Jim Gosger: Not even a ring to find out if he’s still alive

Even the Mets couldn’t kill Jim Gosger. In a ceremony honoring the 50th anniversary of the Miracle Mets, the team ran a video honoring its dead members, including Gosger and Jesse Hudson, who are alive. The Mets apologized on Sunday, though they misspelled Hudson’s name in the process.

Gosger was a defense-first outfielder who appeared in 10 regular-season games for the Mets in 1969; the Daily News reached the 76-year-old at his Port Huron, Michigan home on Monday. The below interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Daily News: Can you take us through what happened on Saturday?

Jim Gosger: I got a text from a friend on Facebook. He said that he was at the Mets game, and they had on there that I was deceased. That kind of caught me by surprise. Evidently, they had a deal on the ’69 Mets, and they wanted to recognize everyone who had passed away. Unfortunately, myself and Jesse, we were still alive.

This friend of mine had contacted whoever it was there and said listen, he’s on my Facebook, he’s not passed away.

It was quite a shock. But I had a lot of people on my Facebook that were very complimentary. They said, what the hell is wrong with the Mets? I have no idea.

It hurt. And I’m sure, Jesse, it hurt him, too.

You know, I said, I didn’t mind not being invited up there. (In 1969) I was up for the last month of the season, and in ’73, I was up there for six months. In ’69, played defensively, probably in about 20 games (Ed.: 10), defense for Cleon Jones. When we went up for a ’69 signing in New York a couple years ago, Cleon came up to me and said “Hey Goose, can you still run?” I said hell no, not anymore.

The thing that got to me was the fact that at the end of 1969, they gave all their employees, all their coaches — everybody got a ring, and I was really disappointed. In fact, I was in tears when I found out. They sent me a check for $100, for a share. I sent it back to Ed Kranepool, who was our clubhouse representative, and said “buy yourself a beer.” I don’t need your money. But I really wanted the ring in ’69.