Goose Gossage, a giant bag of gas that somehow figured out how to grow a mustache, f-bombed his way through the landscape of modern baseball Thursday. In an interview with ESPN, he managed to deride the single best moment of the 2015 season, tie the actions of one man to the shame of an entire ethnicity, advocate for concussions, praise pitches intended to injure opponents, yearn for the days that left pitchers' arms in shambles because of overuse and disparage people far smarter than he'll ever be. It was a glorious festival of buffoonery.

The timing couldn't have been any better, either, considering the ESPN the Magazine story on National League MVP Bryce Harper that just a few hours earlier had gained traction. In it, Harper argued baseball was "tired" because of people exactly like Goose Gossage, a Hall of Fame reliever who mistakes his enshrinement for an ability to think cogently. Let us count the ways in which he erred.

Quote: "Bautista is an [expletive] disgrace to the game."
Reality: Jose Bautista, baseball's leading home run hitter since 2010, a deeply intelligent, obsessively competitive, bilingual clubhouse leader, a testament to hard work and perseverance, is the exact sort of person the game would kill to have more of.

Quote: "He's embarrassing to all the Latin players, whoever played before him. Throwing his bat and acting like a fool … "
Reality: Bautista chucked his bat after hammering a go-ahead home run in a winner-takes-all Game 5 of the AL division series. It was awesome. The moment encapsulated the joy of an entire country, the cacophony of an entire stadium, the achievement of a single man. What it did not do is represent an ethnic group that includes players from the Dominican Republic (like Bautista), Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Panama and Nicaragua. By Gossage's logic, when a white player bat flips, it should embarrass all the Caucasian players.

Quote:

"The game is becoming a freaking joke because of the nerds who are running it. I'll tell you what has happened, these guys played rotisserie baseball at Harvard or wherever the [expletive] they went, and they thought they figured the [expletive] game out. They don't know [expletive]."
Reality: Theo Epstein has one more World Series ring than Goose Gossage, is cooler than he could ever dream of being and knows more about winning games than he ever did or will. Oh, and the team with whom Gossage attends spring training, the New York Yankees, are run by the longest-tenured GM in baseball, Brian Cashman. He never played an inning of professional baseball.

Quote: "You can't slide into second base."
Reality: You can slide into second base. You're not allowed to barrel into second base ignoring the health and safety of the person trying to turn a double play.

Quote: "You can't take out the [expletive] catcher because [Buster] Posey was in the wrong position, and they are going to change all the rules."
Reality: You can't take out the catcher because of the fear that if they suffer enough concussions while playing they may end up sounding like Goose Gossage when they're done.

Quote: "You can't pitch inside anymore. I'd like to knock some of these [expletive] on their ass and see how they would do against pitchers in the old days."
Reality: Nothing says the good ol' days quite like intentionally throwing at an opponent to intimidate him. Wait. Noah Syndergaard did that in Game 3 of the World Series, and he throws harder than Gossage. Let's try that again. Nothing says the good ol' days quite like a show of unnecessary machismo to prove a point nobody thought needed proving. You know, like the time Gossage got into a fight with a Yankees teammate, broke his thumb and missed three months.

Quote: "They have been created from the top, from their computers. They are protecting these kids. The first thing a pitcher does when he comes off the mound is ask: 'How many pitches do I have?' If I had asked that [expletive] question, they would have said: 'Son, get your ass out there on that mound. If you get tired, we'll come and get you.' "
Reality: The first thing a pitcher does when he comes off the mound is avoid the manager because he doesn't want to come out of the game. Anyone who thinks pitchers enjoy giving up the ball because of pitch counts either doesn't watch baseball or perpetuates the narrative to support a premise with no real evidence behind it. Moreover, the first person to publicly tinker with pulling young pitchers from the game with lower pitch counts was Baltimore Orioles manager Paul Richards in the 1960s. He spent more than a decade playing in the major leagues. Gossage can't even keep his strawmen straight.

No surprise, Bautista was gracious in the aftermath of Gossage insulting him and suggesting he shamed Spanish-speaking players. Between Bautista's bat flip and Harper's comments, perhaps the best thing baseball has going for it are two of its best players raging against the decorum police who ignore the hypocrisies from their own playing careers.

"It's a tired sport, because you can't express yourself," Harper told ESPN. "You can't do what people in other sports do. I'm not saying baseball is, you know, boring or anything like that, but it's the excitement of the young guys who are coming into the game now who have flair. If that's Matt Harvey or Jacob deGrom or Manny Machado or Joc Pederson or Andrew McCutchen or Yasiel Puig – there's so many guys in the game now who are so much fun.

"Jose Fernandez is a great example. Jose Fernandez will strike you out and stare you down into the dugout and pump his fist. And if you hit a homer and pimp it? He doesn't care. Because you got him. That's part of the game. It's not the old feeling – hoorah … if you pimp a homer, I'm going to hit you right in the teeth. No. If a guy pimps a homer for a game-winning shot … I mean – sorry."

Harper has no reason to be sorry. The single most iconic moment of last season was Bautista's bat flip. It was a distillation of joy, an unburdening of a city that hadn't seen the postseason in more than 20 years. For the scene, it was perfectly appropriate.

Contrast that with the second-most-iconic snapshot of the season: Jonathan Papelbon throttling Harper ostensibly because he didn't run out a groundball. It epitomized pettiness, showcased everything wrong with the game's unwritten rules that govern the thinking of Gossage and so many others. The best games evolve along with society, and baseball's adherence to mores established decades ago looks sillier with every brush-back, every teammate fight, every rant from a Hall of Famer who wishes things were how they used to be.

They're not. And maybe Gossage and those of his ilk someday will understand that and appreciate baseball for what it wants to be: something that can compete with football and everything else that has stolen the game's market share by appealing to young fans, be it with bat flips or anything else that might not dovetail with tradition. Maybe, in fact, it's a good thing that he is compelled to rant and rave about the current state of the game. If Gossage doesn't like it anymore, he's more than welcome to stop watching. Baseball has enough fans who are old, white men.

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