Jerry Koosman, the durable left-hander who brought championship experience and steady innings to the South Side during the Chicago White Sox’s 1983 American League West title run, died Sunday in Osceola, Wisconsin.
He was 83.
Mets spokesman Jay Horwitz said Koosman had battled multiple illnesses for about a year before dying of heart failure, surrounded by his children.
The Minnesota native finished a 19-year major-league career with 222 wins, a 3.36 ERA, and 2,556 strikeouts.
While Koosman is best remembered as the Mets’ No. 2 starter behind Tom Seaver on the 1969 “Miracle Mets” World Series champions—where he earned complete-game victories in Games 2 and 5 against the Baltimore Orioles—White Sox fans knew him as a valuable veteran addition in the early 1980s.
The Twins traded him to Chicago on August 30, 1981.
Over parts of three seasons with the White Sox, he went 23-18 with a 4.23 ERA in 370 innings, posting identical 11-7 records in both 1982 and 1983.
In 1983, under manager Tony La Russa, the White Sox won 99 games and captured their first division title since 1959. Koosman, then 40, served as a versatile workhorse who started and relieved.
He won his 200th career game that August against the Texas Rangers and delivered strong pitching in the September 17 clincher against Seattle, a night that pushed Comiskey Park attendance over 2 million for the first time in franchise history.
The day after the clinch, standing near owner Jerry Reinsdorf during the on-field celebration, Koosman offered a quiet reminder that has echoed with Sox fans ever since: “Enjoy the moment because they’re few and far between.”
The White Sox fell to the Orioles in the AL Championship Series, but Koosman’s presence on a staff that included LaMarr Hoyt, Floyd Bannister, and Richard Dotson gave the club a reliable left-handed option and the perspective of a proven winner.
After the season, he was traded to the Phillies, where he continued pitching into 1985 before retiring at age 42.
Born Jerome Martin Koosman on December 23, 1942, in Appleton, Minnesota, he was a two-time All-Star and the winningest left-hander in Mets history. His No. 36 was retired by New York in 2021.
For White Sox fans, he remains a link to one of the franchise’s most memorable summers—a steady lefty who helped deliver a long-awaited division crown and left behind a reminder to savor it.
