Scott Cooper is a former Major League Baseball third baseman best remembered for two standout All-Star seasons with the Boston Red Sox in the early 1990s. Over parts of seven big-league seasons between 1990 and 1997, Cooper played for the Red Sox, St. Louis Cardinals, and Kansas City Royals, plus a season in Japan’s top league, compiling a .265 career batting average, 33 home runs, and 211 RBI. This is the full story of his path from a St. Louis high school phenom to a big-league All-Star, and what he’s done since retiring as a player.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Scott Kendrick Cooper |
| Born | October 13, 1967, in St. Louis, Missouri |
| Position | Third baseman (also played first base) |
| Bats / Throws | Left / Right |
| Height / Weight | 6’3″, 200 lbs |
| MLB debut | September 5, 1990, Boston Red Sox |
| Final MLB game | September 28, 1997, Kansas City Royals |
| Teams | Boston Red Sox (1990–1994), St. Louis Cardinals (1995), Seibu Lions/NPB (1996), Kansas City Royals (1997) |
| Career stats | .265 AVG, 478 H, 33 HR, 211 RBI |
| Honors | 2× MLB All-Star (1993, 1994) |
| Drafted | 3rd round, 1986 MLB Draft, by the Boston Red Sox |
Early Life: A Two-Way Star in St. Louis
Cooper was born on October 13, 1967, in St. Louis, Missouri — coincidentally, one day after the Cardinals beat the Red Sox in Game Seven of the 1967 World Series, the very two franchises for which he’d later play. His father, Rick, built a hazardous-waste hauling business from the ground up, starting as a garbage collector, and his mother, Kathy, ran the household and later the company’s administrative side. Scott was the oldest of four athletic siblings.
He attended Pattonville High School in Maryland Heights, a St. Louis suburb, where the baseball team won the 1986 Missouri state championship. Cooper wasn’t just a hitter in high school — he was a legitimate two-way prospect. As a junior, he was named St. Louis-area player of the year after batting .492 and going 8-1 as a pitcher. By the spring of his senior year, when he signed a letter of intent to play both baseball and football at the University of Arkansas, he was pitching well enough to throw a no-hitter and strike out 42 batters in 22 innings.
The Boston Red Sox took the decision out of his hands, drafting him in the third round of the June 1986 MLB Draft. Cooper gave up his Arkansas scholarship offer and signed as a professional, later saying the choice between pitching and hitting had been close enough that another team, the Los Angeles Dodgers (who picked right after Boston), reportedly would have developed him as a pitcher if they’d landed him instead.
Climbing Boston’s Farm System (1986–1990)
Cooper spent four full seasons working through the Red Sox minor-league chain before sticking in the majors:
- 1986 — Elmira Pioneers (Rookie/Short-Season): Hit .288 with 43 RBI in 51 games in his first taste of pro ball.
- 1987 — Greensboro Hornets (Single-A): Played mostly third base, hit 15 home runs and drove in 63 runs. He even pitched twice — the only time he took the mound professionally — and teammate Curt Schilling reportedly marveled at his 90-plus mph fastball.
- 1988 — Lynchburg Red Sox (Single-A): Broke out with a .298 average, 73 RBI, and a .371 on-base percentage, earning a spot on the Carolina League All-Star team and recognition from Baseball America as one of the league’s top prospects.
- 1989 — New Britain Red Sox (Double-A): Hit .247 with 39 RBI under manager Butch Hobson; scouts around the league were already asking about his availability in trades, with some in the organization viewing him as the eventual successor to All-Star third baseman Wade Boggs.
- 1990 — Pawtucket Red Sox (Triple-A): Hit .266 with 12 home runs and 44 RBI in 124 games, a strong enough season to make him a September call-up target.
MLB Debut and Early Cups of Coffee (1990–1991)
Cooper debuted in the majors on September 5, 1990, pinch-hitting for Carlos Quintana in the ninth inning of a 10-0 loss to the Oakland Athletics. He struck out looking in his only at-bat of the season. He appeared in one more game that September, as a pinch-runner.
His 1991 call-up went considerably better. Recalled again in September after a full season at Pawtucket, Cooper collected his first big-league hit on September 12 at Yankee Stadium — an infield single that took a bad hop past the Yankees’ rookie third baseman. Over 14 games and 35 at-bats that September, Cooper hit an eye-catching .457 with seven RBI, including a three-RBI game against Detroit on October 3 in which he singled, scored, and tripled in the same contest.
1992: Breaking Through Behind Wade Boggs
Cooper made the Opening Day roster in 1992, but the presence of Wade Boggs at third base meant most of his playing time came at first base instead. He appeared in 123 games — 62 at first base, 47 at third — and posted a team-best .276 batting average with 5 home runs and 33 RBI. His first career home run didn’t arrive until his 112th major-league game, a solo shot off Oakland’s Dave Stewart on September 4, 1992. Defensively, he was excellent at first base, committing just five errors all season for a .990 fielding percentage.
1993: First All-Star Selection
When Boggs departed for the New York Yankees as a free agent after the 1992 season, the Red Sox’s third-base job became Cooper’s to lose — and he didn’t lose it. He played in 156 of Boston’s 162 games in 1993, hit .279, and drove in 63 runs. That production, on a team that finished fifth in the AL East, was enough to make him the Red Sox’s sole representative at the 1993 All-Star Game. His fielding at third base was still a work in progress; he committed 24 errors on the year, but he continued to put in extra defensive work with manager (and former third baseman) Butch Hobson.
1994: Career-Best Season, a Cycle, and a Season-Ending Injury
Cooper’s best all-around season came in the strike-shortened 1994 campaign. In 104 games he hit .282 — third-best on the team — with a career-high 13 home runs and 53 RBI, second on the Red Sox only to Mo Vaughn. He earned his second consecutive All-Star selection and, at the All-Star Game in Pittsburgh, doubled in a run and later scored to help tie the National League late in the game.
The signature moment of his career came on April 12, 1994, in a 22-11 rout of the Kansas City Royals: Cooper hit for the cycle, driving in five runs along the way.
He doubled and later tripled off starter Kevin Appier (getting thrown out trying to stretch the triple into an inside-the-park homer, though the hit still counted), homered later in the game, and finally added the single — off a position player pressed into pitching duty — to complete the cycle in the ninth inning. It made him just the 18th player in Red Sox history to hit for the cycle and the first since Mike Greenwell in 1988. He also hit a grand slam the following week and drove in 23 runs in April alone.
The 1994 players’ strike cut the season short in August, and Cooper’s year had already ended a week earlier: he tore cartilage in his right shoulder, reportedly from diving for a ball in early July, and had season-ending surgery in late August.
1995: Traded to His Hometown Cardinals
Boston traded Cooper to the St. Louis Cardinals just days into the 1995 season, in a four-player deal that also sent pitcher Cory Bailey to St. Louis in exchange for pitcher Rheal Cormier and outfielder Mark Whiten. For Cooper, it meant suiting up for the team he’d rooted for as a kid growing up in the St. Louis area. He made an immediate impact, driving in four runs in a walk-off win in his Cardinals debut on Opening Night. But the season as a whole was a disappointment: hampered by a recurring hamstring injury, Cooper’s average sank to .230 across 118 games, though he still drove in 40 runs.
1996: A Season in Japan with the Seibu Lions
Cooper became a free agent after the 1995 season but found little interest from MLB clubs. He instead signed with the Seibu Lions of Nippon Professional Baseball for a reported salary north of $2 million — well above what he could have commanded stateside. He appeared in 81 of the team’s 126 games, hitting .243 with 7 home runs and 27 RBI, and was released near the end of the season. He later said the experience taught him a lot but that facing Japanese pitching’s control and craftiness every day was a genuine adjustment.
1997: One Last MLB Season with Kansas City
Cooper signed a minor-league deal with the Kansas City Royals in December 1996 and made the club out of spring training. It proved to be his last MLB season: he appeared in 75 games — often as a late-inning defensive replacement or pinch-hitter — batting .201 with 3 home runs and 15 RBI. His biggest hit of the year was a walk-off single in the 14th inning on July 14 that snapped a 12-game Kansas City losing streak. A torn left hamstring cost him five weeks of the season.
He became a free agent again after 1997 and signed a minor-league contract with the Texas Rangers, but a lingering hamstring problem kept him from making the team, and he never appeared in a game for Texas. That off-season marked the effective end of his playing career.
Career Statistics
| Season | Team | G | AVG | HR | RBI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Boston Red Sox | 2 | .000 | 0 | 0 |
| 1991 | Boston Red Sox | 14 | .457 | 0 | 7 |
| 1992 | Boston Red Sox | 123 | .276 | 5 | 33 |
| 1993 | Boston Red Sox | 156 | .279 | 6 | 63 |
| 1994 | Boston Red Sox | 104 | .282 | 13 | 53 |
| 1995 | St. Louis Cardinals | 118 | .230 | 6 | 40 |
| 1996 | Seibu Lions (NPB) | 81 | .243 | 7 | 27 |
| 1997 | Kansas City Royals | 75 | .201 | 3 | 15 |
| MLB Career Total | 592 | .265 | 33 | 211 |
(NPB stats are separate from MLB totals.)
Life After Baseball
Cooper stepped away from the game for a couple of years after his final comeback attempt fell through, spending time hunting and fishing before returning to baseball on the instructional side. He became head baseball coach at Fontbonne University in Clayton, Missouri, a position he held for five years, and was named St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Coach of the Year in 2003.
He later shifted into private hitting instruction, co-owning a training facility in the St. Louis area and working with the nonprofit St. Louis Gamers program, which coaches players ages 10 to 18, alongside fellow former big leaguer Matt Whiteside. He also does clinics and camps in partnership with the Cardinals organization. Cooper is divorced and has two sons, Camden and Chase.
Looking back on his career, Cooper has pointed to hitting for the cycle, his grand slam off Bob Welch, and getting encouragement from veterans like Roger Clemens and Jack Clark during his rookie years as his most treasured memories.
Legacy: How Good Was Scott Cooper, Really?
Cooper was never a superstar, and he’d likely be the first to say so. But for two seasons — 1993 and 1994 — he was a legitimately above-average major-league third baseman and the best player on a Red Sox roster in transition after Wade Boggs left for New York. A .265 career hitter with modest power, he’s not a Hall of Fame candidate, but two All-Star selections, a rare cycle, and a productive age-25/26 peak make him more than a footnote in Red Sox history from that era.
Frequently Asked Questions
What team did Scott Cooper play for the longest? The Boston Red Sox, from 1990 through 1994 — the seasons that included both of his All-Star selections.
Did Scott Cooper ever win a World Series? No. He never appeared in the postseason during his MLB career.
Why did Scott Cooper play in Japan? After a disappointing 1995 season with the St. Louis Cardinals, he found little interest from MLB teams and signed with the Seibu Lions of Nippon Professional Baseball for the 1996 season, reportedly for more money than he could have earned in the majors that year.
What is Scott Cooper doing now? He works as a private hitting instructor in the St. Louis area, previously served as head baseball coach at Fontbonne University, and is involved with the St. Louis Gamers youth baseball program.
Did Scott Cooper ever hit for the cycle? Yes — on April 12, 1994, against the Kansas City Royals, becoming the 18th player in Red Sox history to do so.
Sources: Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) Bio Project, Baseball-Reference.com, Wikipedia.
