Gossage says wait for Hall of Fame makes it sweeter

It took nine years for Rich "Goose" Gossage to get enough support to be voted into the baseball Hall of Fame and be recognized as one of the greatest closers in history. He says the wait will make his induction this weekend sweeter.

"I tried not to get excited when the vote came around every year," Gossage, 57, said in an interview on Bloomberg Radio's "On the Ball" program. "I can't imagine it feeling as special as it did having to wait nine years as if I had gotten in on the first ballot."

Gossage and former manager Dick Williams will be inducted on July 27 at the shrine in Cooperstown, New York. The pitcher, who still has his bushy Fu Manchu mustache, finished his 22-year career with 310 saves and will be the fifth reliever to be inducted.

The Hall of Fame said it expects 15,000 to attend the ceremony, down from a record 75,000 last year for the inductions of Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn. Unlike Gossage, Ripken and Gwynn gained entry into the Hall their first time on the ballot. Players aren't eligible until they have been retired for five years and must get 75 percent of the votes cast by members of the Baseball Writers Association of America to be enshrined.

Bullpen beginning

Gossage started his career in the bullpen in 1972 for the White Sox and wasn't happy about it. He said he longed to be in the starting rotation, and didn't get there until 1976 when other players were injured. One year later, after he was traded to the Pirates, he was switched back into a relief role to stay. This time he liked it.

"At the time, the bullpen was not a place where you wanted to go," Gossage said. "It was a junk pile where old starters went that couldn't start anymore."

That changed with the success of Oakland Athletics reliever Rollie Fingers, and Gossage said he grew to love pitching almost every day with the game on the line. He often worked two or three innings to close a game, while modern-day closers like Mariano Rivera of the Yankees are ninth-inning specialists.

Gossage had a 124-107 career record with a 3.01 earned run average and 1,502 strikeouts in 1,809 innings. He led the American League in saves three times.

Yankees cap

While Gossage played for nine teams, he will enter the Hall of Fame wearing a Yankees cap. The right-hander played in New York from 1978 to 1983 and part of the 1989 season. The Yankees won one World Series with Gossage closing games and captured three division titles.

He signed with the San Diego Padres in 1984 and helped the club reach its first World Series. Williams, who first put Fingers in the bullpen in Oakland, was Gossage's manager in San Diego.

Williams, who led three different teams to the World Series, was elected by the Veterans Committee along with the late Walter O'Malley, owner of the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers; Barney Dreyfus, owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates; manager Billy Southworth; and former commissioner Bowie Kuhn.

Williams, 79, compiled a 1,571-1451 record over 22 seasons with the Boston Red Sox, Oakland, California Angels, Montreal Expos, Padres and Seattle Mariners. He won the World Series with the Athletics in 1972 and 1973 and got to the championship round with the Red Sox in 1967 and Padres in 1984.

No pitch count

He was known for his tough style and said he doesn't like the way pitchers are used today. He never counted how many pitches his starters threw and put his best relief pitchers in when the situation called for it, regardless of the inning.

"We used them when we thought we needed to get somebody out," Williams said on a conference call. "If that meant them going four innings or three innings or two it really didn't make any difference."

Gossage said it's hard to compare his statistics with today's closers because his workload was so much bigger. He said he would have loved to been used for only one inning like Rivera.

Still, he said he's enjoying the recognition he's getting since being elected in to the Hall in January. Fans yell congratulations to him across the airport terminal and his voice mail is filled with messages from well wishers.

"It's amazing how my life has changed and for the better," he said on Bloomberg Radio. "I am lot busier than I ever wanted to be."