MLB

RICH LETS LOOSE ON THE JUICE

THIS is what the drug cheats will never understand.

Goose Gossage said yesterday his joy of being elected to the Hall of Fame after a nine-year wait was so pure, so real that when he got the news, it was “like being hit with a brick in the head. My head went numb.”

Not numb from a shot. Numb from getting elected and going in the right way. Goose has 310 saves, with 52 of those saves, according to Elias, seven outs or more. Times have changed. Mariano Rivera owns one save of seven outs or more. All-time saves leader Trevor Hoffman has two such saves.

Gossage made it clear how special being a Hall of Famer is and how it is not a place for players who used performance-enhancing drugs to change the playing field.

The writers backed up Gossage, giving only 23.6 percent of the vote to Mark McGwire. Big Mac last year got 23.5 percent of the 75 percent needed for election. At this rate, McGwire has no chance of getting into Cooperstown.

Gossage said the Mitchell Report was good for the game. “I’m glad it shed some light on this,” said the ex-Yankee, who saved the 1978 playoff win over the Red Sox, entering that game in the seventh inning.

As for the mess that Roger Clemens is in, Gossage said, “Now we have to figure out who is telling the truth.”

Gossage is not afraid to tell it like it is. This is the same guy who once told writers about The Boss, George Steinbrenner: “You can take it upstairs to the Fat Man.”

“(Andy) Pettitte came clean, there have been other guys who said they did it,” Goose said. “Life is going to go on. I think if you did do performance-enhancing drugs, you need to come clean and put an end to this because of the history of the game and of how great baseball has been over such a long period of time.”

Respect the game and yourself.

“What we have here at stake is the greatest part of the game, the history of it, and they can’t allow steroids or anything to get in the way of the history of the game.”

Clemens insists he is telling the truth and that his personal trainer Brian McNamee is lying, accusing Clemens of using steroids and HGH.

If Clemens did use, Gossage said he is on the same plane as alleged steroid slugger Barry Bonds. That’s not a good place to be. Gossage is in the Hall of Fame now, the Hall of Shame awaits others.

“I think they are on the same level, I don’t think there is any question about it,” Gossage said if Clemens and Bonds are found to be drug cheats. A frustrated Clemens said Monday he is not concerned with making it into the Hall of Fame. He only wants to clear his name. He does not need the Hall to justify his career.

Baseball is in a bad place right now.

Gossage offered his own personal review of the strangeness of the day that has been the major leagues since the late 90s.

“It’s kind of weird that these guys had some of their most productive years when the history of the game (shows that) guys talents are diminishing when they got older and for these guys, it didn’t happen that way,” he said. “We’ll just have to wait and see if these guys come clean and finally put an end to this.

“If they find that they did do performance-enhancing drugs, I think it needs to be dealt with because there is too much at stake with the great players and the history of the game because all the great players that played before them were on a level playing field. I can’t say this is a level playing field.”

Not too long ago, Gossage told me that “God couldn’t get out of some of the jams” that he came into. Goose got out of them. He earned his way to Cooperstown one big save at a time.

Baseball is in a terrible jam now.

Who’s going to save baseball?

kevin.kernan@nypost.com