And yet not one “journalist” asks him or Morgan about their use of greenies?
And hell, what about their HOF teammates who used greenies?
Please Goose, we get that you are a HOF’r. We also get that your defensive of both the players voted into the HOF and the closers/RP club…But for Pete’s sake shut it. Comments on Joba, comments on the HOF, enough. Now granted I am sure he was approached on this, but still…We get it cheaters shouldn’t be allowed in, problem is there are too many very good cheaters and many different variations of cheating.
“And what does the Hall of Fame consist of? Integrity. Cheating is not part of integrity.”
Guess Whitey Ford’s out. That cheater scuffed the ball.
Oops! There goes Gossage’s (and anyone else’s who wants the cheaters barred from the Hall) entire point.
Let the ‘cheaters’ in. They’re no worse than most of the rest of the Hall, anyway, and in some ways they’re much better.
I agree with AndrewYF, Jeff and John-YF.
While we all wallow in the mud of baseball stats, each generation of players is so different that it is very hard to compare. And each era had its own set of cheaters that were ignored. So the 50-80’s might be the era of the amphetamine and the 90’s and early 00’s will be the era of steroids.
And there are so many ass-holes in the HOF that a few so-called cheaters will not make the average integrety any worse. You have a game that ignored negro baseball players for a nearly a century. It was and probably still is full of bigots from
Cap Anson, through Ty Cobb to John Rocker. And a number of those are HOFers.
I think if they posted the numbers they deserve to get into the HOF – including Pete Rose, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds et.al.
I don’t necessarily disagree with the gist of what everyone is saying, and Hal’s points about generational differences is very keen. But let’s also be careful not to make one thing just like another, i.e. scuffing the ball is simply not injecting winstrol into one’s kiester. That’s not to say they aren’t both in violation of the spirit of fair competition, which to me they are, but even then there are gray areas. Was “everyone” taking Winstrol? If so, does that mean taking Winstrol leveled the playing field? Did Whitey scuff the ball every single time he pitched? Did he scuff occasionally?
Etc. etc.
I don’t think all “cheating” is created equal. But it’s subjective, absolutely, which “cheating” is more debilitating to the game, or has been more debilitating. And that can mean in terms of competition or reputation. Things are not easily classified.
I dunno SF, I think that makes them pretty equivalent. Guys occasionally took greenies (which I’m not sure were in violation of the rules…I don’t know if they were even illegal drugs), guys occasionally scuffed the ball, guys occasionally took HGH, guys occasionally injected themselves with steroids, not everyone did it, but some really prominent HOFers did it, and if you let them in, then you must let the others in.
There is a whole other argument that the HOF is essentially meaningless, guys not inducted into the HOF do not get their numbers erased, the only real and meaningful contribution you make to the game is the part where you’re active in it, so in the end who really cares? I know I’ll always remember guys like Paul O’Neill, Don Mattingly, guys who were stars in their time but weren’t starry enough or whose stars didn’t last long enough. Do I really care if they have a HOF plaque? Will I like this Mattingly less than a Mattingly who was inducted into the Hall? Course not. Don’t get me wrong, Cooperstown is a great place, and the Hall is a fantastic monument to baseball, and it’s provided some great moments like Phil Rizutto’s speech, but it’s circumstantial, what really matters is what happens on the field, not ceremonies or plaques.
/rant
While I agree that Gossage’s preaching is getting tiresome, I don’t have that big a problem with it. Part of being elected to the HoF is that you get a privileged position from which to comment on who else should be in or out. Doesn’t mean your position is any better than anyone else’s, but it’s an exclusive club, and while we can suggest that maybe it’s not that big a deal, I can’t imagine a player alive who wouldn’t want to be in there nor one who is in there who thinks it’s no big deal. If any of those who are in there want to comment on why they wouldn’t want to see others admitted who did x, y, or z, that’s fine with me. I’m actually more interested in what they have to say on the matter than what countless commentators or baseball writers do. But I agree that any HoF’er making those arguments should then be asked to draw the distinction between the rule-bending and breaking that went on in their eras with that which has been happening in this era.
And I’m not all that sure that injecting oneself with something to speed one’s recovery time and bulk up artifically is any worse than using a corked bat or scuffing a ball so that a guy who cleanly hits your pitch gets screwed out of a hit. In fact I can think of a couple arguments for why the latter is even worse – at least with regards to the legitimacy of what’s going on between the lines and the effect that one kind of cheating has on other players vs. another.
What I’m talking about is the culpability of the media in fanning the flames of “controversy” while avoiding the tough questions. They’re cowards and unfortunately that’s the standard in journalists today. If they’re going to ask the softball, but headline-provoking, questions with their mic turned on, have the guts to ask a tough question or three.
For Gossage: Did you ever use greenies? Did any of your teammates? Weren’t they cheating by the same definition?
For the record, greenies have been regulated by the federal government since 1970. And there wasn’t an exemption for baseball playing.
9 replies on “Not Good for the Goose”
And yet not one “journalist” asks him or Morgan about their use of greenies?
And hell, what about their HOF teammates who used greenies?
Please Goose, we get that you are a HOF’r. We also get that your defensive of both the players voted into the HOF and the closers/RP club…But for Pete’s sake shut it. Comments on Joba, comments on the HOF, enough. Now granted I am sure he was approached on this, but still…We get it cheaters shouldn’t be allowed in, problem is there are too many very good cheaters and many different variations of cheating.
“And what does the Hall of Fame consist of? Integrity. Cheating is not part of integrity.”
Guess Whitey Ford’s out. That cheater scuffed the ball.
Oops! There goes Gossage’s (and anyone else’s who wants the cheaters barred from the Hall) entire point.
Let the ‘cheaters’ in. They’re no worse than most of the rest of the Hall, anyway, and in some ways they’re much better.
I agree with AndrewYF, Jeff and John-YF.
While we all wallow in the mud of baseball stats, each generation of players is so different that it is very hard to compare. And each era had its own set of cheaters that were ignored. So the 50-80’s might be the era of the amphetamine and the 90’s and early 00’s will be the era of steroids.
And there are so many ass-holes in the HOF that a few so-called cheaters will not make the average integrety any worse. You have a game that ignored negro baseball players for a nearly a century. It was and probably still is full of bigots from
Cap Anson, through Ty Cobb to John Rocker. And a number of those are HOFers.
I think if they posted the numbers they deserve to get into the HOF – including Pete Rose, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds et.al.
I don’t necessarily disagree with the gist of what everyone is saying, and Hal’s points about generational differences is very keen. But let’s also be careful not to make one thing just like another, i.e. scuffing the ball is simply not injecting winstrol into one’s kiester. That’s not to say they aren’t both in violation of the spirit of fair competition, which to me they are, but even then there are gray areas. Was “everyone” taking Winstrol? If so, does that mean taking Winstrol leveled the playing field? Did Whitey scuff the ball every single time he pitched? Did he scuff occasionally?
Etc. etc.
I don’t think all “cheating” is created equal. But it’s subjective, absolutely, which “cheating” is more debilitating to the game, or has been more debilitating. And that can mean in terms of competition or reputation. Things are not easily classified.
I dunno SF, I think that makes them pretty equivalent. Guys occasionally took greenies (which I’m not sure were in violation of the rules…I don’t know if they were even illegal drugs), guys occasionally scuffed the ball, guys occasionally took HGH, guys occasionally injected themselves with steroids, not everyone did it, but some really prominent HOFers did it, and if you let them in, then you must let the others in.
There is a whole other argument that the HOF is essentially meaningless, guys not inducted into the HOF do not get their numbers erased, the only real and meaningful contribution you make to the game is the part where you’re active in it, so in the end who really cares? I know I’ll always remember guys like Paul O’Neill, Don Mattingly, guys who were stars in their time but weren’t starry enough or whose stars didn’t last long enough. Do I really care if they have a HOF plaque? Will I like this Mattingly less than a Mattingly who was inducted into the Hall? Course not. Don’t get me wrong, Cooperstown is a great place, and the Hall is a fantastic monument to baseball, and it’s provided some great moments like Phil Rizutto’s speech, but it’s circumstantial, what really matters is what happens on the field, not ceremonies or plaques.
/rant
While I agree that Gossage’s preaching is getting tiresome, I don’t have that big a problem with it. Part of being elected to the HoF is that you get a privileged position from which to comment on who else should be in or out. Doesn’t mean your position is any better than anyone else’s, but it’s an exclusive club, and while we can suggest that maybe it’s not that big a deal, I can’t imagine a player alive who wouldn’t want to be in there nor one who is in there who thinks it’s no big deal. If any of those who are in there want to comment on why they wouldn’t want to see others admitted who did x, y, or z, that’s fine with me. I’m actually more interested in what they have to say on the matter than what countless commentators or baseball writers do. But I agree that any HoF’er making those arguments should then be asked to draw the distinction between the rule-bending and breaking that went on in their eras with that which has been happening in this era.
And I’m not all that sure that injecting oneself with something to speed one’s recovery time and bulk up artifically is any worse than using a corked bat or scuffing a ball so that a guy who cleanly hits your pitch gets screwed out of a hit. In fact I can think of a couple arguments for why the latter is even worse – at least with regards to the legitimacy of what’s going on between the lines and the effect that one kind of cheating has on other players vs. another.
What I’m talking about is the culpability of the media in fanning the flames of “controversy” while avoiding the tough questions. They’re cowards and unfortunately that’s the standard in journalists today. If they’re going to ask the softball, but headline-provoking, questions with their mic turned on, have the guts to ask a tough question or three.
For Gossage: Did you ever use greenies? Did any of your teammates? Weren’t they cheating by the same definition?
For the record, greenies have been regulated by the federal government since 1970. And there wasn’t an exemption for baseball playing.