Jerry Koosman’s tenacity was paramount to 1969 Mets writing the greatest baseball story ever told

This was 2008, October, and the Tampa Bay Rays had just qualified for their first World Series. In the moment that seemed like an absurd baseball tale, as the Rays had been a relentlessly awful team for all of their first 10 years of existence — three 100-loss seasons, and no fewer than 91 losses every year, and they’d been 66-96 just a year before.

So on the eve of the World Series, there was really only one man to talk to, because he’d been the money pitcher in October for that other too-fantastic-to-believe baseball miracle.

Over the telephone, Jerry Koosman laughed. All these years later he still talked the way his old friend and teammate Tom Seaver once described his accent: “As Minnesota as Minnesota gets.”

“My friend,” Koosman said, “I don’t care what evidence you give me. There’ll never be another team like the ’69 Mets.”