COLORADO SPRINGS — Look out, Zeb, the Goose is gaining on you in popularity.
Gen. Zebulon Montgomery Pike has a famous mountain named after him for his expedition to the area in 1806.
Rich “Goose” Gossage, the Baseball Hall of Fame’s newest member, was honored Tuesday as more than 200 friends and acquaintances turned out for a reception at the Penrose House to salute their hometown hero.
Master of ceremonies Mike Moran proposed that a statue of Gossage be added to the Colorado Springs landscape.
“I’m on the fast track for sure, to put it mildly,” said Gossage, who leaves Thursday to join the New York Yankees for spring training as a guest minor-league instructor. “I really can’t comprehend all of this. I can’t imagine a statue. That’s an immortalizing thing.”
Gossage is saddened that his mother and father didn’t live long enough to see him inducted in Cooperstown. Both were Yankees fans, the team he will represent in the Hall. He remembered that while growing up in Colorado Springs, his father told him he would be a big-league player.
“I was kind of shy and it embarrassed me,” Gossage said. “I’d tell him not to say that.”
Irv Moss, The Denver Post
