1977 jerry koosman

for reasons known only to a select few canadians i am guessing, jerry koosman's facsimile autograph made a move on his 1977 o-pee-chee card:

 here's the topps front:

now the o-pee-chee back:

 and the topps back:

koosman had finished second in the league cy young voting after his 21-10 1976 season.  in 1977, however, his record did a flip-flop and he lost 20 games. his era 'jumped' to 3.49, but the punchless metropolitans didn't offer much support.  in his last 10 starts, in which koosman took the loss 9 times and had a no-decision in the other, the mets scored a more than three runs just once, and they waited until koosman was out of the game to do so!  still, the lefty led the league in strikeouts per 9 innings.  he would go on to win 20 games again - although it would be as a minnesota twin in 1979.

voici à vous, 1977 jerry koosman!

1984 jerry koosman

jerry koosman, who had re-signed as a free agent with the white sox in december of 1983, was traded to the phillies in february of 1984.  here's his 1984 o-pee-chee card:

here's the topps front:

now the o-pee-chee back:

and the topps back:

the white sox had acquired ron reed two days after signing koos, and koos wound up being the player to be named later.  back in the national league, pitched 224 innings and won 14 games while posting an era of 3.25.  he pitched one more year with the phillies before retiring.

voici à vous, 1984 jerry koosman!

1979 jerry koosman

as we can see by the card below, jerry koosman was traded from the mets to the twins in december of 1978.

what we don't see is that he was traded for a minor leaguer and a ptbnl.  that ptbnl turned out to be jesse orosco!

here's the topps front:

now the o-pee-chee back:

and the topps back:

koosman was two seasons removed from a 2nd place finish in the cy young voting when he was traded.  can't blame the mets - he had two pretty bad seasons leading up to the trade.  he rebounded nicely with the twins, though, as he won 20 games for a 4th place team in 1979.

voici à vous, 1979 jerry koosman!