FSU Baseball: Goose Gossage Wrong About Buster Posey
By Kelvin Hunt
Buster Posey was somewhat of a target during a recent tirade by Goose Gossage regarding how the game of baseball has changed over the years.
Buster Posey has had a stellar MLB career after doing the same thing with FSU baseball from 2006-2008. He was drafted by the San Francisco Giants with the fifth overall pick in the 2008 MLB Draft.
He was the 2010 Rookie of the year, three-time all-star, NL MVP, three-time Silver Slugger Award winner, three-time World Series Champion, Hank Aaron Award Winner, NL Comeback Player of the Year Award winner and NL batting champion.
That’s a mouthful.
However, Hall of Famer Goose Gossage said a mouthful a couple of weeks ago when talking about the way some of the current players in MLB play the game.
He referenced former FSU baseball great Buster Posey in a part of his tirade.
“A bunch of f—ing nerds running the game. You can’t slide into second base. You can’t take out the f—ing catcher because [Buster] Posey was in the wrong position and they are going to change all the rules. You can’t pitch inside anymore. I’d like to knock some of these f—ers on their ass and see how they would do against pitchers in the old days.”
The play that Gossage is referencing is the video below:
As you can see, it was a bang-bang play and freak accident. It’s absurd for Gossage to say that Posey was in the wrong position on that play. In fact, his entire tirade was ridiculous as he went in about players flipping their bats after hitting home runs and other things he didn’t like.
“I said what I said,” Gossage said. “I was passed the torch about a certain way to act. Flipping the bat isn’t part of that. All the things I said about [Jose] Bautista just came to my mind and I got it off my chest.”
If Gossage threw a pitch like the one Bautista saw, it would probably be the same result as it was a 97 mph fast ball. Gossage threw gas [hard] in his heyday, but pitchers nowadays hit these speeds more frequently than when he played.
Bautista hit a seventh inning go ahead three run home run in-game five of the American League Division Series. As pitcher, if he hit it that far just tip your cap and try to get him next time.
Here’s the video below:
As a former college baseball player and pitcher in high school, if I gave up a home run to a batter he deserves to do whatever he wanted. He got me, but If I struck him out, I deserve to do whatever I wanted in my opinion. It’s no different from guys dancing after scoring a touchdown or a basketball player screaming after catching an alley-opp.
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I’ve always thought the un-written rules of baseball were a joke. Listen to the roar of the crowd when Bautista hits that home run. That’s what’s missing in the game of baseball and why more and more youth are not playing the game.