Canucks Cook, Granton bring toughness to Glens Falls
Brian Granton (Calgary, Ont.), left and Adam Cook (Cambridge, Ont.) are with the Glens Falls Dragons of the Perfect Game Summer League. Photo: Pete Tobey.
By Pete Tobey
Post*Star
GLENS FALLS — One batting practice session was all Glens Falls Dragons head coach Casey Job needed to see how tough one of his players is.
Adam Cook is from Canada, as is teammate Brian Granton, and both have played hockey in the past.
That shows, said Job.
“The first pitch I threw in batting practice this year to Adam Cook — I drill him in the knee, and he literally does not flinch,” Job said. “He doesn’t blink. It’s like a fly flew on him.
“That describes those guys, they’re just tough guys with hockey personalities,” he added.
The memory brought a chuckle to Cook, a 6-foot-1, 185-pound third baseman from Cambridge, Ont., about a seven-hour drive from Glens Falls.
“He just had a weird look on his face — he was surprised I just stood there and took it,” Cook said. “At my school, Lewis-Clark State, they don’t let us get out of the way of pitches — we get yelled at by coach, pretty much. It was just kind of ingrained in me not to move.”
There’s also that hockey background. Cook, who turns 19 next Saturday, said he played for 10 years. Granton, 20, said he played hockey from the time he was two or three. Neither shies away from contact.
“I was born and raised a hockey player my whole life,” said Granton, a 5-foot-8, 155-pound second baseman from Calgary. “I reached an age where I had to pick a sport, and I chose baseball because I could use it to get an education — not that I couldn’t with hockey, but baseball’s my passion, my love.”
“He kind of plays baseball with a hockey attitude and swagger,” Job said of Granton. “He’s got a little bit of a chip on his shoulder. He’s a smaller guy — he plays fiery, kind of similar to the way I played, where you want to show up the big guys a little.”
Granton is coming off a strong freshman season at Colby Community College in Kansas, where he batted .337 with 39 RBIs, 17 steals and 60 runs scored in 49 games. Cook, who redshirted at Lewis-Clark in Idaho this spring while recovering from a broken right hand, is transferring to Colby CC. Both were recruited for Glens Falls by their coaches in Canada and have spent the entire season with the Dragons.
While Granton and Cook knew each other in high school, playing on the same travel team one summer, they come from different baseball backgrounds. Cook played spring ball at a traditional high school. Granton played for a very strong academy program — the Okotoks Dawgs — near Calgary for three years in high school, where he played year-round and in many travel tournaments.
“We have a nice indoor facility — they have a whole turf infield inside, a bunch of batting cages and a bunch of mounds for pitchers to throw off at each end. It’s a nice setup,” Granton said. “We travel down to the States quite a lot — we’ve won the Arizona Fall Classic once or twice. We usually win when we go down to the States for tournaments.”
Granton has not seen a lot of difference between Canadian and American baseball.
“The main difference is in Canada, it’s more you kind of have to prove yourself, especially the teams I come from — we’re all trying to play down south,” Granton said. “I feel it’s somewhat more competitive.”
Cook said he has noticed more polished players in the States.
“There’s more refined skills,” Cook said. “Back home, you see a lot of guys who have the potential, but they just haven’t gotten the playing time … For me, you see players that get to play all year round when you come down to America, versus in Canada you see guys that play during the summer, and you see the skill difference.”
But while hockey is king in Canada, baseball is growing north of the border.
“There’s lots of ball up there — it’s growing rapidly,” Granton said. “It helps having the (Toronto) Blue Jays (being) so good. ... There’s lots of Canadians playing down south — quite a few from my high school program, a lot of Division I guys. It’s a good program.”
While they haven’t been regular starters, both hope to improve their games over the final three weeks of the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League season, as the Dragons try to fight back into playoff contention.
“We have a good group of guys here, we have a lot of potential,” Granton said. “Skill-wise, we’re very good. I’m having a good time with these guys. The team really came together.”
“It’s a good atmosphere,” Cook said. “I really enjoy it here. I love the area, Lake George — it’s a really nice area.”
Follow Pete Tobey on Twitter @PTobeyPSVarsity and check out his H.S. football blog on poststar.com.
The legendary Greg Brownell, Post*Star sports editor, covered Canadian Baseball Hall of Famer Tom Burgess, managing the 1987 Glens Falls Tigers of the double-A Eastern League. While the team finished 11 games under .500 plenty of players continued on in the game: John Smoltz had a Hall of Fame career with the Atlanta Braves, Chris Hoiles caught with the Baltimore Orioles, Doug Strange played with the Texas Rangers among other teams, Jeff Jones pitched with the Oakland A’s and is now the Tigers pitching coach, and Tim Leiper is coaching first for the Blue Jays. And the man replacing former Burgess as manager was former Stratford Kraven Knit Tom Gamboa, who was coaching with first base for the Kansas City Royals when a father-and-son duo attacked him at Comiskey Park in Chicago;