Gossage sounds off about steroids, By: Brian Heyman
June 25, 2006
NEW YORK — Goose Gossage wore the familiar Fu Manchu mustache and the same No. 54 on his pinstriped jersey, and he brought his old high heat to the Yankees' 60th annual edition of Old-Timers' Day at the Stadium.
The former relief great brushed back the major-league powers that be over their failure to try to dissipate the steroid cloud earlier and proclaimed he doesn't think Barry Bonds' home-run pursuit of Hank Aaron's record 755 is legit.
"No, I don't, no," Gossage said. "I could never understand why there wasn't an investigation being done (before now). They talk about the integrity of the game. The integrity of the game is all those great numbers that all those great players put up before. If they're going to just bury their head in the sand and turn a head to this ...
"What Henry did and the Babe and all the great players did, the 500 club — all of a sudden after the congressional hearings, you didn't hear another word about it. They put some teeth into the drug testing and they thought that would suffice and it was going to go away until this book ("Game of Shadows'') came out. I'm wondering why is nothing being done to protect the integrity of the game."
The aging faces of pinstriped generations ranging from the 1940s to the dawn of the new century gathered yesterday in an auxiliary locker room. They renewed old acquaintances, reminisced with the media about their glory days and spoke in some cases about the hard issues facing the game.
Then the former players heard the cheers once more. They were introduced one by one and stationed themselves along each line and at the edge of the tarp covering the field because the on-and-off rain meant there would be no Old-Timers' game, and no regular game after a half inning against the Marlins, either.
"It was always one of my favorite days when I was playing here," said David Cone, a first-time Old-Timer at 43. "That's one of the reasons why I chose to come so soon."
The special guest of the day was another pitcher besides Cone who once tossed a perfect game here.
The Yankees celebrated the 50th anniversary of the day Don Larsen made history, Oct. 8, 1956, the day he threw the only perfect game in World Series history, in Game 5 against the Brooklyn Dodgers. Babe Pinelli called out Dale Mitchell on a questionable third strike, and Yogi Berra jumped into Larsen's arms.
So now here was the 76-year-old Larsen, walking slowly toward the area behind home plate where 11 members of that '56 championship team waited, and the 81-year-old Berra tried to stage a distant replay. The old catcher playfully started another jump into Larsen's arms.
"I didn't know it was a perfect game until I got in the clubhouse and somebody told me," Larsen said. "I knew I had the no-hitter going.
"It was exciting. I remember when Babe called Dale out for strike three — he may have swung at it — and I remember out of the corner of my eye seeing Dale turn around to argue, and there was nobody there. Babe was gone, and Yogi was in my arms. I felt at that time, it was over."
Darryl Strawberry put on the pinstripes for the first time in 1995. The 44-year-old first-time Old-Timer was back to slip into his No. 39 jersey. But he also hopes to be at the Mets' 1986 championship reunion ceremonies at Shea in August.
"I'm a Met in my heart," Strawberry said. "My history is with the Mets. I was drafted by them. I went through the farm system. I'm a homegrown player."
He might as well have been talking about the player who isn't expected to make the '86 reunion — the imprisoned Doc Gooden. Strawberry, who says he's headed now for a new marriage, has fought the same demons of substance abuse and has seen his fair share of legal trouble, so he can relate.
"Life is not easy," Strawberry said. "We all sit around and think it's that easy because you've been great and you've had this great ability to play sports. But that's not the case. There are a lot of unsettled things that go on inside a person's life when he's young and he gets to the point of being successful and living a lifestyle that me and Dwight Gooden lived. ... All I can do is pray for him."
There have been players lately who have been living the lifestyle that includes performance-enhancing drugs.
"The fans deserve to know what is going on," Gossage said. "If these guys would just come out and fess up, I think it would be moot. (Jason) Giambi — life goes on. It's forgotten. There will always be a dark cloud over this era of baseball."
