PHILADELPHIA — When Goose Gossage was a boy growing up in Colorado Springs, Colo., summer was a time for baseball — all day, every day.

"When the sun came up, we were gone," Gossage, 56, said of a childhood happily spent with friends similarly devoted to a game that once was indisputably America's pastime. "Even today, nothing does my heart better than to see a baseball field filled with kids. It's awesome."

But America changed, not always for the better, and baseball's place in those carefree summer months diminished for reasons Gossage believes can and should be reversed for the good of the country.

That's why the fireballing former relief pitcher, who will be inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., July 27, was at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia Monday to conduct a clinic for children from Little League teams and to help raise money for the Phillies' RBI (Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities) program.

This is a man who walks it like he talks it. In 1995, Colorado Springs dedicated the Rich "Goose" Gossage Youth Sports Complex so more children in his hometown could experience the joy of playing with bats and balls in verdant spaces.

To Gossage's way of thinking, major league baseball is still played by grown-up boys who learned to love the game because, first and foremost, it was fun. But if there aren't enough fields to play on, or money to maintain them properly, future generations of kids will be deprived of something that should always be part of our national heritage.

"Not only are vacant lots (a favored site for pickup games in the dimming past) disappearing, but there's so many other things, like video games, for kids to get into," he said. "Put those gadgets away and go out and play, for gosh sakes."

Gossage noted that many school districts have slashed funding for physical education and recreation programs without considering the consequences.

"Baseball is a way of life in Latin America," he said. "It's becoming a non-way of life in this country, and that's an absolute shame."

It's arguably a shame that Gossage didn't get voted into the Hall of Fame until his ninth year of eligibility. During the peak seasons of a 22-year major league career spent with nine teams, he blew away hitters with a fastball that routinely registered between 98 and 102 mph.

Although his 310 career saves aren't imposing by today's standards (his single-season high was 33 with the New York Yankees in 1980), he frequently entered the game in the eighth and even the seventh inning. He has a record 152 saves of at least seven outs, compared with one for the Yankees' current closer, Mariano Rivera.

"Please do not compare me to Mariano Rivera," Gossage said. "It's apples and oranges. I saw the evolution of relief pitching. The word 'closer' hadn't even been coined when I was pitching."