait makes it that much more special.”

His mother died in 2006, Gossage said with tears welling up in his eyes, and he had hoped she would live long enough to see him inducted.

Gossage was a nine-time All-Star who pitched for nine major league teams from 1972-94 and had 310 saves — 52 of them when he got seven outs or more.

The first time he appeared on the Hall ballot in 2000, Gossage received only 33.3 percent of the vote.

He will be inducted July 27 in Cooperstown, joined by five men elected last month by the revamped Veterans Committee: former commissioner Bowie Kuhn, former Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley, managers Dick Williams and Billy Southworth and ex-Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss.

Williams managed Gossage on the San Diego Padres.

“There isn’t anybody I’d rather go in with than Dick Williams,” said Gossage, who spoke with his former manager right after getting the news.