CHICAGO — Cooper Brock Davis was destined to be a baseball fan based on his namesakes alone.
His first name is an ode to Cooperstown, New York, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame, where all three Davis family members hold lifetime passes and visit every year. His middle name? Well, that’s an homage to Cardinals icon Lou Brock, of course.
The 9-year-old soon-to-be fourth grader has spent this summer traveling around the country, catching as many baseball games as he can with his parents, Bobby and Kelly. Cooper, like his mom and dad, is a baseball enthusiast and a die-hard Cardinal fan.
When the Davis family embarked on their baseball adventures this summer, they had Fenway Park, Nationals Park, Wrigley Field and Guaranteed Rate Field to cross off Cooper’s bucket list. Plus, there was a return to Busch Stadium as well as a trip to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, for the Little League World Series. Kelly and Bobby visited all 30 parks in one season, in 2012, and they hope Cooper will eventually be able to do the same. The three were simply excited to spend time together as they traveled to each ballpark, mainly by car, from their hometown in Hazle Township, Pennsylvania.
No one — not Kelly, Bobby, or especially Cooper — would have imagined what unfolded next.
Throughout the course of Cooper’s summer vacation, he’s played catch with Adam Wainwright from the stands, twice. He’s met Cardinals bench coach Skip Schumaker as well as first-base coach Stubby Clapp, who invited him to warm up on the infield before batting practice one afternoon at Wrigley Field. Albert Pujols even signed a baseball for him.
But that’s not all Pujols would do for Cooper. The Davis family had seats in the third row behind the Cardinals’ dugout for Wednesday’s game against the Cubs. Cooper brought a sign similar to the one he used to catch Wainwright’s attention earlier in the season. On a sheet of laminated computer paper in red ink, Cooper, who was wearing a Yadier Molina shirsey, typed out “Albert, can we trade jerseys? Go Cardinals!!!!”
He hoped Pujols would notice.
The Davis family ended up without much to cheer for game-wise, as St. Louis lost to the Cubs, 7-1. But as various Cardinal players began to file out of the visiting dugout and down the steps into the clubhouse after the final out, Pujols started to walk over toward Cooper, lifting his game-worn jersey over his head. He slid the jersey under the netting and into the kid’s possession.
No trade necessary. Cooper could have it.
“You see him taking the jersey off, and with it you probably hear me on the video like, ‘Oh my God, this is happening,'” Bobby Davis recalled to The Athletic on Thursday afternoon, when the Davis family returned for the series finale. “We actually have the jersey here, with us.”
Like clockwork, Cooper perked up immediately. “Can I see it again?” he asked, seemingly still in disbelief.
“It’s like one thing on top of another,” Bobby said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen when we go to a stadium with him. I tell him, ‘Don’t expect this at every stadium’ and then this happens?”
Cooper recalls going into shock when Pujols made his way over. His homemade sign wasn’t very big and paled in comparison to the flashy, poster-sized signs that often catch the attention of players on the field. But the format worked for Wainwright on two separate occasions, once in Boston and once in Washington, D.C., so Cooper figured he might as well press his luck.
“My dad got the idea because (Mike) Trout did it a couple years ago, so we made a sign,” Cooper explained. But when he brought his first sign to Fenway Park, the one that read “Adam, can we play catch?” he was discouraged. He didn’t think the Cardinals ace would notice him, as his sign hardly stood out from the gaggle of fans.
“There were people next to us with like, giant, signs,” Cooper said. “And then I had a little piece of paper laminated. But it worked. Twice.”
For the Davis family, the hope was that the sign would go 3 for 3.
“It first started when I’m just holding the sign up,” Cooper said. “And then (Pujols) looked over and he smiled and nodded his head. That’s when I knew it was probably going to happen.”
“It was unbelievable,” Bobby added. “We did get good seats for his first time here. Albert saw the sign and you could see Albert smiling. He had a tough night that night (1 for 4), but Albert was smiling and he kind of nods and smiles twice, right? At that point, we knew. We could see him taking the jersey off and with it you probably hear me on the video like, ‘Oh my God, this is happening.'”
Cooper wore Pujols’ jersey for the rest of the night. It didn’t matter that it nearly reached his ankles and was nearly double his size.
“(Bobby) said it perfectly. It’s unbelievable,” Kelly Davis said. “You just can’t write it.”
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