Growing up in Columbus, Cooper Trinkle often made the 90-minute trek to Cincinnati to watch the Reds and players like Aaron Harang, Corky Miller and Brett Tomko.
On Saturday, Trinkle had a chance to play against those former Reds and several other former Major League Baseball players in the championship game of the Bluegrass World Series at Louisville Slugger Field.
Trinkle went 1 for 5 to lead the Dubois County Bombers to a 6-4 victory against the Louisville Stars. His hit came off Harang in the third inning.
“That was kind of cool because I’ve seen him pitch with the Reds 10 or 20 times at Great American Ball Park,” Trinkle said. “It was really cool to walk into the box and see Corky Miller catching. I watched him play with the Reds many times.”
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Trinkle led off and played second base for the Bombers. One of his more memorable takeaways from Saturday’s game was a back-and-forth he had with the Stars’ Nick Swisher, who played for five major league teams, including twice with the New York Yankees.
Swisher talked a little trash to Trinkle before the game.
“He said something about me not having a hat on during warmups, and I told him I was just showing off my hair,” Trinkle said. “He flew out later in the game, and I said something about him being a little guy, and he came back at me with, ‘I have 250 big-league home runs.'”
The Bluegrass World Series featured eight teams each playing three games, with the two teams with the best records moving on to the championship. The Stars went 3-0, and the Bombers had the best run differential of three 2-1 squads.
Among the eight teams were some summer squads of college players (like the Bombers), plus a couple semipro teams. And there was the Stars teams.
“It was really cool,” Trinkle said. “Honestly, probably the coolest part was getting to talk to those guys when they got on base. They were huge. It was kind of imposing. My last at bat was against Joe Nathan, who is top-10 all-time in career saves, so that was pretty cool.”
For the entire World Series, Trinkle went 5 for 16 with two doubles. He hit .330 with 10 doubles, two home runs, 19 RBIs, 15 stolen bases and 35 runs scored over the entire summer for the Bombers, who went 29-19 while playing in the Ohio Valley League.
An All-State infielder at Columbus North and the 2017 The Republic Baseball Player of the Year, Trinkle spent his freshman season at University of Evansville. He transferred to John A. Logan College, a junior college in Carbondale, Illinois, and moves in there on Saturday.
Trinkle hopes to bounce back to the Division I level next year.
“That’s the plan,” Trinkle said. “John A. Logan does a really good job of getting guys to the D-I level.”
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Name: Cooper Trinkle
High School: Columbus North
College: John A. Logan College
Year: Will be a sophomore
Position: Second base/shortstop
Highlights: Was a two-time All-State player at North and the 2017 The Republic Baseball Player of the Year; played his freshman year of college at University of Evansville
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