COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. - The next time Goose Gossage comes here, he will be very anxious, quite humbled and on center stage. That will be July 27, when he is inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Monday was a relaxing, informal and eye-opening time for Gossage, an opportunity to tour the Hall of Fame, which he last visited in 1974. Then a young player with the Chicago White Sox, Gossage came for the soon-to-be-defunct Hall of Fame exhibition game. The locker room where he dressed has been transformed into the Grandstand Theater, where Gossage's tour began with a 12-minute film.

Ted Spencer, vice president and chief curator of the Hall of Fame who conducted Gossage on a two-hour orientation tour, explained the film is "mostly emotional. It's our personal statement to our visitors."

It didn't take long for the tour to become personal for Gossage, a Colorado Springs native and resident who in January, the ninth time he was on the ballot of the Baseball Writers' Association of America, finally was elected to the Hall of Fame. The exploding scoreboard that provided a backdrop image in the theater once existed in Comiskey Park, the former home of the White Sox. Gossage began his career with them in 1972.

"This takes me back to my first day in the big leagues, right here," he said.

Spencer took Gossage through a general history area of the hall, making reference to the Abner Doubleday founder-of-the-game myth and Candy Cummings, the supposed inventor of the curveball.

Spencer described how the mound instead of being 60 feet, 6 inches from home plate was 50 feet away, a distance that caused Gossage, an intimidating, hard-throwing closer when that role was known as "short relief," to wonder momentarily.

"I would've liked that," he said. "Fifty feet, wow."

Women in baseball

In the Babe Ruth exhibit, the largest given to any former player, Gossage asked if Ruth's actual locker was on display, and Spencer said it was. And Spencer explained how a hall intern opened a box with a copy of The Babe Ruth Story containing Ruth's last autograph and a letter.

The letter, which is on display, was written in 1964 by Calvin Holderman, who was Ruth's nurse when he was dying of throat cancer in August 1948. Holderman wrote how Ruth signed the book and said, "If I don't do it tonight, I never will." He died the next day.

"This is incredible," Gossage said, listening intently to Spencer, who said of the Hall of Fame, "We're not Disney World. We're the Smithsonian of baseball."

Spencer described the tour he gave to Orlando Cepeda in 1999 and how he happened upon a remarkable discovery. Cepeda's father, Pedro, was a legendary player in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean, a slugger known as the Bull, hence Cepeda's nickname, the Baby Bull.

Standing before a photo captioned "President Trujillo's team in the Dominican Republic in 1937," Spencer said a stunned Cepeda said, "My God. There's my dad."

"Did you know that?" Gossage asked.

"No," Spencer said. "I started crying. He started crying."

Spencer explained how the Diamond Dream exhibit, which honors women in baseball, including executives, owners and members of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, is "without a doubt, the most successful exhibit we've ever done."

"You think of baseball as men, but you never think of the history of women (in the game)," Gossage said. "What's amazing are the pictures of the ladies and the passions for the game for them to play it."

Spencer took Gossage to the Collection Room in the basement, away from public view, where he saw a Lou Gehrig glove from his days at Columbia University and bats used by Ruth, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle.

Emotional memories

Gossage saw the one picture of himself - there will be more after his induction, when a display goes up for one year - when he was relieving for the Yankees in the late 1970s. Other former Yankees teammates pictured include Sparky Lyle, Willie Randolph, Reggie Jackson and the late Thurman Munson, who caught Gossage and died at age 32 while trying to land his own plane.

"Every picture I see of Thurman is touching," Gossage said. "He was some player, boy. I think he belongs here if (Carlton) Fisk is here and (Gary) Carter."

Gossage made another passing Hall of Fame endorsement when he saw an exhibit for Gold Glove winners and a picture of Jim Kaat, a teammate and mentor for Gossage when he was a young player with the White Sox.

" 'Kitty,' " Gossage said of the 283-game winner. "I wish he'd make it in here."

More White Sox memories were stirred when Gossage saw a large encased pinwheel from the exploding scoreboard at Comiskey Park, where the White Sox last played in 1990 before moving to what is now U.S. Cellular Field.

"When I was playing for Oakland, they had the front of Comiskey torn down," Gossage remembered. "I got out of a cab and I'm signing some autographs for some kids out in front of the new Comiskey. I looked across and the whole front of Comiskey was torn down. You could look through and see the scoreboard on the inside of the stadium. I just started crying. And this kid goes, 'Hey, Goose, why are you crying?' These kids are all standing there, looking at me like, 'Why is this big guy crying?'

"I said, 'That's where I first broke in.' And the kid goes, 'Well, if it makes you feel any better, my dad cried, too.' "

Finding the words

Gossage got misty-eyed when he mentioned Johnny Sain and Larry Sherry, two of his deceased former pitching coaches, Chuck Tanner, his first manager in the majors, and White Sox teammate Dick Allen, a slugger whom he called "the greatest I ever saw" and a veteran willing to pass on his knowledge.

He has invited Tanner and Allen to be here for his induction, along with Roland Hemond, who was Chicago's general manager when Gossage joined the White Sox.

Gossage said he has thought about his induction speech but hasn't started writing it, a speech in which he'll undoubtedly remember his father, Jic, who died when Gossage was a junior at Wasson High School and who said Gossage would some day play in the big leagues, and his mother, Sue, who was 92 when she died in September 2006.

"I haven't been as emotional as I was (Monday) about the people that I've invited back who were so influential in my career," he said. "I don't know. I just can't even comprehend standing up there on that platform and giving a speech and being in the Hall of Fame.

"(Bill) Mazeroski just couldn't even talk," added Gossage, referring to the former Pittsburgh second baseman, who crumpled his induction speech and sat down soon after starting it when he was overcome with emotion. "Maybe I don't even need to write it. I'll just give it to somebody to read, man, so they could do it for me."

IN HIS OWN WORDS

"The tour was overwhelming, really, the whole history of the game and what goes on here in the museum. The research is something that really stuck in my mind. It's such a wonderful place. I hadn't been through the museum since '74 and it's changed so much and the exhibits are incredible. For baseball fans, if you've never been to Cooperstown, get here."

Goose Gossage, the 199th former major leaguer elected to the Hall of Fame and the 102nd to be voted in by members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America, on his introductory tour.

TAKING AIM AT THE 'CAT'

Goose Gossage said the only players he intentionally hit with pitches during his career were Ron Gant, Andres Galarraga and Al Bumbry.

"They had it coming," Gossage said before pausing. "Andres Galarraga didn't, I can honestly say. And I talked to Andres about it."

Gossage was with the Cubs in 1988 when Galarraga was with Montreal "and just wearing the league out." Gossage said Cubs manager Don Zimmer piped up during a pitchers meeting and said, "Whatever we do in this series, do not, and I repeat do not, let Andres Galarraga beat us. Anybody else in that lineup, if they beat us, fine."

Gossage recalled facing Galarraga with the game on the line and first base open. Instead of wasting four pitches while walking him intentionally, Gossage said he hit Galarraga in the ribs with his first pitch.

"And I drilled him as good as I can drill him, right in the rib cage," Gossage said. "You could hear the air go out of him, and it was beautiful."

Gossage had never had a word with Galarraga and never did until 1996. That's when Gossage was at Coors Field and visited the Rockies clubhouse after a game, where he saw Galarraga being interviewed.

"He's got a bunch of writers around him and I'm thinking, 'This is going to be interesting,' " Gossage said. "I sat there and I'm talking to some other guys and glance over to Andres and Andres has got me in his sights. All he did was kind of push his way through (the media) and he just pointed at me."

Gossage said he turned his palms upward, shrugged his shoulders and looked as innocent as possible. He said they talked and everything was fine.

ROCKIES STUFF

Each of the 30 major league teams has a locker with items on display in the Hall of Fame. Rockies artifacts include the jersey and cap worn by shortstop Troy Tulowitzki on April 29, 2007, when he caught Chipper Jones' line drive and turned an unassisted triple play against the Atlanta Braves.

Also on display:

* The bat used by Dante Bichette when he hit the first home run in franchise history April 7, 1993.

* A bat used by Larry Walker when he won the National League Most Valuable Player Award in 1997.

* Batting gloves used by Walker on May 21-22, 1996, when he set a National League record for extra-base hits in consecutive plate appearances with six - two doubles, three triples and one homer.

* A picture of Jason Jennings, noting his unprecedented major league debut for a pitcher Aug. 23, 2001, when he shut out the Mets in New York and hit a home run, using Juan Uribe's bat, which is also on display.

* Manager Jim Leyland's lineup card from May 5, 1999, at Wrigley Field when the Rockies won 13-6 and scored in every inning, something only the 1923 New York Giants and 1964 St. Louis Cardinals had done since 1900. The lineup:

CF Chris Sexton

2B Mike Lansing

RF Larry Walker

LF Dante Bichette

3B Vinny Castilla

1B Kurt Abbott

SS Neifi Perez

C Henry Blanco

P Pedro Astacio

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