LOVE HIM OR HATE HIM, THERE’S ONLY ONE . . . : GOOSE GOSSAGE : Reliever Is Throwing As If He Has Something to Prove

Monday was our first glimpse of the 1987 Goose Gossage, and it looked like (a) he was really throwing hard and (b) he had no hard feelings.

Last seen, the 1986 Goose was inserting foot in mouth, but, somehow, got his feet back on the ground over the winter. He and Ballard Smith, the Padre president, have kissed and made up. They saw each other around Christmas and laughed about their silly dramatics of the previous season (Goose had called Smith “gutless,” “spineless” and other bad names, and Smith had suspended him).

Smith, by the way, also vowed to take Goose out to dinner sometime, which he has yet to follow up on. But at least the thought was there, which is more than you could have said eight months ago.

Gossage, 35, said Monday: “Last year is behind me. I’m not gonna talk about it. Whatever happened last year--good or bad--is over. Whatever happened yesterday--good or bad--is over. Today is a new day.”

Today is also a new season, and Gossage--though he won’t come right out and say it--has a lot to prove. The Padres begged him to throw more sliders last year, but he was stubborn and tried sticking with the old reliable fastball. He got ripped. Lance McCullers replaced him as the bullpen stopper at the end of the year, and looked impressive, which left Gossage looking not-so-pretty for 1987.

But, Monday--in his first day of competition against McCullers--Gossage looked oh-so-pretty.

Here was the scene as he threw (with coaches watching) to catcher Benito Santiago on the sideline:

Pop!

“That had some (bleep) on it, Goose,” Manager Larry Bowa said.

Pop!

“Oooooooooh!” Bowa said.

Pop!

“Perfect,” said Jack Lamabe, a minor league pitching coach.

Pop!

“Yeah!” Lamabe said.

Pop!

“Goose, that’s the best I’ve seen you throw this early, man,” said former major league pitcher Sonny Siebert, a Padre minor league instructor.

Later, Santiago pointed to his catcher’s mitt, rolled his eyes and said: “I never catch someone that fast. Not in Puerto Rico. We don’t see guys who throw like that.”

And Bowa said: “I’d seen him pitch last spring, but he wasn’t like that. He looked real sharp. He looks like he wants to prove last year is over with.

“I mean, I don’t want to overreact. At first, I thought it was just me, trying to think good things. But everyone else said the same thing. Goose looked real sharp.”

He had a constructive winter. For relaxation, Gossage went home to his Colorado ranch. He invited teammates Ed Whitson and Andy Hawkins and pitching coach Galen Cisco to go hunting with him, and the night before they went out it snowed 30 inches. Goose battled the snow and ended up shooting a 280-pound deer.

It’s now mounted on his den wall.

In the meantime, he mounted a comeback by exercising every day he could. He would lift weights, play long toss, throw off a mound and so on.

“Well, there’s not too much moderation in this body when it comes to anything,” Gossage said of the hard work. “There’s only one speed, and that’s full-throttle. I look at it this way: I never want to look back and say, ‘Well, if I’d only been in condition.’ I don’t want to leave anything to doubt.

“I figure I want to play this game as long as I can. I don’t want to sit back in my rocker and say, ‘Boy, I shoulda, woulda, coulda.’ ”

In 1986, he shoulda been better.

For a while, he had realized that his slider was his best pitch, but in a game against Pittsburgh Sid Bream hit one of those sliders for a game-winning home run. Because of that, sources said he abandoned the slider for more than a month, which was when he really began to struggle.

“You know, that’s the great thing about this game,” he said Monday. “You can have a year like last year, and you can come in last place or wherever we finished, and get to start all over again the next year.”

He sighed a deep sigh.

“Listen, fourth place--that’s not where it’s at, you know. We’re here to do one thing. Anybody can sit back and collect a paycheck, but winning is what it’s all about. “You don’t have fun in a year like last year. Whenever you win, that’s what makes it fun. Anything short of that is failure.”

In other words, Goose Gossage is saying he doesn’t mind if he becomes Lance McCullers’ setup man--as long as he’s in a pennant race.

“It takes 24 guys to win,” he said. “Every year you ever win is when you have a strong bench.”

McCullers--the so-called “Baby Goose”--doesn’t seem to realize what is happening here. Goose Gossage was once the best reliever in the game. In New York, he once retired 28 straight batters. He once saved 33 games in a season. And, suddenly, McCullers has a strong chance of becoming a Grown-up Goose instead of a Baby Goose.

“I don’t know if I look at it as a competition,” McCullers said. “Goose is still the Goose, you know. He’s still got the recognition. I’m not competing against Goose. I’m just competing for myself and trying to do the best I can.

“Really, I haven’t proven myself able to be the No. 1 stopper all the time, so I can’t really say I should take over for Goose. I’m not even looking at it that way. Whatever happens, happens. But then again, I won’t lay over and play dead for him. I will say that.”

Judging from Monday’s workout, Goose’s career isn’t dead. Some Japanese sportswriters (in town covering a Japanese team) witnessed his workout and immediately crowded him for autographs. Goose signed everything and then posed with them in a group photo.

“Ah, Goose is a superstar in Japan!” said one of the writers, Shuji Imoto. “He’s on TV and in all the magazines. Why is he famous? His fastball. In Japan, nobody throw as fast as him. And, he also famous because of his money.”

Just when you think Goose Gossage is a bad guy or a too tough a guy, he poses for a group photo or does other good deeds. Monday, for instance, Gossage looked at Lamabe’s cleats and said: “Man, those are some old shoes.” Lamabe agreed.

Lamabe then left the room for a minute, and when he returned, there were a new pair of shoes at his locker.

Goose put them there.