During the release of a preliminary roster of the Swedish Baseball World Cup team, the Swedish Baseball and Softball Federation also announced that the former Major League pitcher and two-time World Series winner Dennis Cook will serve as pitching coach for the squad during the tournament in September.
Dennis Cook, whose grandmother is Swedish, felt that he wanted to pitch in for Swedish baseball and contacted the federation a while ago. The GM of Team Sweden, Ulf Steinvall, jumped at the opportunity and after a few meetings, Dennis attended the training camp in Florida for Team Sweden in May 2009.
Cook was born on October 4th, 1962 in LaMarque, Texas, attended University of Texas in Austin and was selected by the San Francisco Giants in the 18th round of the 1985 amateur draft. He reached the Majors in 1988 with the same club and spent a total of 15 seasons in the big leagues, winning the World Series with the Florida Marlins in 1997. Afterwards Cook lost with the New York Mets in the so-called Subway Series in 2000 and also was a member of the 2002 winner Los Angeles Angels, although he wasn’t on their postseason roster. In 665 games (71 starts) Cook had a record of 64-46 with an ERA of 3.91. His experience certainly will help the Swedish pitching staff, not only in the World Cup, but also for the future.
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May 15, 2010 | 1:13 am
[...] started on Wednesday when I threw a 20 pitch bullpen in front of our new National team coaches Dennis Cook and Stephen Labay. They were impressed by my control and the location of my pitches. The thing is [...]