Michael Kay has some lingering beef with Mike Mussina

Mariano Rivera was elected unanimously to the Baseball Hall of Fame, but it’s safe to say his former Yankees teammate Mike Mussina isn’t as universally loved.

On Wednesday’s episode of The Michael Kay Show on ESPN-New York radio, the host shared the reasons for his distaste for Mussina, who went 123-72 over eight seasons in The Bronx as part of his 18-year MLB career that culminated in being voted into Cooperstown on Tuesday.

Of course, it was personal.

“He had just pitched a great game at the Stadium,” Kay said, recalling an incident to guest Trey Wingo without giving any time frame. “The team was in Cleveland the next day, I wanted a three-minute interview and he acted like I asked for his first-born son. So at the end of the interview, which was very painful — 10-second pauses between questions and answer — I said, ‘You know what Mike, this is obviously too painful for you. I will never, ever interview you again. You could pitch a perfect game. I wouldn’t interview you.’ And I never spoke to him again.”

Kay — who also broadcasts Yankees game on the YES network — didn’t need to be on speaking terms with Mussina to have another angle on his diatribe, either.

“The fact that Mussina gets in, to me, that’s one of the first pure analytical guys to get in because they don’t care about wins,” Kay said. “So the fact that he hit 270 [wins] doesn’t matter. They looked at the other numbers, the fact it was the steroid era … but, here’s my problem with Mussina getting in, not that he’s not a Hall of Famer, who do you want starting a game to save you life: Curt Schilling or Mike Mussina?”

“I would probably take Curt Schilling in that situation,” Wingo admitted. Schilling, a controversial name on the ballot, saw his voting percentage jump almost 10 points to 60.9 percent, but still fell short of the 75 percent needed for entry.

“Right!” Kay said. “Same thing with Andy Pettitte, same thing with David Cone, who didn’t last more than one year on the ballot. I don’t understand their thinking sometime.

“It does make me wonder why, over years, people decide to … five years ago, only 20 percent of the electorate picked Mike Mussina. Now, it was 76 percent five years later. He didn’t win any more games.”

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