Goose Gossage did not so much pitch as make a threat. For six seasons in pinstripes, the mustache, the scowl and the 100-mile-an-hour fastball turned the ninth inning into the shortest inning in baseball.
Bob Watson, who faced the Goose and later played behind him, explained it best: "He's all arms and legs and he's not looking at you. That doesn't make you feel good when he's throwing 100 miles an hour. I'll tell you, it's a lot better playing behind him."
DID YOU KNOW?
Gossage recorded the final out to clinch a division title, a league championship or a World Series seven times in his career - including both the one-game playoff at Fenway Park and the World Series clincher at Dodger Stadium in the same October of 1978.
The Super Bullpen
The Yankees had just won the 1977 World Series with Sparky Lyle, that year's Cy Young winner, closing games. George Steinbrenner signed Gossage anyway, because that was the Boss: why have the best bullpen in baseball when you could have two of them? In November 1977, Gossage agreed to a six-year, $2.75 million deal, fresh off a 26-save, 1.26-ERA season in Pittsburgh.
Lyle was traded after the 1978 season, which moved Graig Nettles to one of the great one-liners of the era: Lyle had gone "from Cy Young to sayonara."
Gossage was worth every argument. His fastball touched 103 miles per hour at the 1978 All-Star Game, and hitters stepped in knowing the at-bat would be short and unpleasant. "I don't like anybody with a bat in his hands," he said, "because he's trying to hurt me with that thing."
One Afternoon at Fenway
October 2, 1978. The one-game playoff for the American League East. Bucky Dent's home run had broken Boston's heart in the seventh, and Gossage came on for Ron Guidry with one out in the bottom half to protect it. He worked out of that jam, watched Reggie Jackson add a homer in the eighth, then gave back runs on hits by Carl Yastrzemski and Fred Lynn.
In the ninth, the potential winning run stood on base. Gossage, hyperventilating on the Fenway mound, asked himself a question: What's the worst thing that could happen to you? "I'll be back in Colorado tomorrow hunting elk."
His second pitch to Yastrzemski produced a pop-up to Nettles at third. Ballgame. It was an eight-out save, his league-leading 27th of the season. Thurman Munson found him afterward and told him those last two pitches "had another foot on anything else you threw all day."
Ten days later in Los Angeles, Gossage relieved Catfish Hunter in the eighth inning of World Series Game 6 and retired the final six Dodgers. Ron Cey fouled out to Munson, and the Yankees were champions again, back to back, number 22.
The Goose and the Boss
Gossage led the American League in saves three times - 1975 with the White Sox, then 1978 and 1980 with the Yankees. His 1980 season was 33 saves and a 2.27 ERA, good for third in both the Cy Young and MVP voting. In the 1981 division series against Milwaukee, he saved all three Yankees wins without allowing a run.
He and Steinbrenner clashed the way proud men do, in public, through the newspapers. Gossage gave back as good as he got, and in 1983 he announced he would not re-sign. After the season he took a five-year, $9.95 million deal from San Diego - at the time the largest contract ever given to a pitcher - and immediately saved the game that put the Padres in their first World Series.
His six Yankee seasons: 150 saves and a 2.10 ERA, with four All-Star selections.
The Standard
Gossage pitched 22 years and finished with 1,002 games, 310 saves, a 3.01 ERA and 1,502 strikeouts. When he retired he stood among the top five in history in games, saves, relief innings and relief strikeouts, and his eight All-Star selections as a reliever stood as a record until Mariano Rivera passed it in 2008, the year the Goose went into the Hall of Fame.
Every closer who has jogged in from the Yankee bullpen since walks a path Gossage cut. Before the ninth inning belonged to anyone in the Bronx, it belonged to him.
Watch: Goose Gossage - Baseball Hall of Fame Biographies (National Baseball Hall of Fame)
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Sources: Baseball Hall of Fame (Gossage player page) · MLB.com ("10 moments that define Goose Gossage," Bryan Hoch, 2022) · Baseball-Reference.com (Rich Gossage career statistics)