The Crane Pool Forum

Gosger played 10 games with New York between Sept. 7 and Oct. 1 that year. But he didn't appear in the National League Championship Series or the World Series, which the Mets won.

"So at the end of the year I get a check in the mail from my World Series share," Gosger said. "A hundred dollars. I said, 'What is this? A hundred dollars and I'm there for five weeks?' "

Disgusted, he signed the check and sent it back. He wanted the championship ring.

"That's what irritated me," Gosger said. "The fact that I played there and never got the ring."

He was traded to the San Francisco Giants in late 1969 but never played a game with them. The Expos bought his contract early in the 1970 season. He spent two years in Montreal and was traded back to New York after the 1971 campaign.

Gosger played two more seasons with the Mets from 1973-74. New York won the National League pennant in 1973 before falling to the Oakland Athletics (his old team) in the World Series. Gosger was rewarded for his efforts this time and received the National League championship ring.

He retired after the Mets released him following the 1974 season. But it wouldn't be his last brush with the club. In 2019, the organization welcomed back the 1969 team to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its championship.

The Mets paid tribute to those on the team who had died. Gosger's name and photo appeared on the video board at Citi Field during that segment.

"So then they have this reunion, and they declare me dead," Gosger said. "I'm thinking, 'What the hell is going on?' So I had a bunch of people on Facebook that contacted me and said, 'Jim, that's a mistake.' I said, 'I think so. I feel alive.' "

He got a call from the Mets later that night. A representative apologized and tried to explain the mishap. Gosger hung up.

"I said, 'I don't want to talk to you.' "

He eventually called the Mets and told them he'd like to purchase the ring. They estimated that it would cost around $5,000. That was the end of that conversation.

His friends even sent the team a petition with 600 signatures in an effort to get the ring.

"Nothing has ever come of it," Gosger said.

The magazine was slipped across the kitchen table. Ken MacKenzie picked it up and stared at it smiling and chuckling.

“We thought he was an old man,” MacKenzie said as craggy Casey Stengel stared back from the cover of the Sports Illustrated dated March 5, 1962. “Casey knew what was going on. There were no flies on Casey.”

Though this cannot be proven, it can be reasonably proposed that Altman, who turns 89 on March 20, played baseball in more organized leagues than anybody in history.

The back of Altman’s baseball card will show the 991 games he played for the Cubs, Cardinals and Mets from 1959-67. He hit .269 with 101 home runs and 403 RBIs and was selected as a National League All-Star three times (twice in 1961, when two games were held, and once in 1962).

That’s a very good career, worthy of remembrance.

But what makes Altman truly special is all that surrounded those nine seasons in the NL.

Altman is one of only 87 people to have played in both the Negro Leagues and the AL or NL. And he is one of only three people -- along with Don Newcombe and Larry Doby -- to have played in the Negro Leagues, AL/NL and Japan’s NPB.

Add in his collegiate experience at Tennessee A&I (the historically Black school that became Tennessee State), his time playing baseball in the Army and his time in the Panamanian and Cuban winter leagues, and Altman’s baseball career is uniquely diverse.

And what a career it was.

Altman joined the legendary Roberto Clemente and Hank Aaron in manning right field in one of those 1961 All-Star Games. He is one of only three players (along with Ernie Banks and Felipe Alou) to have homered off Sandy Koufax twice in the same game. He made a leaping catch in the ninth inning to preserve Don Cardwell’s 1960 no-hitter. And in Japan, he played through a bout with colon cancer and had a double-digit home run total at the ripe old age of 42.