CO native son Rich "Goose" Gossage was the sole player elected to the HOF. I first met Goose back in the mid '70s when he would work out with the Air Force Academy baseball team at their indoor practice facility in the Cadet Field House during the winter months. I last saw him in 2003 when we are on the same flight to Houston. Congratulations Goose. Well deserved. :thumb:
what was big mac's %? I wonder if it went up or down. and about time they elected goose. saves are a joke now.
Mac finished with the exact same number of votes, 128, which is still just slightly under 25 percent. You need 75 percent to get in. The voters have made a statement. If they suspect you did PEDs, you will NEVER be voted into the HOF. Jim Rice was just shy of getting in. Word is he will be in next season. I hope Bert "be home" Blyleven makes it in his final year of eligibility next season. 287 wins. In the top 5 in strikeouts of all time.
I hope so. His stats aren't as glamarous as the bloated, performance-enhanced stats of today, but man he was one of the most intimidating hitters of his era. There's a couple stories about (I forgot who the originator of it was) that Rice was so powerful, that he broke his bat on a check swing. Another Rice story I heard is that he once fouled a pitch off, but swung so hard that the catcher smelled wood burning from his bat. Now of course, these are embelllished stories like 'the one that got away', but it just goes to show how feared he actually was. I think him and Andre 'Hawk' Dawson both belong.
I saw a game on TV where Rice snapped a bat on a checked swing. Whoever the announcer was said it wasn't the first time it had happened. Now the part about smelling burning wood sounds like it was embellished. :lol:
Amen! Great ERA, K/BB ratio, WHIP and threw a ton of complete games. If his teams were like, 3% better offensively, he would have the almighty 300 wins and would have been in on the 1st ballot. Unfortunately most baseball writers think that wins are the best measure of a pitcher's worth. *Please refrain from posting (Chris) Bermanisms. This is supposed to be a happy place.*
The day after LSU won the freaking undisputed National Championship of college football, I went to all the sports websites, and all of them had the headline story of Goose getting into the HOF (LSU's National Championship was still highlighted, but it was clearly the secondary story of the day). Just because of that, I hate Goose and hope he burns in hell. And joking aside, I don't get all the love for Goose. In the 80's MLB was the sport I was obsessed with. I was so into it that I'd go to every baseball convention in my area, and I never met another who knew more about MLB that I did at that time. Sure, that was a long time ago, and I lost all interest in MLB after the 80's, but I still don't remember Goose as being one of the MLB greats, at least in my opinion. Now, Jim Rice, that guy was a MLB great. And yes, those snapped-bat stories are all true (I don't know about smelling smoke or whatever). The guy was awesome.
Oh, btw, I thought Rollie Fingers was better than Goose, and I never thought that Rollie Fingers was all that great in the realm of the best of the best in MLB either.
