Checking in with Cooper Brannan

Holy crap! Who’s that guy, staring out from his baseball card with an expression that says “I can handle anything, including the accidental misspelling of my name on this cheap bit of cardboard”? He’s positively badass!

That’s Padres farmhand Cooper Brannan, and if he looks like he’s ready to handle anything the world can throw at him, it’s because he can. He’s had a good deal of practice.

Brannan is a 6′4″, 235 pound relief pitcher from Houston. He wasn’t drafted coming out of high school, so he volunteered. For military service in the U.S. Marine Corps. He is now 23 years old and served two tours of combat duty in Iraq. He lost several fingers off of his left hand to an exploding grenade (one of his own flash-bangs exploded the moment he pulled the pin), but reattachment surgery got him back up to nine total manual digits.

Following a lengthy recovery, Corporal Brannan was invited to speak about his service on a San Diego radio station. Former marine and Padres CEO Sandy Alderson was in the studio, and Brannan’s buddy talked up his pitching arm to the MLB executive. Brannan tells the story himself in an article from BaseballAmerica.com:

My buddy and I, a fellow wounded Marine, we were there at the station to talk about our injuries, our experience, and Mr. Anderson and Bud Black, the new manager, came in. My buddy goes, “Here’s your chance, man. If you don’t do it, I’m doing it.” So he goes up to him and I kid you not, he goes, “Hey, you’ve got to check my boy out, he throws pretty hard, you’ve got to give him a tryout.” But Sandy Alderson took it very serious, and Buddy Black too.

I told him, “You don’t have to play favorites with me. I just want to see if I still have it.” This is something that I’ve always been wanting to do my whole life, and now I’m going to hit the ground running, man.

They took him up on it. Yes, it’s a feel-good story, and the cynic in each of us says “it’s just PR”, but apparently Brannan got his velocity up from the initial measurement of 85mph to 93 after just three weeks with a pitching coach.

He was assigned to the Arizona Summer League Padres. The AZL Padres play in a nine-team summer league with no cute nicknames or mascots, but it’s a chance, and that’s all the ex-Marine Corporal wanted.

Nels Cooper Brannan has appeared in seven summer-league games, putting up a 6.52 ERA along with a 1-1 record in relief. In 9.2 innings, he has five strikeouts and five walks. All five strikeouts have come in the last three games Brannan pitched.

Obviously, the numbers are not overwhelming. Brannan may never step foot on a Major League field as a player. But he’s not asking for any special treatment. He just wanted a chance. He was hired by a fellow Marine who probably wasn’t interested in throwing a pity party for a younger comrade, but really saw something in the kid.

So, rather than put some sappy ending on the story and wrap it all up with a nice bow, I’ll leave you with the words of our favorite Padre (I know, it’s not saying much):

For everyone out there who’s down in the dumps, whether it’s a military man or anybody that’s gone through any kind of pain and suffering, I hope they really learn from this, that you can pick up and strive to do better and fulfill your dreams.

Best of all? He lets his teammates call him “Niner”.