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Sweet-swingin' sexagenarian
Where the green Lovettsville hills slope toward the Potomac, between the Coopers' home and where Moonie the horse lives, stands a 70-foot batting cage.
A dirty baseball follows its path down the machine's barrel, waiting its turn. Garland Cooper strides forward, hands back, eyes widening. The ball is lofted, and Cooper brings the bat head around squarely, his weight shifting forward but his body never off balance, hands finishing high like a golfer. The ball whistles into the far netting, another solid line drive.
He repeats the drill, 40 swings left-handed and 40 right-handed, readying himself for another ballgame and, most likely, another couple of hits.
Never mind that Cooper, 62, just became eligible for Social Security and is nearly a decade older than his oldest teammate. He has a flat stomach and strong wrists, carrying 170 pounds on a frame that was 6 feet tall when he had hair. He plays four or more games a week on diamonds with much younger men, and still holds his own on the base paths. He has played organized baseball for 54 consecutive summers.
And the lifelong Lovettsville resident is a .400 hitter in three leagues, the 25-plus, 35-plus and 45-plus denominations of the Men's Senior Baseball League (MSBL).
"I look young, don't I?" Cooper asks rhetorically. "All I've done is play baseball."
On grandfather's farm
Cooper started young, as a lefty-throwing, righty-hitting member of the Brunswick (Md.) Little League. Hours spent practicing on his grandfather's sprawling Lovettsville farm engendered a passion for the game, especially the part that involves sending a spheroid flying.
"I still like to hit," Cooper says, his eyes twinkling with delight at the notion of taking a cut and hearing the crack.
After an All-Star career in Little League, Cooper graduated to Babe Ruth ball at age 13, then toiled for Taylorstown in the old Loudoun County League, an amateur men's circuit, as a 16-year-old.
He then played ball at Loudoun Valley High School, also suiting up for the Lovettsville Rebels of the Tri-County League and, later, Brunswick's American Legion ballclub.
"We had some really good teams over there [in Brunswick]," Cooper remembers.
Cooper was presented with Loudoun Valley's first Senior Athlete of the Year award in 1964, the same honor won by his daughter Jennifer, now the gymnastics coach at Valley, exactly 30 years later.
He went on to Lynchburg College, becoming a three-year starter and an all-conference centerfielder while learning to switch-hit on the advice of Lynchburg coach Larry Dovel. Between college seasons, Cooper refined his skills with the Charlottesville Hornets in the highly regarded Valley League, hitting over .300 against pitching prospects bound for professional ranks. Cooper himself felt interest from the same Cincinnati Reds organization that once signed Dovel.
After earning a degree in education, Cooper embarked on what would become a distinguished 38-year career as an educator in Loudoun and Fairfax counties, teaching science and being an administrator. He owns the distinction of being the first baseball coach in the history of Broad Run High School, a post he held for three springs before taking the same position at Loudoun County High School for six years.
In 1975, he served on the Vienna Mets' staff in the Clark Griffith League, and through much of the 1980s, he played and managed for Lovettsville in the Loudoun County and Blue Ridge leagues, earning a pair of championships.
But it is as a player that Cooper derives his greatest baseball joy.
No slowdown in sight
Every contest in each league sees Cooper's name slotted into the lineup's No. 2 hole, a spot generally reserved for adroit contact hitters. Cooper rarely strikes out, reporting that he can count his average number of strikeouts per season on one hand. His disdain for the notion of striking out is evident in the way he utters the phrase.
He still hits the occasional long ball, as he relies upon healthy legs to power his swing. His eyes, though, aren't precisely as they used to be.
"I don't see the rotation of the pitch as easily, especially if the lights aren't very good," he says, thoroughly detailing the modes of spin used to instantaneously recognize the variety of pitch. "If you don't see the spin on the ball, it's hard to hit."
Cooper, who had labrum surgery on his throwing shoulder two years ago, is to be reckoned with on the mound as well, as he proudly points out that he has been credited with pitching victories in six different decades. His personal record for strikeouts in a nine-inning game is 20, when his Rebels defeated Middleburg 7-0 during a 1969 game. One of his first post-surgery mound appearances a few weeks ago didn't quite feel right to him, but he is aiming to be back atop the hill in 2010 to collect another win in another decade.
It is at the plate, though, that Cooper has developed remarkable consistency, having failed to hit under .400 in more than a decade, using both wood and aluminum bats. After learning the game with a wood stick, Cooper spent 30 years following the Loudoun County League's regulations and swinging aluminum before reincorporating wood back into his repertoire a few seasons ago. He favors a maple model by X-Bat, very much like the variety of bat now under scrutiny for susceptibility to dangerous breakage.
"The companies that know how to make maple bats don't have them break," Cooper says. "I've been using this company's bats for three or four years, and I haven't broken one yet."
Cooper's baseball career has taken him to several exquisite ballparks, including some professional spring training facilities in the Phoenix area. He numbers Bethesda's Shirley Povich Field and Fireman's Field in Purcellville among the nicest parks in which he has the pleasure of getting base hits.
Of course, behind every baseball-mad man is an indulgent and considerate woman. Martha Cooper has been Garland's wife since 1971.
"My wife knew when we got married that I really liked playing baseball," he understates. "You have to have a wife who's supportive like mine."
Cooper returned that support with jewelry in 2000. In his most satisfying baseball moment, his Washington Titans swept through the 50-plus Central Division of the Men's Senior Baseball League World Series in Tempe, Ariz., culminating in a 16-3 romp of Fresno in the deciding game. Cooper, who contributed a 3-for-4 effort out of the leadoff spot, had the championship ring -- the third he's garnered in his baseball career -- fitted for Martha's finger, engraved with her name.
"She goes to most of my games still," Cooper relates with appreciation and a slight note of incredulity.
When he's not playing, he's often watching others play. He has season tickets to the Washington Nationals.
"This area here," Cooper says, gesticulating toward the rolling hills along the Potomac, "was a huge Senators fanbase. When [Robert] Short took that team out of here, that broke everybody's heart."
Unlike many in the metro area, Cooper's fandom never migrated to the Orioles. He gleefully says that he never gave a dollar to the Baltimore franchise until Major League Baseball returned to the District, when he and his son traveled to a Nationals/Orioles game in 2007.
"I love them," says Cooper about the current Washington franchise, before launching into an intricate discussion of the Nats' roster.
This October, Cooper plans on heading down to Lynchburg to measure himself against his alma mater's varsity squad, as baseball alumni take on the modern-day Hornets, including former Broad Run Spartan Joe Devlin. Five years ago in the same game, Cooper pitched an inning versus the kids, allowing one unearned run.
"I'm not just out there to play,” Cooper states. “I'm out there to play well."
It would seem, then, that the batting cage between the house and the barn will remain busy for seasons to come.
Its good to see Garland is still out there giving it his all. "Mister" Cooper was my 8th grade science teacher at BRHS (back before we had Middle Schools in Loudoun) and I remember hearing many stories about baseball. Not only is he a great athlete, he was an outstanding teacher. Definitely one of the best -- if not THE best -- I ever had. Swing away, Garland!
Posted by outtathere
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