A Goose In Every Pot

I was quite happy when this past November 9th came around. Why? Because all of the elections were over. No more listening, or rather, turning off, countless television and radio ads. No more hearing bullshit, no more mud slinging, etc..not until well in 2006.

How could I forget so quickly. It’s time for the annual baseball hall of fame balloting -- which means it’s time for what has become the annual Goose Gossage, “I belong in the Hall of Fame” campaign. Over the past couple of weeks, Goose has appeared on the radio sports talk shows, internet broadcasts, in every tri-state newspaper, talking about how he deserves to be in the MLB hall of fame.

Goose will ramble on about how guys like he and Bruce Sutter revolutionized the closer’s role. To paraphrase, “no knock on Mariano Rivera, he’s great, but we had to pitch 2, 3, or more innings to get a save”. On and on it goes.

Don’t get me wrong, I agree with the Goose, he does deserve to be a Hall of Famer. That being said, Goose…please…STOP THE CAMPAIGNING! It was bad enough when Gary Carter did it. I didn’t like him period, but Goose was one of my guys back in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s with the Yankees. Now he has become as annoying as any congressman running for re-election.

The results of this year’s voting by the Baseball Writer’s Association (BWAA) will be on announced shortly. We can only hope that Goose is included so that we don’t have to look forward to another “Goose December”.

The System

Speaking of the BWAA - why are these guys the sole selectors of who belongs in the Hall? Most never played the game or not at a high level. Once players are rejected and no longer for election via the conventional way, they can still be elected by the Veterans Committee. At that point, former players have an impact on what players are elected/bypassed. Why not combine the two committees right away? You’d have a better mix of players/writers that have covered/watched the eligible players. You’d also have less of a chance of the writer’s shutting out a player because they don’t like the way that player dealt with them (e.g. Jim Rice). I’d also like to see the “friendly” vote stop. More precisely, writer Joe Blow stops giving a Hall vote to some garbage player just so they can say they received a Hall vote. To me, that’s just watering down the whole process (the Hall itself has become watered down, but that’s a whole other story). If only those deserving get in, then only those deserving should get a vote.

Belated Happy New Year!

On New Years Eve, I thought back to December 31st, 1974. Went to the movies with a bunch of relatives to see Freebie and the Bean (imdb.com link). When we came out it was snowing and was nearing Midnight. We had the news on the radio (my Dad can never get enough news) coming home, when they announced that the Yankees had signed free agent pitcher Catfish Hunter to a contract.

What an awesome feeling. The Yankees had pretty been the dregs of the American League for most of my childhood, but some guy named George Steinbrenner bought the team in 1973 and promised to turn things around. Signing Catfish was the first step in that process.

Though he only had one really big year statistically (25 wins in 1975) as a member of the Bombers, he was a big game pitcher, a winner that had a great influence on young pitchers like Ron Guidry. Catfish’s arm was pretty much shot for most of his Yankees career after ’75, but he went 6-1 down the stretch in 1978 as the Yankees rallied back against Boston. If I had to select one guy to pitch a game with everything on the line, I’d have no problem selecting a healthy Catfish Hunter. May he rest in peace.