The situation comedy Growing Pains, which aired on ABC from 1985 to 1992, was produced by Met fans. It must have been: The show focused on a family named Seaver, and the family next door was named Koosman. The families were named for the pitching aces of the Mets in the late 1960s and into the mid-1970s: Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman.
Jerome Martin Koosman was born on December 23, 1942 in Appleton, Minnesota, about 150 miles west of Minneapolis -- closer to Fargo, North Dakota and Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He graduated from the West Central School of Agriculture, now part of the University of Minnesota Morris. While serving in the U.S. Army at Fort Bliss, outside El Paso, Texas, he played on a team whose catcher, John Lucchese, was the son of an usher at Shea Stadium, home of the Mets. They signed him after his discharge.
On April 14, 1967, he made his major league debut, wearing Number 47. After Jack Fisher had been knocked out of the box, he finished the 3rd inning, and pitched the next 2. He allowed no hits or runs, though he walked 2, and struck out 2. But the game was already lost, as Chris Short pitched well, and the Mets lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, 5-1 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia.
Switching to Number 36, Koosman only made 9 appearances, going 0-2 with a 6.04 ERA, and was sent back down to the Jacksonville Suns, where he led the Class AAA International League in strikeouts. He made the starting rotation in 1968, and, at age 25, he was reading, going 19-12 with a 2.08 ERA. He made his 1st All-Star Game, and finished 2nd to Johnny Bench of the Cincinnati Reds in the National League's Rookie of the Year voting.
In 1969, he made the All-Star Game for the 2nd time -- and, as it turned out, the last. He went 17-9 with a 2.28 ERA. The Mets were in their "Miracle" season, winning the NL Eastern Division title. He started Game 2 of the NL Championship Series, and while the Mets win it, he was not the winning pitcher.
But he was the winning pitcher in Games 2 and 5 of the 1969 World Series, over the Baltimore Orioles. To close out Game 5, and the Series, on October 16, 1969, he pitched a complete game, winning 5-2, and getting Oriole 2nd baseman Dave Johnson -- later to be known as "Davey Johnson," and as the manager of the Mets' other World Championship team. Although Tom Seaver was the team's ace, and Donn Clendenon was named the Series' Most Valuable Player, the award could have gone to Koosman.
He went 12-7 in 1970, but then had losing records: 6-11 in 1971, 11-12 in 1972, and 14-15 in 1973, despite a 5-0 start and a team record 31 2/3rds consecutive scoreless innings late. But in that 1973 season, the Mets won another Pennant. He pitched a complete-game victory against the Reds in Game 3 of the NLCS, the game where Pete Rose picked a fight with the much smaller Met shortstop Bud Harrelson. The Mets won the series in 5 games. Koosman started Games 2 and 5, for a no-decision and a win against the Oakland Athletics, but they lost in Game 7.
He went 15-11 in 1974 and 14-13 in 1975. In 1976, he went 21-10, becoming only the 2nd Met pitcher after Seaver, and the 1st Met lefthander, to win 20 games in a season. He finished 2nd to Randy Jones of the San Diego Padres (a future Met) in the voting for the NL Cy Young Award.
He also co-starred with teammate Ed Kranepool in a commercial for Sports Phone, a sort of proto-Internet service run by New York Telephone, that let people know up-to-the-minute sports news, for a 50-cent charge on your phone bill. (The Yankees' Lou Piniella also did an ad for them.) Interviewed by the Long Island newspaper Newsday in 2015, New York Rangers broadcaster John Giannone said, "Everyone 45 and over can recite the number." As I was then 45, I can back this up: 999-1313, later changed to 976-1313. The arrival of SportsRadio WFAN in 1987 pretty much killed it, but it was fun while it lasted.
But the team that had won 2 Pennants in 5 years was being broken up, and as the team fell, it took "Koos" with them. They crashed to last place in 1977, and he went 8-20. He remains the last pitcher to win 20 one seasons and then lose 20 the next. In 1978, they finished last again, and he went 3-15. His age was about to match his uniform number, and so, on December 8, he was traded, to his home-State team, the Minnesota Twins.
The Twins, having just let their best player, Rod Carew, go, were going nowhere. But getting out of Flushing Meadow seemed to revive Koosman, as he went 20-13 in 1979, and 16-13 in 1980. It wasn't a typical boneheaded Met trade, though: They got Jesse Orosco, who went on to become the best relief pitcher in team history. It also led to a weird turn of events: They traded the pitcher who got the last out in their 1st World Series win for the pitcher who got the last out in their 2nd World Series win. And the player who made that last out in 1969 managed them to that title in 1986.
There was one moment in Minnesota that Koosman might have regretted, though: On May 4, 1980, against the Yankees at Metropolitan Stadium, he threw a brushback pitch that knocked Reggie Jackson down, and Reggie took his next pitch over the center field fence for a home run. It was the start of a battering that Koosman took, as the Yankees won, 10-1.
In 1981, at 38, it appeared that Koosman could no longer keep age at bay: He went 3-9 in the strike-shortened season, and the Twins traded him to the Chicago White Sox. He finished the season 4-13, to become, to date, the last pitcher to lead each League in losses.
But he bounced back again. He went 11-7 for the White Sox in 1982, and had the same record in 1983, as he helped them win the AL West title. He appeared in 1 game in the AL Championship Series, and was hit hard.
In 1984, at 41, he was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies, and went 14-15 with a good 3.25 ERA for an underachieving team. He went 6-4 the next season, and retired, with a career record of 222-209, a 3.36 ERA, a 1.259 WHIP, and 2,556 strikeouts. Not quite Hall of Fame numbers, but a good career. His 140 wins with the Mets rank him 3rd in team history behind Seaver's 198 and Dwight Gooden's 157.
In 1989, the Mets inducted him into their team Hall of Fame. He attended reunions of the 1969 team on their 20th, 25th, 30th, 40th and 50th Anniversaries, the last game at Shea Stadium in 2008, and the 1st game at Citi Field in 2009.
However, he was under a cloud during that opening, as he was under indictment for income tax evasion. He admitted to being "suckered" by anti-tax rhetoric, and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. He was sentenced to 6 months in prison, and served at the Federal Prison Camp, Duluth in his home State from September 3, 2009 to June 30, 2010.
He married LaVonne Sorum in 1967. They had daughter Danielle and sons Shawn and Michael, and were divorced in 2003.
On August 28, 2021, the Mets retired his uniform Number 36, making him only the 3rd player they'd honored, after Seaver's 41 and Mike Piazza' 31. By this point, his health was beginning to fail. He died yesterday, November 1, 2026, at his home in Osceola, Wisconsin, about 50 miles northeast of Minneapolis, at the age of 83.
With his death, there are now 17 surviving players from the 1969 World Champion New York Mets: J.C. Martin (89 years old), Al Weis (88), Art Shamsky (85), Cleon Jones (84), Jim Gosger (83), Bobby Pfeil (83), Bob Johnson (83), Ron Swoboda (82), Ken Boswell (80), Duffy Dyer (81), Rod Gaspar (80), Gary Gentry (80), Nolan Ryan (79), Amos Otis (79), Bob Heise (79), Wayne Garrett (78) and Jesse Hudson (78).
Danny Frisella, a pitcher who appeared in only 3 games that season, was the 1st '69 Met to die, in a dune buggy accident in Arizona on New Year's Day 1977. He was only 30 years old. Tommie Agee died in 2001, Cal Koonce in 2003, Tug McGraw in 2004, Donn Clendenon in 2005, Don Cardwell in 2008, Kevin Collins in 2016, Ed Charles in 2018, Tom Seaver and Les Rohr in 2020; Bud Harrelson, Jim McAndrew, Jerry Grote, Ed Kranepool and Jack DiLauro in 2024; Ron Taylor in 2025. Al Jackson, an original 1962 Met, was on the 1969 Mets, but was traded away in midseason, and died in 2019.
No comments:
Post a Comment