Jerry Koosman was known for his pitch control through his career. In 1967 he led the international league in strikeouts. The following year 1968 he signed on with the New York Mets and emerged as their left-handed ace. At the time he broke the club record with nineteen wins, seven shutouts, and a .208 ERA. Kooseman was named the National League Rookie Pitcher of the Year, and runner up to Rookie of the Year to the great Johnny Bench.
After going 21-10 in 1976 season Koosman went on to play with the Red, Twins, White Sox, and Phillies. In 1984 Koosman gave up a double to Pete Rose which marked his four thousandth career hit. In 1989 he was inducted into the Mets hall of fame. After 19 years of playing in the majors, Jerry Koosman shared a letter about his journey from a farm in Minnesota to facing off against his childhood hero.
I grew up on a farm in Western Minnesota, so my days consisted of a variety of chores. My dad raised cattle, hogs, chickens, ducks, and we had two gardens beside the 360 acres of farm land. So, heavy labor such as throwing bales of hay and straw, fencing and shoveling were an everyday chore. This helped me create a strong body for playing baseball or any sport. Later when I turned pro, training for baseball seemed easy compared to working on the farm.
My dad loved baseball and wanted to see his three boys play at any lever of competition. He insisted that we throw one hour each day to build strong arms and to hone our pitches and control. Since the closest town was nine miles away and the chores plentiful, we didn't have the opportunity to play much organized team baseball. Besides practicing out pitching and catching, we would throw long and also play a game called 500. One of us would hit to the other two. Fly balls would count 100 points, one hoppers were 75 points, two hoppers 50 points, and a three hopper was 25. The first one to reach the score of 500 would then get to hit. This game made us very competitive among each other and aggressive in getting up to be the hitter. On a farm there are a lot of stones to throw, and we did just that. We would have contests as to who could hit a bird sitting on a wire, fence post, a spot on a building, skipping rocks across the water, or how high we could throw something. Corn cobs were plentiful and we had a lot of corn cob fights.
At 13 years of age, I was accepted to play on a semipro team in our area as an outfielder and my older brother was pitching for that team. We would practice on Wednesday evenings and play on Sunday afternoons. One day when my brother was playing center field and I was playing left field, he ran into me as I was catching a semi line drive in left center and he broke his leg. Since he was also a pitcher for the team, we needed another pitcher. Because of my strong throwing arm, I was his replacement and thus my pitching career was started.
My hero was Willie Mays, who played for the San Francisco Giants. My first appearance against the Giants during regular season play was in the home opener at Shea Stadium in 1968. It was a sellout crowd on a cool, but sunny day. I hadn't pitched many innings at Shea Stadium before that, as I had been up with the Mets the year before for only 56 days, and mostly as a reliever. I won my first start of the 1968 season in Los Angeles five days earlier, pitching a shutout - four to nothing, but this game was different because the Giants were in town, led by the Great Willie Mays. To start the first inning, Tito Fuentes reached base with a single, Jim Davenport reached base on an error, and I walked Willie McCovey. Now with the bases loaded and no one out, I felt the fans were wondering, "how long I would last in the big leagues." Willie Mays was the next hitter (my hero) and he looked like a lion ready to devour a mouse that was cornered with no place to go. He looked very confident, like he was saying, "just throw what you got up here and take what I give you!" I knew he made a living in situations like this and I was not going to be his exception.
At this point I was thinking, what in the world is a farm kid from Minnesota doing here in a situation like this? He can eat me alive! As I was quickly thinking about how to get through this situation, I remembered 1966 and what Clyde McCullough told me as my manager when I played for Auburn, NY. He said "Son, whenever you're in trouble, don't forget about "OLE Number One." He was reminding me then, that my best pitch was a fastball, and the rest of my pitches were secondary. I did just that, I threw the best fastballs I had ever thrown to that point in my career and struck out Willie! The next hitter was Jim Ray Hart and he popped up to my catcher Jerry Grote, and I struck out the catcher Jack Hiatt. I felt like I was on top of the world, the fans were screaming in approval and our team felt like we were good enough to beat the world class Giants. When the game was over, I had thrown my second shutout in a row and we won the game three to nothing. A few years later, Willie Mays was traded to the Mets and I had the wonderful privilege of playing with my hero, as a teammate for three years!
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