Gerson Adamus drew a one-out walk in the first inning.
“Now here comes one of the finest athletes in this year’s Little League World Series: Jonathan Schoop,” play-by-play broadcaster Brent Musburger said on the ABC telecast. “He’s a slick fielding shortstop, and he can also do some damage with the bat.”
Seventeen years later, this memory reminds Schoop why he loves baseball and how he built an established MLB career, which has him playing for the Detroit Tigers in his ninth big-league season. He remembers many intense matchups with Jurickson Profar on the fields back home in Willemstad, Curaçao. They considered themselves heated rivals.
But in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, the 12-year-olds were teammates for Pabao Little League, representing their country on its biggest stage yet.
“He’s my friend,” Schoop, now 29, said of the current San Diego Padre, sitting on the backstop at Comerica Park. “We workout together. We play Playstation together. He’s one of my close friends. We’re still in touch every day. I was really happy for him when he got his contract. I know he was happy for me that I got a contract (extension).”
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The 2004 Little League World Series championship put Schoop in the batter’s box with one out in the first inning. He was up against Jordan Brower, the starting pitcher for Thousand Oaks, California, representing the United States. There were 34,550 fans in attendance.
Before coming to Williamsport, Schoop hadn’t played in front of more than 200 people. He believes what happened that day put Curaçao “on the map.”
Schoop, at 5 feet 3 and 102 pounds, didn’t even think about swinging at the first two pitches. The first offering bounced for a wild pitch, advancing Adamus into scoring position. Ahead 2-0 in the count, though, Schoop got a pitch to hit and drove the ball through the hole and into left field, giving Curaçao a 1-0 lead. He reached first base and adjusted his chin-strapped helmet.
“I’m a winner,” said Schoop, who finished that game 2-for-3 with one RBI. “Whatever I do, I try to win. I’m a competitive guy. Like I’ve said a lot of times, you go 1-for-4 and you win, that’s better than going 4-for-4 and your team loses. You want to do good for yourself, but it’s a team game. If you do good and the team lost, there’s no point. If you do good and win, it’s more fun. I like to win, man.”
On Aug. 29, 2004, Schoop learned what it took to win.
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‘I’ve passed through this already’
Profar, now in his eighth MLB season, stepped to the plate with two outs in the first inning. He was hitting fifth in the batting order, two spots below Schoop. Attacking Brower early on, Profar fouled the first pitch to the backstop. Schoop then stole second base on a ball in the dirt, but the next pitch gave him no reason to sprint.
Profar crushed a hanging breaking ball over the wall in left-center field, putting Curaçao ahead 3-0.
Entering the sixth inning, Curaçao starting pitcher Carlos Pineda had kept Thousand Oaks scoreless. He allowed one hit and registered 11 strikeouts, punching out seven batters in a row at one point. The Associated Press wrote, “It was almost a complete collapse for a California team that many expected to dominate.” Pineda needed three more outs for a complete game shutout.
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On the first pitch of the sixth, Profar made a diving stop at third base. He threw the ball from his knees to outstretched first baseman Christopher Garia for the first out. But the next batter cranked a double off the right fielder’s glove. Pinch-hitter Adam Justiniano came to the place. His favorite player? Vladimir Guerrero Sr. (At the time, Vladimir Jr., who has 36 homers in 2021, was only 5 years old.) Justiniano did his best Vlad impression, crushing a pitch to straightaway center to trim Curaçao’s lead to 5-2.
That was it for Pineda.
Curaçao moved Schoop from shortstop to the mound in search of the final two outs.
His 0-2 pitch to the first batter he faced was lined to Profar, whose quick first step saved a single, for the second out in the sixth. Facing California’s John Lister, Schoop immediately tossed two strikes. (The right-hander ended up throwing 11 of 15 pitches for strikes.) One strike away from the winning the championship, he missed just outside for a 1-2 count.
Lister made contact with the next pitch; a defensive error added pressure. Cody Thompson then put runners on first and third base with his two-strike single to right field. The fans in Williamsport erupted in support of Thousand Oaks.
“They were all screaming together, ‘USA! USA! USA!'” Schoop said. “Man, I was so nervous. I couldn’t even feel my hand. I was so nervous, but I got through it. Getting to the big leagues, I told people, ‘I’ve passed through this already. When I was 12, I passed through this.’ It helped me grow to be here.”
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When James Brady bounced a ground ball to the right side of the infield, Schoop forgot to cover first base. He just tossed his arms in the air. Garia fielded the ball and beat Brady to first base, though, securing Curaçao’s first-ever Little League World Series title and the first for any team from the Caribbean. Schoop crossed the first-base line and celebrated with his teammates.
Notching the save, Schoop found motivation in his nerves.
“I was nervous, but like, ‘I’m going to get it done,'” Schoop said, pushing out his chest to emulate the confidence he discovered within himself. “And then I found out I’m a fighter, I’m a winner. I like those situations. I like when fans are screaming.”
‘We have a lot of tourists now’
An island off the coast of Venezuela, Curaçao is about 171 square miles with a population estimated at 155,000 in 2020. (Rhode Island, for context, is roughly 1,034 square miles and has over 1 million people.) Back in 2004, only five players from Curaçao had made their MLB debuts. (The best-known? Andruw Jones.)
“That meant a lot,” Schoop said. “We’re a small country. You don’t even see us on the map, you see a dot. To win it all, that was a big thing. A lot of people asked, ‘Where is Curaçao?’ A lot of people went there after that. We have a lot of tourists now. People looked us up because of the Little League team. I think it put us on the map.
“It was one of the best things that happened to me. When we got in Curaçao, I got one year of McDonald’s for free. It was amazing. We got the coupons, but I finished them in three months. They waited for us with a parade. It was so fun.”
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Schoop recently signed a two-year contract extension with the Tigers, which could keep him in Detroit through the 2023 season. He is hitting .286 with 18 home runs and 70 RBIs across 125 games this season.
Each year, Schoop makes sure to watch the Little League World Series.
This time, he was amazed by South Dakota left-hander Gavin Weir, compared frequently to Boston Red Sox lefty Chris Sale. Weir pitched 43.2 scoreless innings, struck out 114 of 132 batters faced, allowed just one hit and six walks and produced a pair of no-hitters during his team’s run to the Tom Seaver bracket title game in the 2021 LLWS.
“He’s one of the best pitchers I’ve seen,” Schoop said.
What Schoop learned 17 years ago set the foundation for his baseball career, taking him from the Baltimore Orioles (2013-18) to the Milwaukee Brewers (2018) to the Minnesota Twins (2019) and to the Tigers since 2020.
And whenever Schoop needs to remember the reason why he plays baseball, he rewatches one of the best moments of his life.
The 2004 Little League World Series.
“Sometimes you got to go back,” Schoop said. “I’m trying to play like I’m in Little Leagues because it’s fun. Sometimes here, we put too much pressure on ourselves. In Little Leagues, you remember those moments. Regardless if you win or lose, we’re still going to have fun and give our max. That’s what I’m trying to do every day.
“Since I’ve got in the big leagues, if things go wrong with me, I’m just going to sit down and relax and tell myself, ‘Go back to Little Leagues. Just go out there, give it my all and have fun.’ It’s helped me throughout my career.”
Evan Petzold is a sports reporter at the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold. Read more on the Detroit Tigers and sign up for our Tigers newsletter.