Proud Marine Tries on a Different Uniform as Padres Prospect

The Judge · #1 03-05-2007, 09:37 PM

PEORIA, Ariz., March 4 — Cooper Brannan, a San Diego Padres pitching prospect, arrived at the team’s spring training complex for his first formal workout Sunday in a quest to ultimately become a major leaguer.

He stood apart from the other prospects in view of the path he had already traveled. He lost a finger and sustained other severe injuries on his nonpitching hand in a grenade explosion while serving with the Marines in Iraq.

The Padres have offered Brannan, 22, a right-handed pitcher, a minor league contract.

Brannan, a corporal, has already agreed to terms and will sign a professional baseball contract after he is discharged from the Marines in May.

The Marines have placed him on special assignment to work out with the Padres, who have a long and close association with the military.

Brannan sustained injuries to his left hand when a grenade malfunctioned during his second deployment in Iraq.

While he was recovering in San Diego, a chance meeting with the Padres’ chief executive, Sandy Alderson, a Marine Corps veteran, led to a tryout. Now, the soft-spoken Brannan hopes to serve as a role model to other servicemen and women who were injured in combat.

“I hope it’s something I can offer to everybody else,” he said. “I hope they see this,” he remarked as he held up his hand, “and know they can overcome anything.”

Brannan was a three-year letterman in baseball and football at Highland High School in Gilbert, Ariz.

A 6-foot-4, 220-pounder, he reacquainted himself with baseball during rehabilitation from his hand injury. Despite the injury to his glove hand, he starred on the all-Marine Corps and USA Military all-star teams and throws five pitches: a four-seam fastball, a two-seam fastball, a curve and two changeups.

“We all know this is a whole different environment than he’s probably ever pitched in,” said Grady Fuson, the Padres’ vice president for scouting and player development.

“The fairest thing is to just see him through for a week or two and see how he rebounds from all of this. As many things as he’s been through physically in the military, he’s going to go through things that are different physical type of stuff in baseball.”

The move is more than a feel-good story for a team based in a military city, said Alderson, who served as the iron-chinned model for a Marine recruitment poster in the 1970s.

“We’re in it for the long haul with him,” Alderson said. “He’s going to have every opportunity to perform. From my standpoint, this had to be a legitimate baseball prospect.”

Brannan was a pitcher and second baseman in high school, but was not much of a prospect when he graduated in May 2003. A few community college coaches invited him to walk on, but none offered scholarships, so Brannan decided to follow the course set by his Marine veteran father, Linwood, who is now a police officer.

He got his first combat experience in Iraq when he was sent to Hitt in February 2004. Enemy fire and roadside bombs killed several friends, he said.

He left Iraq in October 2004 and returned for a second tour in September 2005.

Brannan’s left hand was torn apart two months later as he was preparing his men to go on patrol.

He noticed one man was not carrying a flash-bang grenade, a non-lethal device that is designed to produce disorienting noise and light. Brannan had extras attached to his flak jacket, so he removed one to give to his fellow marine. But the grenade exploded in his hand, ripping off his little finger and nearly severing his ring finger and thumb.

Brannan initially thought the explosion had been caused by enemy mortar fire.

“I had a really bad ringing in my ears, so it was really hard to know what was going on,” he said. “I tried to lift my arm and it was numb and I started going into shock.”

He was taken to military hospitals in Iraq and Germany and eventually to Naval Medical Center San Diego. He has had three operations, seven other medical procedures and months of therapy to regain use of the hand.

His little finger is gone, and the outside edge of his hand is scarred to the wrist. His palm also is scarred where surgeons reattached his ring finger and thumb. His ring finger needed to be pieced together and remains stiff and painful, he said.

The swelling is such that Brannan wears his wedding band on his right hand, but he said he had regained a good amount of strength in his left. During a series of interviews at the Peoria Sports Complex, where the Padres train, Brannan easily held his glove and a full water bottle with the four remaining digits.

He gets by with a standard glove. He places his ring finger in the slot that is intended for the little finger and adjusts the other fingers accordingly, leaving the slot for the index finger empty. The only real trouble is when balls glance off the outside edge of the glove, he said.

Brannan said he felt fortunate to have been given a chance with the Padres.

Immediately after his injury, he said he was distraught. Then he met marines who had far worse injuries.

“I saw a couple of guys who had their legs blown off, 19-year-old kids,” he said. “I stopped feeling sorry for myself after that.

“It was an epiphany telling me, ‘Hey, you’ve got to stop feeling sorry for yourself and make something good out of it.’’”