NewsLooper wins day after attending funeral
Pitcher's grandfather a big part of his baseball career
By Adam McCalvy / MLB.com
05/30/09 12:06 AM ET
MILWAUKEE -- The Brewers' Braden Looper pitched seven innings for a win on Friday, and he was working with a heavy heart. He beat the Reds at Miller Park a day after burying his grandfather, the man who gave him his middle name and his first baseball glove. LaVerne Looper was 84. "He was kind of like my father," Looper said after the Brewers' 3-2 win. "He's the one who got me started in baseball, so it was good to win the game today." He needed some help. Looper lost a 2-0 lead in the fourth inning when he issued a two-out walk to Ryan Hanigan, an in-game replacement for the injured Joey Votto, and Ramon Hernandez followed with a two-run home run. Corey Hart reclaimed the lead for Milwaukee in the bottom of the seventh inning with a home run. Looper called Hart's homer "a gift." "I had to bury my grandfather yesterday, spoke at the funeral, and today to get the win, it's special for me," Looper said. "It's one of the games I'll remember for a long time, just because of that." Looper found out the morning after his previous start in Minnesota that his grandfather had passed away. He remained with the team until Wednesday, when he chartered a flight home to southwest Oklahoma. Looper was born in Mangum; his grandfather lived in Granite. The Looper clan returned to Milwaukee on Wednesday night. The family includes wife Shannon, daughter Toryn, son Braden and a newly adopted little girl from China named Gracyn. "I was thinking of him out there on the mound," Shannon Looper said outside the Brewers clubhouse. "I'm sure his grandpa was watching, too." Braden Looper's parents divorced when he was an infant, so his grandfather played a significant role in raising him. "My granddad kind of stepped in," Looper said. "He was the one who gave me my first real glove. I actually said this at the funeral yesterday, I remember the Wilson A2000 that he gave me. When I was about 14 or 15, he took me to a pitching camp at Wichita State. If it hadn't been for that, they wouldn't have known about me and I wouldn't have gone to school there." He was the first-round pick of the Cardinals, third overall, out of Wichita State in 1996. "He was extremely influential in my life," Looper said, "so that makes this one extremely special. Hoffy [Brewers closer Trevor Hoffman] came over and gave me the game ball because he knew what I had been through." Hart knew only that Looper had tended to some family business. But he knew the feeling, having lost his grandmother near the end of the 2005 season. "It's great any time a pitcher goes out and gets you a win, especially on top of what happened," Hart said.
Adam McCalvy is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
