Goose Gossage took some time today to discuss how he really felt about the game of baseball. He said Toronto Blue Jays slugger Jose Bautista is a "f--ing disgrace to the game" and that "nerds" have turned the sport into a "joke."
The Hall of Famer's comments are timely, considering Bryce Harper just told ESPN in a recent interview that baseball is a "tired sport" because players are discouraged from expressing themselves.
Here's some of what Gossage had to say in his rant:
"Bautista is a f--king disgrace to the game," Gossage told ESPN. "He's embarrassing to all the Latin players, whoever played before him. Throwing his bat and acting like a fool, like all those guys in Toronto. [Yoenis] Cespedes, same thing."
"The game is becoming a freaking joke because of the nerds who are running it."
"I'll tell you what has happened, these guys played rotisserie baseball at Harvard or wherever the f--k they went and they thought they figured the f--king game out. They don't know s--t."
He went on and on, but that's pretty much the gist of it. He represents the "old school" view of baseball where players respected the game and weren't million-dollar liabilities or "divas," which is how some are viewed by players of the past. He's not happy about the new slide rules that ban taking out the catcher or more aggressively breaking up a double play and he also isn't a fan of pitch counts. He feels all of that has, in a sense, made the sport much more soft. He said if he asked his coach "how many pitches he had" back in the day, he would have been told to get his "ass out there on the mound" and that the team would determine when he's ready to come out.
Many might disagree with Gossage's comments regarding Bautista and Cespedes in addition to his take on the new slide rules, but perhaps some see some validity in his stance on "nerds" running baseball. He has a point there. Analytics, at times, have an overbearing presence in the game and it deviates from the way in which the game used to be played. It also (sometimes) disregards traditional scouting, which is growing more and more obsolete in today's game. Traditional scouting was a way for teams to discover players with various intangibles, such as dedication and leadership. It still plays a role, but it perhaps has much less of an impact than it did years ago.
The game is moving in a different direction, that's just how it is. The need to protect fielders from reckless baserunners and pitchers from arm injuries has increased exponentially in recent years due to the amount of money teams invest in those players.
For some prospective, according to Baseball-Reference, Gossage's highest annual salary as a player was $1,331,532 back in 1988 as a member of the Chicago Cubs. The average annual salary in baseball today is $4 million, which is a new record. The increasing value of players has undoubtedly been a catalyst in the game's changes.
The players are also beginning to disregard the "unwritten rules" more frequently in recent seasons as Major League Baseball is attempting to attract a younger audience in order to usher in new generations of fans.
Sure, baseball has gotten a bit softer, but as the famous saying goes, "don't hate the player, hate the game."
