This is an awesome story. Marine Cpl. Cooper Brannan was injured while serving in Iraq. He lost part of his non-pitching hand, but he’s recovered now and his fast ball is reported to be 94 mph.
Cooper Brannan is a decorated Marine with two tours of duty in Iraq behind him.
Now he can say he’s a professional baseball player with a potential of playing in the Major Leagues in front of him.
The Padres announced Tuesday that they have agreed to terms on a Minor League contract with Brannan, a 22-year-old right-hander who as a Marine corporal was wounded in Iraq but came back to the U.S. to find his dream of playing baseball was still very much alive.
That’s a nice feel good story. We have/will have many thousands of service personnel with injuries, both physical and other, who will each need their success story if they are to readjust to civilian/noncombatant life. I just hope we as a country will help to provide them with this. Our billions of dollars spent to occupy another country should be balanced by the amount we spend on our veteran’s administration/benefits. Not everyone who sacrifices for us can be a star athlete when their service is over.
[quote]jmwintenn wrote:
im glad one of them caught a break,so many come back and cant readjust to “regualr” life after seeing some of the crap over there[/quote]
This guy is REALLY lucky. The purple heart isn’t one of his listed medals and the grenade was flash bang, so I assume the injury was unintentional friendly.
It’s good to see something extraordinarily good happen for one of our servicemen. I hope he gets to the majors, especially since he plays for my team.
[quote]jmwintenn wrote:
im glad one of them caught a break,so many come back and cant readjust to “regualr” life after seeing some of the crap over there[/quote]
Well, I don’t consider major league baseball as “regular” life! Those guys make a fair wad of dough.
If I remember correctly, minor league contracts are in the 20-40 k range.
I’m not saying they don’t earn it. It takes considerable skill to play the majors. They make the owners a ton of money.