HALL of Famer Goose Gossage said yesterday that the Yankees pinstripes have been tarnished by Alex Rodriguez’s steroid storm, that the game’s greatest record is tainted forever, and the sanctity of the Hall of Fame could be as well.
“Everything has been smudged – the Yankees, baseball, A-Rod, everyone involved and all of these other guys, too,” Gossage told The Post. “I’m very disappointed.”
He’s so right.
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Goose said steroid users like Rodriguez should not be given a free pass into Cooperstown just because they put up huge numbers. Rodriguez likely will be the all-time home run king when it is all said and done.
“The greatest record of all time is at stake here,” Gossage said. “I don’t know where all this goes, the Hall of Fame is a hallowed place. I can’t understand what his thinking was. The history of the game is everything.
“Alex is probably going to break the [home-run] record, but all credibility is out the window.
“Henry Aaron did it clean and that’s the bottom line,” Gossage said. “Anything else is tainted and what does it mean?
“And if you let one in,” Gossage said of the steroid-tainted stars’ entrance into the Hall of Fame, “you are going to have to let them all in. What they’ve accomplished, would they have accomplished had they been clean?”
Steroid-stained Barry Bonds owns the most home runs with 762. Aaron follows at 755. Babe Ruth is third at 714, followed by Willie Mays (660) and Ken Griffey Jr. (611). A-Rod is 12th on the list with 553 home runs.
Rodriguez said Monday he was clean in Seattle and during his Yankees years. ESPN’s Peter Gammons asked Rodriguez if he felt a player who tested positive or admitted to taking illegal substances is disqualified from the Hall of Fame.
“I hope not,” Rodriguez said. “I think every case is different. I think you have to look at the data. If you take a career, of, you know, 25 years, and you take away three, or you take away 2 1/2 or you take away one, I think overall you have to make a decision. I don’t have a Hall of Fame vote. It would be a dream to be in the Hall of Fame, and I hope one day I get in.”
Rodriguez admitted Monday that he used steroids in 2001-03. On Saturday, Sports Illustrated reported that Rodriguez failed a 2003 survey drug test.
“To me,” Gossage said, “the biggest thing in that whole interview was when Peter Gammons asked him if those were the only years that he did steroids and Alex said, ‘Pretty accurate, yes.’
“What does that mean? It’s either yes or no,” Gossage noted, his voice rising, saying again of the Hall of Fame: “If they let one guy in they are going to have to let everybody in.”
Gossage then offered the example of Ken Griffey Jr. and how difficult it is to be a great player trying to break the greatest of records.
“This guy has had so many injuries and I know he is as clean as clean is,” Gossage said of Griffey. “I would stake my life on it. … Griffey Jr. is my example of a clean guy that didn’t make it.
“These are sacred records and it’s so unfortunate that this is going down.”
Gossage believes it’s time the names are released of those who failed that 2003 survey test.
“Where are the other 103 names?” he asked. “That’s not fair to A-Rod, either. The only thing that he’s got going for him is that he came out and told the truth, that was his only chance.”
Rodriguez has 10 more years of his career ahead of him to set things straight, but in many ways, the damage is done.