The left-hander who recorded the final out of the Mets’ first World Series title leaped onto his catcher at Shea Stadium while thousands of fans poured onto the field.
On the 1969 “Miracle Mets,” Jerry Koosman pitched behind future Hall of Famer Tom Seaver, a two-time All-Star in his own right. He died Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026, at his home in Osceola, Wis. He was 83.
He had been ill for about a year, and Mets spokesman Jay Horwitz cited heart failure. The club announced the death in a post on social media. Two sons, a daughter and several grandchildren survive him.
Mets owners Steve and Alex Cohen said Koosman ranked among the greatest pitchers in franchise history and was beloved across the organization.
Koosman built that standing on one afternoon at Shea Stadium. He threw a five-hitter in Game 5 of the 1969 World Series and finished it by getting Davey Johnson, the future Mets manager, to fly out to left fielder Cleon Jones. Thousands of fans charged the field. Koosman jumped onto catcher Jerry Grote, and the two hugged on the mound.
“We were so choked up with emotion we couldn’t talk,” Koosman was quoted as saying in Peter Golenbock’s book “Amazin’: The Miraculous History of New York’s Most Beloved Baseball Team,” published in 2002.
Swipe It Against Your Shoe
The game turned on a smudge. New York trailed 3-0 in the sixth inning. A pitch from Baltimore’s Dave McNally bounced to Koosman in the dugout, and he described what happened next in a 2019 interview with Mets broadcaster Howie Rose.
“As I bent down, Gil says: ‘Swipe it against your shoe,’” Koosman told Rose. Manager Gil Hodges then showed the ball to plate umpire Lou DiMuro, and Jones was awarded first base. Years later, Koosman allowed some doubt about whose mark the umpire saw: “Maybe it wasn’t mine. Maybe it was Cleon’s show polish.”
Donn Clendenon came up next and hit a two-run homer. The Mets won 5-3 and took the championship.
Koosman had already beaten the Orioles once in that Series, allowing one run over 8 2/3 innings in a 2-1 win in Game 2. Baltimore had taken the opener from Seaver and the Mets 4-1.
Art Shamsky, an outfielder on the 1969 team, wrote in his book “After the Miracle”: “Seaver was the great pitcher, while Kooz was the great battler.”
The Usher Who Tipped Off the Mets
A farmer and a homemaker raised four children in Appleton, Minn., and one of them, Koosman, was born there Dec. 23, 1942. He was pitching in semi-pro and American Legion leagues by 13. The University of Minnesota, Morris had no baseball team, and after he transferred to North Dakota State College of Science in Wahpeton his transfer status kept him off the mound. The Army drafted him in 1962.
John Luchese, who caught him at Fort Bragg, N.C., set the rest in motion. Luchese told his father, a Shea Stadium usher, about the left-hander, and the usher passed the word to Joe McDonald in the Mets’ front office. The Mets signed Koosman on Aug. 27, 1964, for $1,600.
His debut came April 14, 1967, at Philadelphia’s Connie Mack Stadium, where he worked 2 2/3 hitless innings of relief. Triple-A Jacksonville followed, and he led the International League there with 183 strikeouts.
Dodger Stadium hosted his first start of 1968, and he came away with a four-hit shutout. At that summer’s All-Star Game in Houston’s Astrodome he faced one batter, striking out Carl Yastrzemski for the final out of the National League’s 1-0 win. He finished 19-12 with a 2.08 ERA and placed second to Cincinnati catcher Johnny Bench in Rookie of the Year voting.
The Mets, an expansion franchise launched in 1962, lost 100 games in five of their first seven seasons, including 101 in 1967, and never posted a winning record before 1969. A 10-game winning streak carried them into first place Sept. 10, 1969; they took 38 of their last 49 and ended up atop the new National League East at 100-62. Over 32 starts, Koosman posted a 17-9 record and a 2.28 earned run average.
In Game 2 of the first National League Championship Series, hitters knocked him out in the fifth inning. The Mets rallied anyway and swept Atlanta in the best-of-five. When Koosman went home after the title, Morris, Minn., threw a parade.
He Threatened to Retire Unless Traded
Games 2 and 5 again went to Koosman, who was 2-0 in the 1973 World Series, though Oakland took the title. He finished second to Randy Jones in the 1976 National League Cy Young voting. The lefty-righty top of the rotation ended when the Mets traded Seaver to the Cincinnati Reds in 1977, the same year Koosman led baseball with 20 losses. Complications of Lewy body dementia and COVID-19 killed Seaver in 2020 at 75.
A trade or retirement — those were the choices Koosman gave the Mets after the 1978 season. The club sent him to the Minnesota Twins in December 1978 in a deal that brought Greg Field to New York along with young reliever Jesse Orosco as the player to be named later.
He won 20 games for the Twins in 1979 and led the American League with 7.2 WAR. The Twins traded him to the Chicago White Sox in August 1981. The Philadelphia Phillies employed him in 1984 and 1985, and he retired after that season at 42.
His 19 seasons produced a 222-209 record and a 3.36 ERA across 612 appearances and 527 starts, with 140 complete games and 33 shutouts. He struck out 2,556 batters, 35th all time, and his wins are tied for 79th on Major League Baseball’s all-time list. He threw 3,839 1/3 innings, and among pitchers with at least 3,500 innings his ERA ranks 39th in big league history.
From 1967 to 1978 with the Mets, he compiled a 3.09 ERA and a 140-137 record, which remains the most wins by a left-hander in franchise history. The club inducted him into the Mets Hall of Fame in 1989 and retired his No. 36 in 2021.
A Guilty Plea After Baseball
Koosman worked as a minor league pitching instructor for the Mets after his playing career, then ran a machinery design company. He pleaded guilty in 2009 to failing to pay income taxes for three years, defrauding the government of as much as $90,000, and served nine months in prison.
