ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Cooper Pratt, the fresh-faced 22-year-old shortstop of the World Series champion Milwaukee Brewers, has enjoyed a meteoric rise during his rookie season.
How meteoric? How about this: On June 14, Pratt was the starting shortstop for the Triple-A Nashville Sounds. Now he's in Cooperstown. Well, at least his bat is, or soon will be.
Coincidentally, it was also originally from there.
Pratt's lumber comes from the Cooperstown Bat Company, headquartered on Main Street, just down the way from the Baseball Hall of Fame. During the offseason, when Pratt was still just a well-regarded minor leaguer, he paid a visit to his bat makers and the Hall as well.
There, Pratt posed for a photo with the Hall of Fame plaque of Robin Yount, the best player in Brewers history and a forerunner to Pratt as the club's starting shortstop. In fact, he was even younger than Pratt when he debuted, breaking into the majors at the tender age of 18.
Fast forward to Tuesday, before Game 4. Josh Rawitch, president of the Hall of Fame, was in St. Petersburg, beginning the annual lookout for World Series relics to take back to Cooperstown.
"Maybe one of your bats will end up back in Cooperstown," Rawitch told Pratt.
That night, Pratt promptly rang out four hits, the last a go-ahead, 12th-inning homer that would have been the World Series winner if not for a bottom-of-the-12th rally by the Tampa Bay Rays to force a Game 5, which Milwaukee won Wednesday to clinch the title. History was in the air: Pratt began the night by getting a signed ball from Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. behind the batting cage and chatting up the legend.
Once the game began, he contributed to Milwaukee's clinching win with two more base hits, giving him six straight altogether. That's the longest consecutive hits streak by a rookie in the history of the World Series.
It's the kind of history the Hall of Fame specializes in.
Later, Pratt went on stage with his teammates for the trophy ceremony, milled about on the field with jubilant loved ones, then disappeared inside Tropicana Field for the team's locker room celebration.
All the while, Rawitch and Hall communications vice president Jon Shestakofsky waited for chances to secure the treasures he needed, even as the Brewers' celebration continued well into the night. Finally Pratt emerged -- with the World Series trophy.
Pratt bolted across the corridor outside of the visitor's clubhouse, raced down the tunnel into the dugout, sprang up the steps onto the field, then proceeded to run along the warning track, holding up the trophy in triumph for the throng of Milwaukee fans still in the stands going crazy. Then he took the trophy back inside and disappeared.
Even as the wait for Pratt continued, one by one the Hall collected its relics. In no particular order, Rawitch and Shestakofsky ended up with:
Manager Pat Murphy's game-worn postseason hoodie
World Series MVP William Contreras' chest protector
Aaron Ashby's glasses
Sal Frelick's Game 2 batting gloves
Christian Yelich's Game 4 jersey
Pitcher Jacob Misiorowski's Game 5 cap
Brice Turang's Game 5 cleats
These artifacts will forever be preserved in Cooperstown and will go on display in the coming weeks in a special exhibit for the World Series champs within the Hall's Autumn Glory exhibit.
Somewhere during this frenzy of collection, Pratt reemerged on the field, hugging still more friends and family and posing for numerous pictures, with a can of Fanta in his hand as he moved from one group to the next. When he finally was free for a moment, Rawitch approached.
Before Rawitch could fully get his request out, Pratt excitedly said, "You can have my bat from tonight!" And so it was. Pratt, or his bat anyway, is headed to Cooperstown, from whence it sprang. It kind of felt like a prophecy fulfilled.
Milwaukee = Cooper's Town. Cooper Pratt knocked three go-ahead hits plus a rookie record six in a row, and he's sending his Cooperstown Bat Company lumber from Games 4 and 5 back to its new forever home. https://t.co/pyonp9oxMC
— National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum ⚾ (@baseballhall) October 29, 2026
"This kid just continues to amaze you," Murphy said before Game 5. Indeed, it has been an amazing rise, from the minors to a starting role on the champions, achieving something some players never achieve -- especially not this quickly in their careers.
"Only took four months," Pratt proudly told a national audience in a postgame on-field interview. He was referring to the title but he might have also referred to his place in Cooperstown, which is incidentally not named after him but a whole different Cooper altogether. At this pace, that may change.
No one has found a place in Cooperstown faster than Cooper Pratt, or his Cooperstown bat, anyway. You get the idea.