When North Vancouver’s Jack DeCooman stepped onto the pitcher’s mound to start a game for Team Canada at the U18 Baseball World Cup, he brought with him a lifetime of experience in the game.
Quite literally a lifetime, in fact.
“When my mom and dad brought me home from the delivery room in New York City, my dad asked my mom when he could play baseball with me,” DeCooman says with a laugh. “I think ever since then, that was really going to be my future playing baseball. That’s where it started.”
The story is far from over, but DeCooman – who also starred for the North Shore Twins during their B.C. Premier Baseball League championship run this season – recently lived the biggest moment of his career so far, helping Canada finish fourth against the best junior players in the world at the U18 World Cup held Sept. 1-10 in Thunder Bay, Ont.
“It was amazing,” he says. “It’s something that I’m going to remember for a long time, pitching in the world baseball championships – it’s something that I’ll never forget.”
DeCooman was born in New York but his time there was brief, as his family moved to Connecticut when he was one and then to North Vancouver when he was 10. Baseball was a constant through it all, says Jack, as he and his father Johnny shared a love of the game, even though they couldn’t agree on which professional team to throw that passion behind.
“He’s a big Yankees fan, and even though I was born in New York I still liked the Red Sox more than the Yankees,” says DeCooman, adding that the MLB rivalry didn’t dampen their passion for the sport. “He gave me a good mindset of wanting to work hard and wanting to have success with baseball.”
DeCooman caught on early with the highly regarded North Shore Twins program, playing one year with the bantam team and two each with the junior and senior squads. This year DeCooman split his time between the senior Twins and the junior national team, but he was there on the mound at the end, inducing a pop fly to earn a save for the Twins in a 4-3 win over the Parksville Royals in the BCPBL championship final. DeCooman was dominant in the playoffs, earning two wins and a save in his three appearances, allowing just two hits and two earned runs in 12.1 innings, striking out 12 while walking five.
“To go out with all the seniors winning a championship like that, it was an amazing experience,” says DeCooman, who was at the centre of the joyous championship mob after the final out of BCPBL final.
DeCooman credits several coaches in the Twins organization with helping him learn to pitch, turning his left-handed, six-foot-five frame into a powerful force on the mound.
“Brooks McNiven and John Haar and Steven Roller really helped me with making me a better pitcher and helping me learn how to face hitters better,” he says. “Especially when I was in my first junior year with Steven Roller, he was my first pitching coach then and really helped me with learning how hitters swing, how you should pitch to them. And I think that’s really helped me ever since. … I’m able to read hitter’s swings and then pitch to them accordingly.”
DeCooman throws two-seamer and four-seamer fastballs, topping out at 89 miles per hour, with a curveball and changeup mixed in.
His talents earned him notice from the national junior team, with head coach Greg Hamilton pushing for DeCooman to apply for a Canadian passport so he could suit up for the squad. The core group of players on the U18 team first got together nearly two years ago to begin preparation for the World Cup. DeCooman remembers what Hamilton told them all at that first meeting.
“He said, ‘Hey guys, look – there’s going to be a group of 20 guys that head out to Thunder Bay, you’re going to be competing for a gold medal and it’s going to be an experience that you’ll never forget.’ And that was definitely something that came true for me.”
DeCooman’s World Cup start came against Australia in the opening round, the team’s fourth game of the tournament. More than 3,000 fans were there, nearly all cheering for Canada.
“Having all the fans in the stands really helped, that really got my energy going,” he says. It helped, too, that the Canadian hitters came out hot, putting up six runs in the first two innings.
“That really helped me with my confidence and I was just able to do my thing and let the defence go to work, says DeCooman.
DeCooman ended up throwing six innings giving up five hits, two walks and two earned runs while striking out three. His next appearance was in relief, as DeCooman came in for a save in a huge playoff game against the powerful Cubans. DeCooman recalls playing an eight-game series in Cuba before the tournament and losing every game except for one. But in the World Cup it was Canada that came out on top 4-2, with DeCooman pitching a scoreless ninth inning to nail down the save and send Canada to the bronze medal game.
That’s where the dream ended, however, as Japan rode timely hitting and a dominant pitching performance from starter Ginji Miura – seven scoreless innings with 12 strikeouts – to make it onto the podium.
DeCooman, however, still came home with some amazing memories. “I’ve never really gotten to play in front of such large crowds before, it was amazing getting to play for your country,” he says. “And coming fourth in the world isn’t too bad I’d say.”
The Mulgrave School grad is now down at the University of Washington set to start his freshman season with the Huskies. He was on the radar for teams in this year’s MLB draft but word got out that he would likely choose the college route so he wasn’t picked. He’ll have another shot at the draft when he turns 21 and he’s hoping he’ll have three years of strong NCAA play under his belt by then.
“Hopefully something will turn up at the draft and then I’ll be able to play professional baseball and have a chance to make it to the Major Leagues,” he said. “That’s my goal.”
