R-E-S-P-E-C-T, FIND OUT WHAT IT MEANS TO ME . . . : For Goose, a Time to Be Tough

They say Goose Gossage leads by example.

Here’s his example:

Last season, rookie pitcher Gene Walter didn’t like the way the bullpen drinking water tasted, so he brought his own thermos of water out there with him. Gossage saw it and said: “What’s this?” And he hurled the container against a wall, breaking it into pieces.

Without the Goose, the San Diego Padres might fall to pieces.

“Basically, when you get down to it, he’s the heart and soul of this team,” pitcher Andy Hawkins said this week. “He affects everybody. He’s a hard-working SOB.”

And also a GOB--as in good ol’ boy. What’s good about Gossage is that his teammates adore him. What’s ol’ about him is his 14 seasons in the big leagues. What’s boy-ish about him is that he plays with the vigor of a rookie.

“He could walk around with his nose in the air, but he doesn’t,” Padre pitcher Greg Booker said.

Instead, he walks around with his noe sometimes in other people’s business, which, players here say, isn’t such a bad thing. Last season, when the Padres did fall to pieces and players were telling reporters in August that the season was over, Gossage told those players to shut their traps or their lives would be over.

“He read those quotes and went to those people and got in their faces,” teammate Tim Flannery remembered. “And you don’t want Goose Gossage mad at you. He’ll pinch your head off. People say he’s not like that, but he is. He’s a redneck cowboy. He’ll kill you. Like the song says, he’s bad to the bone.”

How’d his bones get so bad?

“I see him do something,” Flannery said, “and I say: ‘New York did that to him.’ It hardened him, calloused him. It had to.”

New York, New York. Gossage got there in 1978, after six years with the White Sox and one with the Pirates. In his younger days, he’d been less the eccentric.

“Well, he threw every pitch like it was his last pitch he’d ever throw in his life,” said Chuck Tanner, his manager with Chicago and Pittsburgh and the man who switched him from starter to reliever. “He was just like a young, wild stallion. And we had to harness him, and we had to bring him into the fold.”

When New York brought him into the fold as a free agent, Gossage became more the eccentric.

His beginning there was rocky because he kept getting rocked. In his first game with New York, Texas’ Richie Zisk beat him with a home run. In his next game, Milwaukee’s Don Money beat him with a double. In his next game, he beat himself with a throwing error.

In the clubhouse, he’d pace and pace and have no peace. The late Thurman Munson came to him then and said: “Look, you’ve lost a game for us in every possible way, so things can only get better from here.”

Witnesses say Gossage was about to break Munson’s face, but he broke up, laughing, instead. He has said this was his turning point in New York.

But the focal point was owner George Steinbrenner, who always interfered. Finally, Gossage couldn’t persevere. In April of 1979, he fought with teammate Cliff Johnson, injured his thumb and missed half the season.

Teammate Reggie Jackson said the next day: “Take a good look at Cliff because he won’t be around. You don’t mess with the G-men (pitchers Ron Guidry and Gossage) or the big kid with the boat (Steinbrenner) will get rid of you.”

Yes, Johnson was banished to Cleveland.

But Gossage was left with Steinbrenner. In July of 1983, after two World Series’, Gossage finally struck back, telling reporters he was sick of the boss’ negativity and screamed: “Take that upstairs to the Fat Man!”

The Fat Man, Steinbrenner, usually would not tolerate such nonsense from players, but Gossage wasn’t just any player, so Steinbrenner only replied: “Fat Man? Tell Goose I’ve lost 11 pounds since June.”

In December, he lost Gossage, who signed with the Padres.

Tanner, watching this all from a distance, immediately predicted a San Diego title.

And in 1984, the Padres won the pennant.

“The reason why San Diego won was because of him,” Tanner said this week. “He made the team from a .500 club to a championship ballclub.”

Gossage was himself when he arrived. That’s all. Padre players who knew nothing of him expected a prima donna, but instead found a supreme friend. For one, Gossage turned around the career of Hawkins, who won 18 games last season.

“We’re a lot alike,” Hawkins said. “He says he sees a lot of himself in me. And we have the same attitude now. See, he helped me get over the hump in the big leagues. We’d talk in the outfield (while shagging flies) countless times. It’s like he’d say: ‘Don’t do like I say, do like I do.’

“What did I do then? I went after hitters. I didn’t care about nothing. He’d say your ass is on the line out there. It’s sink or swim. He had that aggressive attitude, and I picked it up.”

Hawkins has been goose hunting with the Goose. Gossage owns nearly 400 acres of land in Colorado, which shows what he’s doing with his $1.2-million contract.

“He’s not the kind of guy who’d buy a restaurant,” Hawkins said. “He’ll put his money into his land and the things he knows about. That was his life before baseball.

“He’s a country boy. He grew up in the mountains of Colorado. He loves working with the cows, and he’s a hunter from the word go. A good hunter, too. He has a ranch in Colorado that’s probably the most beautiful place I’ve seen. It’s so big. I’ve been there two times, and I don’t know how big it is. You could be there forever and not see all the land. He has to fly to get to some of the places there.

“But I was hunting there with him. And I remember crawling on all fours, with my gun strapped to my back, trying to get up a mountain. What a scene.”

Gossage has helped the Padres climb the mountain of respectability.

Here’s his example:

In a spring training game against Milwaukee last week, he came in for the ninth inning with the Padres ahead by a run. He gave up that run. The Padres lost in 12 innings. He sat with teammate Jerry Royster on the bus and told him: “If it weren’t for me, we’d been out of here an hour ago.”

Royster said later: “That was the first run he’d given up all spring, right? And you should’ve heard him. He said: ‘I ought to just quit. I should never put on a uniform if I pitch like that’ . . . It took us 40 minutes to drive back to the hotel. He gets off the bus and walks all the way to his room, which is at the back of the hotel, and he’s still talking about the game. Then, he gets to his room and says, ‘See ya later, buddy.’ And that’s the last I heard of it.”

“Yeah,” teammate Flannery said, “I see him come in and kick helmets after he gives up runs. He’s furious. Then, he forgets it. He’s laughing 10 minutes later. I learn from that. You can’t get too high or too low. Get it out of your system, and that’s it.”

Goose. He’s so tough, he refused to be interview for this story. “I’m through with reporters,” he said last week. “Now get lost!”

One of them wouldn’t.

“Want me to make you?” he said. And the reporter went scurrying off to the safety of the press box.

He’s so tough, some young teammates are not on a Goose-name basis with him.

“I call him Mr. Gossage,” 22-year-old Bip Roberts said.

He’s so tough, he’s the only Padre who calls Steve Garvey “Stevie.”

He’s so tough, he kicks bat racks even if other pitchers have off days.

He’s so tough, he’ll come up to a guy who had a bad game the day before and say, “You feeling all right? You didn’t look like it yesterday.”

And no one ever talks back.