Ultimate Mets Database - Memories of Jim Gosger

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Memories of
Jim Gosger

Jim Gosger
Ultimate Mets Database popularity ranking: 285 of 1252 players

James Charles Gosger
Born: November 6, 1942 at Port Huron, Mich.
Throws: Left Bats: Left
Height: 5.11 Weight: 185

Jim Gosger was the most popular Ultimate Mets Database daily lookup on November 6, 2011, October 1, 2020, March 9, 2022, and April 10, 2022.

First Mets game: September 7, 1969
Last Mets game: September 22, 1974

Share your memories of Jim Gosger

HERE IS WHAT OTHER METS FANS HAVE TO SAY:

rg
I remember when the Mets brought him up in 1974 it was noted that his only two seasons (parts of seasons as I recall) with the Mets resulted in them in the Series (thankfully with Gosger ineligible). I guess when the trick failed in '74 it was the end of his Met value.

Lugless Booth
November 30, 2001
Jim Gosger is one of my all time fave players. He was one of the coolest Kansas City A's along with Ozzie Chavarria and he was the Mets good luck charm for sure. In fact they only won '86 cuz Gosger decided to watch the series since two of his former teams were in it - the Red Sox and Mets. I don't think he watched the 2000 series. Maybe he watched game one until the extra innings and then he had to go to bed. Gosger hit .310 in my 1966 AL replay with a boatload of HR's and RBI's. He rules in my house. Go Gosger!

Mike Harrison
May 10, 2004
He is alive and well and living in Port Huron Michigan. Wrote him a fan letter and he mailed me a signed 69 card with the Pilots. Just another of those great blue collar type of players that fans love. His picture in team photos makes him look like 5 foot 9 at best.

Feat Fan
April 1, 2006
Another one of those hard nosed, marginal, hustling ball players of the 60's that I took a liking to. Came up as a hot prospect with the Red Sox, traded to Kansas City and eventually found a home briefly at Shea. Gosger played a part in the AL pennant race as documented below.
September 27, 1967: In afternoon games, Cleveland tops Boston 6–0, while the Twins drop a 5–1 decision to California. In their last games in Kansas City before moving to Oakland, the 10th place A's sweep a doubleheader from Chicago, beating the American League's ERA leaders Gary Peters and Joe Horlen. Peters loses the opener 5–2, and Horlen the nitecap 4– 0, to rookie Catfish Hunter. Jim Gosger leads the way for KC by going 5-for-8 in the doubleheader. The two losses on this "Black Wednesday" drops Chicago to 4th place with only a hope of a tie for the pennant.

Jamey Bumbalo
December 6, 2006
Jim Gosger is the kind of ballplayer who ought to write a book. He didn't really do anything as a major leaguer, yet he played parts of 10 seasons in the big leagues (for six teams). As a Met he hit .193, and his career average was only .226 (including five seasons when he hit .180 or less). Yet he hung around, was with the Mets in 1969 and 1973, and in Jim Bouton's "Ball Four" he comes across positively. He must have some great stories to tell.

Christopher Schuster
December 13, 2006
I came to know Jim Gosger through a coworker that I had worked with. We got to talking and Jim's name came up in our conversation. He told me that he used to play pro ball. I then found Jim's address in the book and wrote a letter to him. He sent me a signed baseball card of him with the Pilots. Later on, I met him during a holiday weekend where we talked and he signed a couple of other cards for me as well as a baseball. He also showed me pictures of him during his playing days. Some of those photos were him standing next to Yogi Berra when he was with the Mets, and also one of him with the late Ted Williams. Jim is a decent person and knows his sports! He has invited me over to his house anytime that I wish.

Feat Fan
December 30, 2006
1965 BOSOX had a few "prospects" that they were hot on. Tony Horton, George Scott, Americo Petrocelli, Joe Foy, Jim Lonborg, Reggie Smith and Jim Gosger.
Horton would have had a successful body of work if not for his anxiety disorder which forced him to quit, Foy fell prey to the streets, Lonborg never quite matched his '67 pinacle but Smith, Scott and Petro had above average careers.
Gosger, slick fielding, fairly speedy and some pop went to the A's in a midseason trade in '66 before bouncing around some in the senior circuit.

michigan.trumbull
January 11, 2007
While watching the 1977 men's national fastpitch softball tourney in my Michigan home town, I noticed the Port Huron team had a player named Jim Gosger. He batted left handed, and looked like the guy I remembered from my baseball cards, and his card said he lived in Port Huron . I recalled he hit a few line drives and hustled well, though his team lost in the middle of the tourney.

Stann
September 2, 2016
Terrific guy. I regularly email him on facebook, not just about the Mets but also about the rest of his career, and he always responds right away.

Markyt 38
July 1, 2019
I guess that I'm going to be the first one to make a post of Jim Gosger, after the 1969 Celabration at Citi Field 2 days ago. The Mets mistakenly, said that Jim was dead, on the Citivision. The STUPID WILPONS! They would screw up a cup of coffee! LOL!

NYB Buff
June 28, 2020
What does Jim have in common with Donn Clendenon? The answer to this question is that each of them began the 1969 season with a first-year expansion team and ended it as a member of the world champion Mets. Gosger spent the first half of '69 with the Seattle Pilots before coming to the team as a player to be named later in a trade from the previous winter. This happened a month after the deal with the Montreal Expos that brought Clendenon to New York. Jim then played at AAA-Tidewater before joining the Mets for the September run to the division title.
I don't know how many major leaguers went from a team in its first year to the eventual World Series winner during the season, but the 1969 Mets had two such players.

The Big H
December 10, 2020
As a follow up to NYB Buff Donn Clendennon and Jim Gosger have something else in common. During the fiftieth anniversary of the Mets 1969 Championship in 2019, the scoreboard posted them both as having passed away. The thing they didn't have in common was that Jim Gosger claimed, with great reliability that he had not passed away.