Jerry Koosman's pitching stats compare well with some recent Hall of Fame pitchers. If he played for a team that gave him some run support, like the Orioles or Reds, he'd surely be in the Hall of Fame.
Recent starters inducted. Morris, Mussina and Halladay. Maybe you could make an argument for Morris. But certainly you can't say that about the other two. I wouldn't vote Kool Kooz in. Love him like I do. I grew up in NJ a Met fan. I was 10 in 1969. And I don't agree.
@@TK0_23_ Koosman will always be in the shadow of Seaver and by traditional standards, I wouldn't consider him a hall-of-famer. However, if they're going to let Bert Blyleven and Jim Kaat in, then I think he needs to at least be in the conversation. I watched Kooz pitch in 1977 and 78 and it was brutal watching him lose low scoring games or seeing him come out with the lead only to see the bullpen blow it. I think he won 21 games in 1976 and then lost 20 in 1977 despite leading the league that year in K's per 9 innings. In 1977-78 he was 11-35 despite a reasonable ERA around 3.60. If he's on the Yankees those two years I think you could reverse the wins and losses and then his whole career takes on a new light. I wasn't surprised to see him win 20 his first year away from the Mets. Anyway, quick comparison Kooz/Kaat shows ERA 3.36/3.45, CG 140/180, SHO 33/31, SO 2556/2461 (and Kaat pitched 6 more years than Kooz), WHIP (1.259/1.259), Hits/IP 8.5/9.2. Kooz/Blyleven also comparable.
I agree. those two seasons were brutal to watch; the team was in severe decline and they just couldn't score any runs which resulted in 35 losses and a ton of no-decisions for Kooz despite pitching pretty well. Those two seasons were sandwiched between 20+ win seasons in 1976 and 1979 (for Minnesota), which says a lot.
Blyleven is a HOF pitcher by both WAR and traditional stats. 3701 Ks puts him well ahead of many HOF pitchers and 94 WAR is well above the HOF average. If he played for winning teams he would have 300+ wins. If that isn't HOF then get rid of Early Wynn and dozens of other players who were technically barely above average.@@vgbr88
I grew up watching Mets games on WOR tv and still follow the Mets today. Enjoyed the interview. It brought back memories of watching Seaver, Koosman, and Matlack dominate.
I worked with Koosman's niece back around 1990 in Boston. She was a tall, slim, very attractive blonde, probably around 22 years old. We're having lunch in the break room one day, and she casually tells me that Jerry Koosman was her uncle. She guessed right that I'd heard of him. I told her he was my favorite lefty in the '70s when I was a kid.
I was a Jerry Koozman fan before I became a Tom Seaver Fan. But what a great right-lefty duo - "Tom and Jerry". They both threw so hard and also shared the "drop and drive" style of pitching delivery that caused their respective right and left knees to scrape the mound.
Same here. I was a 10 yr old Met fan in Brooklyn in 1969 and watched the Mets on Channel 9 with Lindsey, Bob, and Ralph. It was magic. I was Tom Seaver whenever I pitched when we played stickball.
Just went to check on Baseball Reference and Koosman's memory of that opening day game in 68 was, remarkably, almost perfect. The only thing he got wrong was that it wasn't Tito Fuentes who led off(he was actually back in the minors for the 68 season and didn't return to the Giants til 69), it was actually ex Met Ron Hunt that led off.
Wow- the "sequence" they discuss was precisely what I was thinking. It was a day game, I was a big Giants fan living on Long Island, I was flipping baseball cards with my friend at his house, and I was terribly disappointed that the Giants came away with nothing. Great interview, took me back.......
A BEAUTIFUL thing about this interview is when he says Willie Mays was his hero his idol. THIS IS WHY BASEBALL IS THE AMERICAN PASTIME. Look, I didn’t grow up during the times of the Negro League or when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. Being Caucasian I can never understand the difficulty anyone of a different color than I went through. I raised our kids to be colorblind. I fully believe in what Martin Luther King stood for. But in this interview you have someone who grew up during a time of absolute segregation and HIS idol was Willie Mays. Just beautiful.
I remember that year and that team. A summer of magic. I was in the CitiField parking lot where those base markers are, 50 years to the day they won it all, a day I still remember as though it were yesterday.
Looking back I would had set up my rotation having Jerry Koosman pitch Game 1, 4, and 7 of the 1973 World Series if it was possible. He was the best playoff pitcher in Mets history.
I really enjoyed this. I became a baseball fan in 1969 as a 13 yr old in Chicago. Dang Mets beat my Cubs and my Orioles. I like watching interviews of old players.
Blessed is Our Eternal Creator!!! Always pleasant to listen to the art of human conversation even it is just about baseball!!! Stay well both of you Howie and Jerry!!!
Throwing at another player on purpose is the act of a coward. If a message needs to be sent, take your glove off, walk over that man and kick the shit out of him.
I watched Jerry pitch for the Auburn NY Mets when I was a a kid. If you wore your little league uniform you got into the ballpark for free. Many of the guys on that ‘69 team played in Auburn.
I’m almost 61 years old and I can remember walking home from grade school at 7 years old. My oldest brother was an oriole fan and people around me (older than me) making fun of me because they thought I was an Oriole fan. I threw my brother right under the bus. I loved Jerry but being right handed Tom Seaver and Buddy Harrelson were my idols. Mr. Seaver because he was a pitcher and I loved to pitch and Buddy because he was pretty local to Commack LI.
I was a sophomore in college...got my drivers license that day...the examiner said - 'Congratulations - now go home and watch the Mets win the series!!!"...and I did!!!
Strange to hear Jerry Koosman say that fear of losing motivated him in the big games, rather than the desire of winning. But I once heard Terry Bradshaw, as good a big game QB as Brady or Montana, that fear motivated him quite a bit too. I would usually associate fear of losing with choking, but apparently it served Koosman and Bradshaw well. The old Brooklyn and early Los Angeles Dodgers had Don Drysdale and Johnny Podres on the team in their primes, and though Drysdale won a lot more games, Podres was the better money pitcher. Similar in a way to Seaver and Koosman. Tom pitched well in big games, but usually not well enough.
The weird thing is that Koosman was traded to the twins for Jesse Orosco. The 2 pitchers that threw the last out pitches in 69 and 86. The only mets championships
The Mets moved up to 9th place in 1968 because of Jerry's 18-12 rookie season (and after that year, the east-west conferences came, so no one could finish 10th or 9th ever again). He was supposed to be the first 20-game winner for the Mets. Famously, there was never a first Mets 20-game winner or .300 hitter, because Seaver won 25 and Cleon Jones hit .350, blowing past the lower benchmarks. Just as Jerry says, he was the great clutch pitcher, shutting down Willie Mays and the like. If the Mets lost, it wasn't because of him. (He was 17-9 in '69, proportionately like a 106-56 season while the Mets' finished with 100-62 .) He was so quiet back in 1969. It's an utter delight to hear him open up 50+ years later. If you know any decrepit Baby Boomer Mets fans, please tell them about this video. It's a delight.
This is the first time in my life that I can remember that Howie Rose didn't say the phrase DOT COM. He actually sounds like a human during this interview.
Seaver, Stone, Matlack. I'm sick of this argument. The Mets didn't score any way. Matlack was their hottest pitcher down the stretch. It was the right move. Oakland went with only 3 starters also which was common in the series in those days
@@mikeforte7585 Mets bats went cold in that series with the exceptions of game 2 and game 4. They scored 22 runs in five games against the Big Red Machine and 10 more in extra innings in game 2 of the WS.
@@mikeforte7585 Seaver was sharp as usual in the 3rd game of the '73 Series, and the Mets' hitting was anemic as usual. He could and should have won that game not to mention countless other Met games across his career. He followed up his "Imperfect Game" on 07/09/1969 with a complete game, 1-0 loss against the same Cubs at Wrigley Field. (Did I also mention that with his Imperfect Game he began to suffer from shoulder stiffness that fortunately subsided, to the degree that he feared that his career would suddenly end?) Tom's personal goal for the 1970 season was 30 wins, in the wake of Denny McLain's 31-6 '68 season. Tom was on target with 14 wins by the All-Star break but faltered when Manager Gil Hodges approached him and Koozman before the All-Star break to request that they both pitch on 3 days' rest so that the Mets would have the best chance of being in first place at the All-Star break. They both obliged but it didn't bode well for Tom who slumped and finished the season with "only" 18 wins, and that was a big reason why the Mets failed to repeat in 1970. Tom tried too hard to fufill extraordinary expectations placed on his shoulders. Thank you.
@@mikeforte7585 I've heard that the reason that Seaver pitched Game 6 of the 1973 Series is that he requested the ball so that he could have the chance to win the final Series game for the Mets and the Championship, if only to atone for his loss in Game 3, which he should have won anyway with decent run support. I suppose this to be true but Yogi always took the blame, but then again Yogi was the manager and he wasn't obligated to give Seaver the ball. Seaver had also volunteered to pitch on 3 days' rest at the end of the 1971 season for a game meaningless to the Mets who were already eliminated from the playoffs but that enabled Tom to record his 20th season win en route to a huge salary increase for the 1972 season. Yogi should have pitched George Stone in Game 6 with Seaver available to relieve him since there was no tomorrow in that situation.
@@DDEENY great points....in game 3 Seaver pitched well in a 3-2 Met loss..the Mets stranded 14 base runners a series record at the time..the loss went to Harry Parker who gave up an 11th inning go ahead single to Bert Campaneris...good point about saying Yogi should have gone with George Stone in game 6...Stone could have given them 6 good innings as he had a good year (mostly out of the bullpen)...it would have been interesting to see a fully rested Tom Seaver face the As in game 7..
Jerry...why would you reveal what Gil’s “alleged” involvement was in the ‘shoe polish incident’ now? Why? When Gil is not here to give his side. When he can’t be cross examined? You are tarnishing the rep of a devout Catholic without him being able to give his version. Jerry...I looked up to you until this. I thought highly of you. But obviously you are just like the rest of the money grabbers. Say what you must to sell a book. Jerry...I’m so disappointed in you for this. Gil and his family deserve better. Are you ashamed? Because you should be. You WERE a childhood hero of mine. Damn... damn it Jerry! Gil, you are a Hall of Famer in “our” book. You always will be and I firmly believe that Cooperstown will agree soon. As for Cleon and the shoe polish incident, I say thank you for making your players polish their cleats. Thats the story book version of folklore that we Met fans will pass on about the Great Gil Hodges. Jerry...thanks for the great pitching. Lets Go Mets!
Please for the love of god, tell Conforto to stop trying to pull every pitch. He is a crappy .240 hitter doing that. When he was good, he was a gap to gap hitter. Who ever got in his head about pulling every pitch needs to be fired.
The 1977 and and '78 seasons cost him any chance at of being enshrined into the HOF. The Mets organization was not committed to winning during that era and it definitely showed on the field and in the stands as a attendance plummeted.
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Kooz was such a Mets great. And this was such a great interview. Left me wanting more.
I'd like to hear how Jerry coped with the 1977-78 seasons.
My all time favorite Met...clutch in the playoffs and especially the World Series. Won the big games when needed.
Thank you Howie Rose...this was incredible...and Thank you Jerry Koosman!!!!!
Awesome interview. Jerry's mind is still as sharp as a tack - hard to believe he's almost 80!
Jerry Koosman's pitching stats compare well with some recent Hall of Fame pitchers. If he played for a team that gave him some run support, like the Orioles or Reds, he'd surely be in the Hall of Fame.
Recent starters inducted. Morris, Mussina and Halladay. Maybe you could make an argument for Morris. But certainly you can't say that about the other two. I wouldn't vote Kool Kooz in. Love him like I do. I grew up in NJ a Met fan. I was 10 in 1969. And I don't agree.
@@TK0_23_ Koosman will always be in the shadow of Seaver and by traditional standards, I wouldn't consider him a hall-of-famer. However, if they're going to let Bert Blyleven and Jim Kaat in, then I think he needs to at least be in the conversation. I watched Kooz pitch in 1977 and 78 and it was brutal watching him lose low scoring games or seeing him come out with the lead only to see the bullpen blow it. I think he won 21 games in 1976 and then lost 20 in 1977 despite leading the league that year in K's per 9 innings. In 1977-78 he was 11-35 despite a reasonable ERA around 3.60. If he's on the Yankees those two years I think you could reverse the wins and losses and then his whole career takes on a new light. I wasn't surprised to see him win 20 his first year away from the Mets. Anyway, quick comparison Kooz/Kaat shows ERA 3.36/3.45, CG 140/180, SHO 33/31, SO 2556/2461 (and Kaat pitched 6 more years than Kooz), WHIP (1.259/1.259), Hits/IP 8.5/9.2. Kooz/Blyleven also comparable.
@@vgbr88 If you could reverse the 77 and 78 seasons, Koosman would be in the Hall of Fame.
I agree. those two seasons were brutal to watch; the team was in severe decline and they just couldn't score any runs which resulted in 35 losses and a ton of no-decisions for Kooz despite pitching pretty well. Those two seasons were sandwiched between 20+ win seasons in 1976 and 1979 (for Minnesota), which says a lot.
Blyleven is a HOF pitcher by both WAR and traditional stats. 3701 Ks puts him well ahead of many HOF pitchers and 94 WAR is well above the HOF average. If he played for winning teams he would have 300+ wins. If that isn't HOF then get rid of Early Wynn and dozens of other players who were technically barely above average.@@vgbr88
My favorite Met pitcher of all time. Love this candid interview.
I grew up watching Mets games on WOR tv and still follow the Mets today. Enjoyed the interview. It brought back memories of watching Seaver, Koosman, and Matlack dominate.
I worked with Koosman's niece back around 1990 in Boston. She was a tall, slim, very attractive blonde, probably around 22 years old. We're having lunch in the break room one day, and she casually tells me that Jerry Koosman was her uncle. She guessed right that I'd heard of him. I told her he was my favorite lefty in the '70s when I was a kid.
I was a Jerry Koozman fan before I became a Tom Seaver Fan. But what a great right-lefty duo - "Tom and Jerry". They both threw so hard and also shared the "drop and drive" style of pitching delivery that caused their respective right and left knees to scrape the mound.
Please post positive proof pronto
Pics preferred
What a great guy! Classic lefty. Played in the shadow of Seaver. Very warm human being. Baseball had its characters. That’s what made it great.
'68 Rookie Card with Nolan Ryan! I had 13 of them in 1968.
Koosman also has a link to 86 Mets too as he was traded for Jesse Orosco.
To be kid again watching those 69 Mets. My childhood heroes!
Same here. I was a 10 yr old Met fan in Brooklyn in 1969 and watched the Mets on Channel 9 with Lindsey, Bob, and Ralph. It was magic. I was Tom Seaver whenever I pitched when we played stickball.
Kooz was the definition of a gamer, ace, clutch and why Long Island little boys wanted to be him. Thanks Kooz.
My favorite Mets pitcher ever. Oh and his memory all these years later! WOW!
Wow, long awaited to see this. Thank you Jerry Koosman, our town neighbor and Howie Rose
Man these interviews are great on here and it has a lot to do with Howie really knowing his shit. A met fan through and through.
Really great interview!
0:50 "I was 5 years old then". That was my age then! But I didn't become a Mets fan until '73!
my favorite met, of many. what a great interview...
Seeing Willie Mays and his feet movement is a great story.
Koosie is still my main Met after all these years. Loved, loved, loved going to Shea to watch him take command on the mound!
I'm 13 and I love Koosie! I dont understand how he isnt a HOFer.
Thank you Mr. Koosman.
Much Respect
Just went to check on Baseball Reference and Koosman's memory of that opening day game in 68 was, remarkably, almost perfect. The only thing he got wrong was that it wasn't Tito Fuentes who led off(he was actually back in the minors for the 68 season and didn't return to the Giants til 69), it was actually ex Met Ron Hunt that led off.
I was at the home Opening Day game. My Dad took me, and we sat two-three rows from the field near third base!
Wow- the "sequence" they discuss was precisely what I was thinking. It was a day game, I was a big Giants fan living on Long Island, I was flipping baseball cards with my friend at his house, and I was terribly disappointed that the Giants came away with nothing. Great interview, took me back.......
Good interview.
A BEAUTIFUL thing about this interview is when he says Willie Mays was his hero his idol.
THIS IS WHY BASEBALL IS THE AMERICAN PASTIME.
Look, I didn’t grow up during the times of the Negro League or when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. Being Caucasian I can never understand the difficulty anyone of a different color than I went through. I raised our kids to be colorblind. I fully believe in what Martin Luther King stood for.
But in this interview you have someone who grew up during a time of absolute segregation and HIS idol was Willie Mays. Just beautiful.
I was at the game in September, 1976 when he won his 20th game. Great memory!
Billy Beane, famous GM of _Moneyball,_ got his first big league hit - as a Met - off of Jerry...who promptly picked him off first.
I remember that year and that team. A summer of magic. I was in the CitiField parking lot where those base markers are, 50 years to the day they won it all, a day I still remember as though it were yesterday.
They should have put Koosman into the 7th game in 1973 -- they would have been World Champions.
Koosman and Seaver with Ted Williams at 0:24. Ted was manager for the Senators in '69. Amazing footage. Thanks Jerry for a great interview
With Seaver and Kooz, you can't lose!
What a GREAT interview!! Thank you Howie!!
Howie knows his met stuff. Def makes for great discussions and topics.
Competition with Tom seaver would have been a positive for koosman the great Tom seaver
Looking back I would had set up my rotation having Jerry Koosman pitch Game 1, 4, and 7 of the 1973 World Series if it was possible. He was the best playoff pitcher in Mets history.
I really enjoyed this. I became a baseball fan in 1969 as a 13 yr old in Chicago. Dang Mets beat my Cubs and my Orioles. I like watching interviews of old players.
howie rose, a face made for radio
AAAAA MEN!!!!
Blessed is Our Eternal Creator!!! Always pleasant to listen to the art of human conversation even it is just about baseball!!! Stay well both of you Howie and Jerry!!!
Throwing at another player on purpose is the act of a coward. If a message needs to be sent, take your glove off, walk over that man and kick the shit out of him.
I watched Jerry pitch for the Auburn NY Mets when I was a a kid. If you wore your little league uniform you got into the ballpark for free. Many of the guys on that ‘69 team played in Auburn.
I’m almost 61 years old and I can remember walking home from grade school at 7 years old. My oldest brother was an oriole fan and people around me (older than me) making fun of me because they thought I was an Oriole fan. I threw my brother right under the bus. I loved Jerry but being right handed Tom Seaver and Buddy Harrelson were my idols. Mr. Seaver because he was a pitcher and I loved to pitch and Buddy because he was pretty local to Commack LI.
I was a sophomore in college...got my drivers license that day...the examiner said - 'Congratulations - now go home and watch the Mets win the series!!!"...and I did!!!
IMO Koos Should have Won the 1968 ROY ,but they gave it to Bench
Strange to hear Jerry Koosman say that fear of losing motivated him in the big games, rather than the desire of winning. But I once heard Terry Bradshaw, as good a big game QB as Brady or Montana, that fear motivated him quite a bit too. I would usually associate fear of losing with choking, but apparently it served Koosman and Bradshaw well.
The old Brooklyn and early Los Angeles Dodgers had Don Drysdale and Johnny Podres on the team in their primes, and though Drysdale won a lot more games, Podres was the better money pitcher. Similar in a way to Seaver and Koosman. Tom pitched well in big games, but usually not well enough.
The weird thing is that Koosman was traded to the twins for Jesse Orosco. The 2 pitchers that threw the last out pitches in 69 and 86. The only mets championships
All of the METS' starting staff were complete game pitchers.
The Mets moved up to 9th place in 1968 because of Jerry's 18-12 rookie season (and after that year, the east-west conferences came, so no one could finish 10th or 9th ever again). He was supposed to be the first 20-game winner for the Mets. Famously, there was never a first Mets 20-game winner or .300 hitter, because Seaver won 25 and Cleon Jones hit .350, blowing past the lower benchmarks. Just as Jerry says, he was the great clutch pitcher, shutting down Willie Mays and the like. If the Mets lost, it wasn't because of him. (He was 17-9 in '69, proportionately like a 106-56 season while the Mets' finished with 100-62 .) He was so quiet back in 1969. It's an utter delight to hear him open up 50+ years later. If you know any decrepit Baby Boomer Mets fans, please tell them about this video. It's a delight.
Look at Earl Weavers face at 20:40.He’s lookin at Gil Hodges in the Mets dug out and it looks like he wants to laugh knowing damn well what they did.
This is the first time in my life that I can remember that Howie Rose didn't say the phrase DOT COM.
He actually sounds like a human during this interview.
Let’s go Jerry
Koos!
Outrageous...you mean a player actually pitched a WHOLE game?
Hey Jerry, maybe you read. Greetings from your distant relatives in Germany! :)
Thanks for the clarification. My understanding had been that Jerry is Polish.
Seaver, Stone, Matlack. I'm sick of this argument. The Mets didn't score any way. Matlack was their hottest pitcher down the stretch. It was the right move. Oakland went with only 3 starters also which was common in the series in those days
The Mets lost the 73 series for a number of reasons but the main reason was Tom Seaver didn't win a game...and I am a Met fan.
@@mikeforte7585 Mets bats went cold in that series with the exceptions of game 2 and game 4. They scored 22 runs in five games against the Big Red Machine and 10 more in extra innings in game 2 of the WS.
@@mikeforte7585 Seaver was sharp as usual in the 3rd game of the '73 Series, and the Mets' hitting was anemic as usual. He could and should have won that game not to mention countless other Met games across his career. He followed up his "Imperfect Game" on 07/09/1969 with a complete game, 1-0 loss against the same Cubs at Wrigley Field. (Did I also mention that with his Imperfect Game he began to suffer from shoulder stiffness that fortunately subsided, to the degree that he feared that his career would suddenly end?) Tom's personal goal for the 1970 season was 30 wins, in the wake of Denny McLain's 31-6 '68 season. Tom was on target with 14 wins by the All-Star break but faltered when Manager Gil Hodges approached him and Koozman before the All-Star break to request that they both pitch on 3 days' rest so that the Mets would have the best chance of being in first place at the All-Star break. They both obliged but it didn't bode well for Tom who slumped and finished the season with "only" 18 wins, and that was a big reason why the Mets failed to repeat in 1970. Tom tried too hard to fufill extraordinary expectations placed on his shoulders. Thank you.
@@mikeforte7585 I've heard that the reason that Seaver pitched Game 6 of the 1973 Series is that he requested the ball so that he could have the chance to win the final Series game for the Mets and the Championship, if only to atone for his loss in Game 3, which he should have won anyway with decent run support. I suppose this to be true but Yogi always took the blame, but then again Yogi was the manager and he wasn't obligated to give Seaver the ball. Seaver had also volunteered to pitch on 3 days' rest at the end of the 1971 season for a game meaningless to the Mets who were already eliminated from the playoffs but that enabled Tom to record his 20th season win en route to a huge salary increase for the 1972 season. Yogi should have pitched George Stone in Game 6 with Seaver available to relieve him since there was no tomorrow in that situation.
@@DDEENY great points....in game 3 Seaver pitched well in a 3-2 Met loss..the Mets stranded 14 base runners a series record at the time..the loss went to Harry Parker who gave up an 11th inning go ahead single to Bert Campaneris...good point about saying Yogi should have gone with George Stone in game 6...Stone could have given them 6 good innings as he had a good year (mostly out of the bullpen)...it would have been interesting to see a fully rested Tom Seaver face the As in game 7..
"Greatest left hander to pitch for the Mets". Really!? Didn't Warren Spahn pitch for the Mets?
Me too jerry I don't like it losing
I love it. I've done it my entire life and I've gotten really good at it.
Seaver and Kooz, and pass the booze!!
Ummm... Is Kooz talking "sabermetrics"? Be in the game, watch the game, and adjust accordingly!
All of the METS' starting staff were complete pitchers. Not like today's 5 to 6 inning over paid, overrated starting pitchers.
Man !! That staff were ALL Aces !! (Can't forget Gary Gentry, too)
7
Jerry...why would you reveal what Gil’s “alleged” involvement was in the ‘shoe polish incident’ now? Why? When Gil is not here to give his side. When he can’t be cross examined? You are tarnishing the rep of a devout Catholic without him being able to give his version. Jerry...I looked up to you until this. I thought highly of you. But obviously you are just like the rest of the money grabbers. Say what you must to sell a book. Jerry...I’m so disappointed in you for this. Gil and his family deserve better. Are you ashamed? Because you should be. You WERE a childhood hero of mine. Damn... damn it Jerry! Gil, you are a Hall of Famer in “our” book. You always will be and I firmly believe that Cooperstown will agree soon. As for Cleon and the shoe polish incident, I say thank you for making your players polish their cleats. Thats the story book version of folklore that we Met fans will pass on about the Great Gil Hodges. Jerry...thanks for the great pitching. Lets Go Mets!
He and Gil didn’t exactly get along. I think Jerry felt that Gil bullied players too much.
Please for the love of god, tell Conforto to stop trying to pull every pitch. He is a crappy .240 hitter doing that. When he was good, he was a gap to gap hitter. Who ever got in his head about pulling every pitch needs to be fired.
His OPS is .830, above average
But you're right he has potential to hit
290 with 35 homers 100 rbi, 1000 ops if he didnt pull
The only Met to win 20 games and lose 20 games..
HOF
The 1977 and and '78 seasons cost him any chance at of being enshrined into the HOF. The Mets organization was not committed to winning during that era and it definitely showed on the field and in the stands as a attendance plummeted.
Koos!