Maybe he has a prayer after all

Rich “Goose” Gossage has fallen short eight times in his bid to make the baseball Hall of Fame, meaning the voters haven’t been sold on his credentials.

However, Gossage is of another opinion.

“I came into situations that God couldn’t get out of, and I got out of them,” he said. “I’m not blowing my own horn, but this is just fact. Nobody did it like me.”

This year’s voting results will be released today and Gossage, who had 310 saves with a 3.01 earned-run average and 1,502 strikeouts, was again on the ballot. Last year, he came up 21 votes short of entry -- the closest he has been to making it.

He was known for his effectively wild 100-mph fastball and the bushy, Fu Manchu mustache that made him seem pretty scary.

Don’t believe it? Well, just ask him.

“I was ferocious out there on the mound,” he said.

Trivia time

Gossage played for nine teams in his 22-year career, but made the postseason with only two of them. Which teams were they?

Hurricane Woody

Spending the week in New Orleans before the Bowl Championship Series title game brought back some memories for Larry Romanoff, an Ohio State assistant athletic director.

Romanoff was there when the Buckeyes made their first appearance in New Orleans, in 1978. The team went out to dinner and each coach and player was given a voucher good for a hurricane.

Woody Hayes, Ohio State’s coach, didn’t know there was alcohol in a hurricane, but he soon found out by asking a player for a sip.

Hayes “blurted out, ‘Oh my gosh!’ ” Romanoff said. “He turned around and with that left hand of his, he fired it at the wrought-iron fence and the back wall of the courtyard and it smashed all over the place. Then he yelled, ‘Get out now!’ He basically chased everybody out to the front of the restaurant.”

Numbers game

The Southeastern Conference likes to tout itself as the premier conference in college football -- just ask Louisiana State Coach Les Miles -- but there is evidence to support its claim.

There were 263 players from the SEC on NFL opening-day rosters, more than any other conference, according to a report issued by the conference.

The Atlantic Coast Conference was second with 238 players, followed by the Big Ten with 234, Pac-10 with 183, Big 12 with 176 and the Big East with 84.

Miami leads all schools with 46 former players on NFL rosters, followed by Ohio State with 44, Florida State with 41, Tennessee with 36 and Georgia with 35.

Going for gold

Injured Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas might not be welcome back when his surgically repaired knee is healed.

That’s because Arenas, who has played only eight games this season, recently wrote in his blog that winning an NBA championship is not at the top of his priority list.

“I’d rather have an Olympic gold medal than an NBA ring, to be honest,” he wrote. “I’m one of the only American basketball players that feel that way.

“A ring is every year. I can just sign one-year deals and hop on every team that I think can win a championship that year and in 10 years I might pull out three of them. Who knows? But the Olympics are only every four years.”

Trivia answer

The New York Yankees (1978, 1980, 1981) and San Diego Padres (1984).

And finally

Rich Hartmann, a former St. Louis Cardinals minor league player, says he never used steroids and now feels cheated.

He told the New York Daily News that he is considering filing a class-action lawsuit against Major League Baseball on behalf of players who didn’t use performance-enhancing drugs.

“There were thousands of guys who were right on the doorstep between 1990 and 2005 and they were cheated because they didn’t use steroids,” Hartmann said.

Oh, by the way, Hartmann, 35, never made it past Class A.

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peter.yoon@latimes.com