Goose Gossage: A-Rod “Got What He Deserved”

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So…you like reading about baseball, huh?

Well, good luck finding anything to read nowadays that doesn't involved the words "Hall of Fame" or "steroids".  Yup, thanks to the most recent Hall of Fame debacle, er, vote and, just days later, the Alex Rodriguez suspension…you'd be hard pressed to find a story about anything else.

Thankfully, this one has both.

Goose Gossage was in Tampa for Derek Jeter's Celebrity Golf Classic, when he was asked if he had been following the A-Rod saga.

“Well, how could you help but not follow it?” Gossage responded. “It’s unfortunate for the game, for Alex, for everyone involved. To have Major League Baseball have to go through this is very difficult. I think A-Rod probably got what he deserved. I hate to see it happen to him. But I think the punishment fits the crime.”

Gossage wasn't done, however, and he didn't stop with just Rodriguez.

“I’ve always said all along, these guys need to fess up to what they’ve done to the game…I’m talking about Clemens, Bonds, A-Rod. It’s just unfortunate,” the former closer continued. “I think they’re getting what they deserve. I think the commissioner ought to reinstate the records that Bonds broke, and not even recognize what these guys accomplished in the game.

If any of this sounds familiar…it's because it is.  Gossage, over the years, seems to have become the "go to" guy when it comes to steroids and the Hall of Fame.

"If they elect cheaters into the Hall of Fame, I am not sure I would go back.  It hurts me to even think about it," the 2008 inductee told the Denver Post  on the eve of the 2013 announcement.  "You are telling me we are going to reward these guys?  Are you (expletive) kidding me?  What is going on in this world?  Right is right.  Wrong is wrong."

But, my favorite Gossage quote has to be the one he delivered a year ago at a University of Calgary fundraising dinner.
 
"I wish these guys who are lying would come clean," Gossage told the crowd. "Roger Clemens was found innocent but so was O.J. and he killed two people. Stop lying and quit dragging baseball through the mud."
 
Yes. He compared the seven-time Cy Young Award winner to O.J. Simpson. Classic.
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