Classic card of the week

Mauro Gozzo, 1990 Score

Mauro Gozzo. Let’s gizzo:



Mauro, who is nicknamed “Goose,”

This is a true story. One time I was playing a baseball-themed board game, and one of the categories featured scrambled letters, and with those letters you had to figure out the actual player’s name. When I drew that category, my letters read: “ G O O Z E G O S Z O.” I was stumped, and as a joke I guessed “Pat Tabler.” I made up that story.

presented the Indians his credentials for a spot in their bullpen in 1991
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Goose Gozzo, dressed in an Armani suit that features a detailed stitched calligraphy of a goose head on the back of the sport coat, walks into the front offices of the Cleveland Indians. An executive rises to meet him …

Executive: Mauro, welcome. Come in, have a seat. Sanka?

Goose: No thank you.

Executive: It’s decaf … ?

Goose: I don’t want to waste my time or yours. May I present to you my credentials for inclusion in your pitching bullpen during this, the year of nineteen-ninety-one.

Goose hands the executive a manilla folder. In the folder is a single sheet of paper. The executive pulls the paper from the folder and gently puts on his reading glasses.

Executive: All this paper reads is, “Put me in your bullpen … or else!”

Goose: Turn it over.

The executive turns over the piece of paper, which reveals a drawing, in crayon, of a decapitated goose. There is lots of red crayon blood.

Executive: Okay, I’m confused. You’re “Goose,” so are you saying if we don’t put you in the bullpen, you’re going to kill yourself?

Goose: Darn it. No … it’s supposed to mean that if you don’t put me the bullpen, I’m going to kill a goose and leave the head in your bed, so as to convince you to put me in the bullpen.

Executive: Ooooohhh, I get it! You can see how I got confused though, right?

Goose: Yeah. I was going to draw you decapitated, ya’ know, but I didn’t know what you looked like until I walked in here before.

Executive: No, no, I like this better. Really. Anyway, uh … yeah, whatever. You can pitch the seventh inning and uh, during blowouts, okay?

Goose: Deal. Can I get that Sanka now?

He caused quite a stir at the end of ’89 when he came up from Syracuse and won the first four major league games he appeared in – three as a starter and one in relief.

The stir that Mauro “Goose” Gozzo caused in Toronto and all throughout America by winning his first four major league appearances equaled, as deduced by a Canadian mathematician: Fernando Mania times 100 + Michael Jackson “Thriller” premiere – all of that times 0.

Did you know?
Mauro Gozzo is the only Goose not in the Baseball Hall of Fame.