We are approaching a point where Clint Eastwood’s character from Gran Torino will look at Goose Gossage and say, “Maybe you want to dial it back a little bit because all this anger toward new things and young people isn’t healthy.”
After ranting about bat flipping, the disrespectful nature of Latin players with the audacity to show joy and Bryce Harper’s thoughts on unwritten rules, Gossage told the New York Post of another modern feature of baseball that gets him mad — instant replay.
The foundation for why Gossage doesn’t like it makes you think he’s doing a character from a satirical sketch about changing times, but really he’s just the crankiest old white guy you’ll ever find.
“Now you sit there for five minutes and wait for a fucking replay. And half the time, you can’t even tell.
“Who’s died in the last 100 years because of a bad call? They say, ‘Well, they lost a World Series and the kid lost his perfect game.’ I said, ‘Who died?’ Leave the human element in the game. You cannot take the human element out of baseball because it is the fabric of the game.”
So in Gossage’s mind, unless someone is dying, there’s no need to fix anything. If something existed in a certain form in 1960, that’s how it should exist today unless that thing was killing people. You lost a World Series because of a blown call at first base? Well, did anyone die because of it? No. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go deliver milk and watch Howdy Doody on my black and white TV.
“Goose, check it out. They replaced glass bottles with plastic bottles so they are safer.”
“Yeah? Did anyone ever die dropping a bottle of soda in their kitchen?”
“No but I cut my foot real bad once and—”
“So no one died then? Get lost, hippie.”
And it was only a matter of time before Gossage referenced reigning NFL MVP Cam Newton in a negative way, and that time was yesterday.
“It’s a shame, it breaks my heart to see the direction this game is going. What, do we want a bunch of Cam Newtons running around?”
Yes. Yes, we do. We want super talented athletes doing crazy fun things during games, yes. Nobody wants 25 David Ecksteins trying hard and getting in front of ground balls. And really, is no one going to mention that we are getting lessons on maturity from a 64-year-old man who calls himself Goose?
There’s also some stuff in that story about how stat nerds are ruining baseball. Gossage references baseball the way Bill Paxton would talk about tornados as living things in Twister and it makes you wonder if someone doesn’t need to check him into some sort of psychological hospital.
“This is the revenge of the nerds, and they are going to get the last laugh — I know that,’’ Gossage said. “These guys played rotisserie baseball at Harvard or wherever they played it and they were successful, so they think that’s all there is to it. That’s just a little fucking part of the game.
“Let me tell you, you can’t control this game no matter how hard you try. We gave up a long time ago of trying to figure this shit out. It has a mind of its own, it has a character of its own. And they are taking that character out of the game.
This isn’t a play, Goose. Baseball is not a living thing or a character in a play. Making sure a guy is out at a base or a ball cleared a wall isn’t … you know what, forget it. If you ever catch yourself arguing with a guy named Goose, do the Cam Newton Superman celebration and walk away.
(Via New York Post)
