Former Major League Baseball stand-out relief pitcher Rich "Goose" Gossage yesterday was inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. For more than two decades, Gossage and his enormous mustache unnerved batters as one of baseball's most menacing and dominating relief pitchers, and this year he joins other great mustached Americans Rollie Fingers and Dennis Eckersley as relievers enshrined in Cooperstown.

Gossage and his cookie duster were elected in January on their ninth try, almost unimaginable given his pioneering place in the evolution of today's relief pitcher. He finished his career in 1994 with a 124-107 record, 1,502 strikeouts and 3.01 ERA in 1,002 games. He ranks third in both wins in relief (115) and innings pitched in relief (1,556). According to the Elias Sports Bureau, his mustache alone was solely responsible for 118 of his 124 wins and 1,208 of his strikeouts. And of his 310 career saves, Gossage worked more than two innings 52 times. By comparison, prior to the 2008 season, bare-lipped Yankees closer Mariano Rivera had done that just once in 443 saves and San Diego's Trevor Hoffman, a goateed American meaning he is weak despite being the career saves leader, has never done it.

"This experience (for he and his labia sebucula - Latin for "lip sweater) is overwhelming, over the top. I can't put in words what this means," he said to a decidedly New York Yankees crowd during the National Baseball Hall of Fame ceremony that capped his 22-year career.

And it has clearly been a great year for anything Yankees and mustaches. First, there was Gossage's election into the Hall. Then, Jason Giambi and his historic rise after adding said soup strainer, as once again CNN is reporting today, and they are even selling shirts you can buy here.

But yesterday it was a lesser known Hall of Fame inductee into this year's class - former manager D1ck Williams - also one of Gossage's former managers - who holds an even greater baseball mustache distinction.  Certainly, the book on Williams is well-documented: he managed six teams in 21-year career, winning the World Series with the Oakland Athletics in 1972 and 1973. He also won league pennants with the Boston Red Sox in 1967 and San Diego Padres in 1984 (regrettably beating the Cubs in the NLCS in 5 games).

As we have reported here in the past, Williams was a key cog in the wheel in helping to usher the mustache back into fashion in MLB after it had been gone from the sport since the 1940s.

In 1972, Reggie Jackson (pictured here with Williams at a recent Gay Pride rally) who was then playing for him on the Oakland A's, became the first Major League Baseball player since the 1940s to wear a mustache in a regular season game. And while Jackson will, in fact, ever be known as the godfather of the mustache in modern baseball, as you can read here in the Baseball Library, Williams role in spreading lip fur across the A's organization - including upon his own lip - is undeniable.

After Jackson came to spring training wearing his new coating of upper lip fur, Oakland A's owner Charlie Finley conspired with Williams to pay Jackson's other teammates - including mustache superhero Rollie Fingers, Joe Rudi, Catfish Hunter, and Williams himself - $200 per player to grow mustaches in an attempt to alienate Jackson.

A pathetic ruse, but yet a true one, which ultimately backfired on Finley and Williams as it created the famed "Mustache Gang" and spawned a heavily mustached culture in MLB throughout the 1970s and early 1980s.

"It's hard to believe that at age 79, this has to be one of my most memorable times," said Williams, whose 1,571 wins are good for 17th place all-time."I just wish I was better known for inspiring more mustaches."

Indeed. Now you are sir. Now you are.

And finally, as an aside, air guitar, can in fact, be a dangerous endeavor as you can see here.  

Carry on.