A Battle For the Ages

By Sean Gregory

With his supersize Fu Manchu mustache and seething scowl, former major league baseball pitcher Richard (Goose) Gossage scared the stirrups off hitters 30 years ago. Now 54, the Goose is firing 100 m.p.h. fastballs at a different set of heads: baseball writers who haven't voted him into the Hall of Fame. "I'll take on any writer, anywhere, on any show, and I will bury him," Gossage said in January after learning that Bruce Sutter, a star from the same era, got the Hall call. Gossage is still ticked. "These young writers have no clue," he told TIME. "They're completely wet. They're completely full of s___. O.K.?"

Like legions of baby boomers who have gone about as far as they can in their profession--or will soon reach that uncomfortable turning point--Gossage is after something simple: validation of a career, and life, well spent. He wants one last cheer, and his high-profile quest throws valuable light on some common nagging questions. Are up-and-comers out to steal our thunder? When we're not recognized for our achievements, does it pay to get angry? Am I living in the past when I still have much to offer and should be looking ahead? When is it time to move on?

Gossage, who was a relief pitcher, is a victim of baseball's battle of the ages. Today's game is more specialized. In Gossage's era, relief pitchers often threw three innings to close out a game and get credited with a "save." Says the Goose: "I was brought into situations God couldn't get out of, and I got out of them." Now closers get those all-important saves by pitching a single inning or less. So they are able to pitch in more games and build their statistics. Gossage isn't the only former big leaguer with a beef. Today's hitters, thanks to smaller ballparks and steroids, hit far more home runs. Gossage contends that players from the 1970s and '80s whose numbers don't compare with those of modern-era hitters like Barry Bonds and Rafael Palmeiro (both of whom have denied knowingly using steroids) have been wrongfully overlooked--Andre Dawson and Jim Rice, to name a couple.

Throw in feelings of rejection and a desire for the ultimate career stamp, and you've got a Goose who is cooking. "It's not that they're better," Gossage says of today's players. "Do what we did, then compare who was the best. Barry Bonds stands up there. When's the last time Barry Bonds was knocked on his ass? Never ... The owners can save millions of dollars--take the pitcher off the mound and put up a tee. 'Cause what they're playing is tee ball. They pitch around him. If I was going to pitch around him, I would have saved four and just put one in his rib cage. You want to go to first? We'll do it easy."

It's fitting that Gossage carries the torch for spurned stars of yesteryear. He courted controversy throughout his 22 years in the big leagues, most famously as a New York Yankee. He once called Yankee owner George Steinbrenner "the fat man upstairs" and another time punched a teammate on the nose during a bathroom brawl. In 1986, after San Diego Padres owner Joan Kroc, the widow of McDonald's founder Ray Kroc, banned beer in the clubhouse, Gossage famously remarked, "She is poisoning the world with her hamburgers, and we can't even get a lousy beer."

Then, Gossage's rants were mostly entertaining; now they appear to be the mark of a middle-aged man who may be clinging too closely to the past. "The saddest thing to me," says ESPN commentator Skip Bayless (who has called Gossage a "throw-hard blowhard"), is "the ex-athlete who can't let go." Gossage's rank dismissal of the talent ("The pitchers can't pitch") and fortitude ("The game is getting really soft") of today's players, as well as the character of younger baseball writers ("They don't have any respect for the game"), is destructive nostalgia, experts say. "If you look back, far into history, there is evidence of people having this tendency [to trumpet the good old days] for generations and generations and generations," says Lisa Libby, a psychology professor at Ohio State University and co-author of a 2003 study titled "When Change in the Self Is Mistaken for Change in the World." "So if it were true that there was all this decline in each successive generation, we'd have nothing left at this point. So clearly some of it has to be illusory."

The job of relief pitcher probably was tougher in his day. In 1975, a year in which he led the American League with 26 saves, Gossage pitched 142 innings. Thirty years later, Bob Wickman shared the lead with 45 saves, pitching just 62 innings. That's half the work, double the reward. But it's a stretch to say that today's chiseled, athletic players are inferior to yesterday's stars. "Laughable," says Miami Herald sports columnist Dan Le Batard, 37. "What, anywhere in society, was better 25 years ago? You're using better training methods and previous education. And there's a worldwide talent pool now."

Gossage really misfires with his argument that young writers are keeping him out of the Hall. A writer must cover baseball for 10 consecutive years before receiving a vote. So they're not as wet as Gossage suggests. The youngest of the Hall of Fame voters are old enough to have seen Gossage play.

As with anyone else's glorification of the past, Gossage's celebration of the "old school" doesn't have to be a bad thing. Nostalgia, once viewed as a psychiatric disorder, can be beneficial in reasonable doses. "If someone is angry with something in the present, being nostalgic can be therapeutic," says Krystine Batcho, a Le Moyne College psychology professor and author of several studies on the subject. "It reminds you that you are someone. You're not just an ordinary Joe."

The key is to mix retro thinking with an eye for the future. How do you know when you've crossed the line pining for the old days? "People who keep reliving their past can really wear others down," says Batcho. "So if you notice people starting to avoid you, that's usually a clear sign." Striking a healthy balance may require you to shift your focus--to others, away from yourself. "Once you become pro-social," says Batcho, "you can reach down into the successes of the past and think, How can I use them now? You succeeded because you were talented in some way and other people appreciated it. So how can I do that again?"

Gossage still sells his glory days for a living, giving speeches and working memorabilia shows. To the shrinks, that may be too much living in the past. Even Gossage might concede that after his youngest son Todd, a third baseman, finishes his senior season at the University of Central Arkansas this spring, it will be time to move on. Gossage contemplates coaching. While that would still connect him to a game he feels has betrayed him, experts say it is a healthy pursuit in which he has much to offer.

In the end, Gossage will probably be enshrined anyway. Hurling shots at Hall voters isn't the sharpest political strategy--"I called him up and told him to shut up," says Bill Madden, 59, a veteran New York Daily News scribe and Gossage supporter. "He might p.o. somebody who was inclined to vote for him." But Gossage has steadily gained ground. Nearly 65% of voters gave him the nod this year, and no player with that level of support has failed to get in eventually (players need 75% for induction, and can remain on the ballot for 15 years. Rice, the ex--Red Sox slugger, also notched close to 65%). "Dominance at a position in your time is the best indication you're a Hall of Famer," says Jack O'Connell, 57, secretary-treasurer of the Baseball Writers' Association of America. "I don't think there's any question that the dominant reliever in the American League and, for a period, in the National League, in his time was Goose Gossage." Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken, Hall of Fame locks, will crowd next year's ballot; 2008 may be Goose's shot. "All I want to do is make it right," Gossage says. He can start by moving on.