Mets 1973 Jerry Koosman Road Jersey Restoration

Jerry Koosman had an illustrious twenty-year career, much of it with the Mets. He was an important part of the 1969 Miracle Mets pitching staff, going 17-9 for the improbable, surprise World Champs. He is shown here in 1973 in his road uniform (I'd recognize those seats in Philadelphia's Veterans' Stadium anyplace!) It is this very jersey that has been sent to me by Mets collector Andrew L. asking for it to be restored to original so it can be displayed at Citifield during the 2020 season.

You think the jersey of a star player would be treated with care and respect and cherished by a collector at season's end... and you would sadly be wrong. The Mets, like most other clubs in the 1970s-80s sent their used uniforms to the minor leagues to be reused...and reused...and reused. The original appearance of Koosman's road jersey was the arched fancy "New York" at left. How it appeared when I received it is at right... while the back numbers had been left alone, the front had been changed.

The neck tag tells the story: player number 36, 1973, size 44. The magic marker scrawl on either side must have had some later, minor league significance that is lost to me now.

Like most Mets jerseys of the era, once their MLB service was done, they were shipped to the minors for often many more years of daily use. But while the Mets' farm team might use the parent club's name, displaying the MLB city name on the front of team jerseys wouldn't do. Therefore, it was very common for the original "NEW YORK" to be stripped from the front and replaced with the home script. Here, I have begin the removal of the replacement lettering to begin the restoration.

There is heavy glue and some dye transfer to the fabric below. In photo four, you can see how an intense stream of dry cleaning fluid from the high pressure gun has removed nearly all of the residue.

With all of the lettering removed, we have an issue. The ghosts of the old lettering are noticeably visible. Note that this is not a stain; rather all of the rest of the fabric has faded from use in the bright sunlight over many years' time. Look carefully, and you will see that the color of the fabric underneath the "Mets" wordmark is the same as the unfaded inside of the jersey! This is going to call for some creativity.

I need to recreate the 1973-vintage wordmark, and from my archives I pulled a scan of a 1971 Mets road jersey. The top photo shows the exact copying of the design; in the one on bottom I have softened and repaired some of the distortion of the scanned art. The bottom art is a vector file that will be sent to the computer-driven cutter and used "as is", minor imperfections and all. The final orange outline is absolutely not graphically exact compared to the blue lettering, and we will make no attempt to make it perfect in our restoration.

The twill lettering of the old jersey is about as worn as any I have seen. The colors are muted by the complete lack of sheen that can only come from being used daily in the hot sun and washed hundreds of times with strong detergents. To simulate this wear, I will distress the fabric by sandblasting it with baking soda, then dying if necessary in any one of my home-brewed solutions.

Here, being strafed by the sandblaster inside the blasting cabinet. Baking soda shot at 150 psi can remove paint from a fender--- so imagine what it does to this fabric. The fact that it simply dulls the sheen vs. blasting right through it is testament to how strong tackle twill is!

After sandblasting, I wash and dry the fabric, then dye it to change the shade slightly if needed. Notice that I prepared two different shades of blue and will choose the one that more closely matches the original, aged lettering, once these have dried.

Using the computer-driven cutter, I cut the letters for this job one color at a time, align by hand and then heat press them together.

To match the bleached thread that secures the adjacent player numbers, I use new thread that color-matches the original. This bleached-blue color thread is from my grandmother's thread box and is probably sixty years old.

compare the new with the old.

Now the lettering can be applied. I use a template that I made from the actual jersey laid on the light table that shows me ghosts of where the original lettering had been sewn. This way there is no guesswork when applying the replacement lettering.

The new orange thread that matches the bleached original found at the fabric store is called "Creamsicle". Imagine that! Here is the old stitching next to the new. I am very pleased with the match of the fabric colors, lack of sheen and the thread / stitching match. The best compliment is that you'd never notice the difference between new and old. Had I used new, shiny fabric and dark thread, the restoration would have stuck out -- and just looked wrong. Some might ask me, why not just remove the numbers too and make it all look new? A conservator of the past would not do that. We want to leave as much as we can of this historic jersey intact.

Now we want to deal with the noticeable sun-bleaching discoloration. Since this jersey is destined for museum display, and will not be worn, there is a method we can use. I'll share with you a museum trick designed to enhance the display. Using ordinary sidewalk chalk, I custom-grind and mix purple, blue, red and yellow chalk dust powder until I have perfectly matched the color of the bleached jersey fabric. You might be surprised to see that the visual gray color of the jersey has more purple in it than any other color!

Using a blush-application brush like a woman would use to color her cheeks, we carefully daub the colored chalk only onto the dark area of the fabric. Because it is translucent, we can layer it until it blends nearly perfectly. While this is certainly not a permanent repair, it will make the museum display more striking. And truthfully, leaving some evidence of the old shadow is not undesirable. Every jersey has a story to tell, and this one's trip to the minors is a part of its history. I put the powder in a jar and sent it to the collector with his completed jersey.

Here is the finished result... the first photo is the jersey without the blending powder applied, the second simulates what it would have looked like had I done the whole front with the blending, the third is the unchanged back of the jersey with Koosman's number 36. This jersey is ready for display at CitiField during the 2020 season.