I’ve interviewed professional baseball players for more than two decades. There are talented players who, honestly, aren’t that interesting away from the diamond. They’re good ballplayers, and baseball is what they know. There are also very interesting baseball players who aren’t all that talented. Now and then, though, you find yourself in the home team’s dugout at AutoZone Park with a very good baseball player who has a very interesting story to share. Like the Memphis Redbirds’ top hitter this season, outfielder Matt Koperniak.
That story? It began on February 8, 1998, when Koperniak was born in London. (Koperniak played for Great Britain in the 2023 World Baseball Classic.) “My dad was in the military,” explains Koperniak. “He was in Italy for a bit, then England. But I have no memories of that time.” Matt and his family moved back to the States — to Adams, Massachusetts — before his third birthday.
Koperniak played collegiately at Division III Trinity College in Connecticut, part of the New England Small College Athletic Conference. He hit .394 as a junior in 2019, but beating up on the likes of Tufts and Wesleyan doesn’t typically catch the eye of major-league scouts. When the coronavirus pandemic wiped out his senior season, Koperniak received an extra year of eligibility but, having graduated with a degree in biology, he chose to sign as a free agent with the St. Louis Cardinals.
“I’ve always loved baseball,” says Koperniak, “and it’s helped me get places, including a good school. My advisor — agent now — was able to get me into pro ball, so here we are.” He played in a few showcases as well as the New England Collegiate Baseball League, enough to convince a Cardinal scout he was worth that free agent offer.
The Redbirds hosted Memphis Red Sox Night on August 10th, the home team taking the field in commemorative uniforms honoring the Bluff City’s Negro Leagues team of the 1930s and ’40s. Luken Baker (the franchise’s all-time home run leader) and Jordan Walker (the team’s top-ranked prospect) each slammed home runs in a Memphis win over Gwinnett, but by the final out it had become Matt Koperniak Night at AutoZone Park. He drilled a home run, a triple, and a single, falling merely a double shy of hitting for the cycle. It was perfectly Koperniak: Outstanding baseball blended into others’ eye-catching heroics.
“It’s trying to do the little things right,” he emphasizes, “and being a competitor. The Cardinals do a great job of getting us to play well-rounded baseball. Everybody has the same mindset: How can I help win the next game? You gotta stay in attack mode to be productive.”
Koperniak is batting .309 with 17 home runs and leads the International League with 125 hits. He plays both corner outfields with equal grace, always hitting the cutoff man and hardly ever fooled on a ball hit shallow or deep. It’s sound, fundamental baseball, the kind older fans like to describe as “the Cardinal Way.” Koperniak credits current Cardinals Paul Goldschmidt and Brendan Donovan with setting the standard for daily attention to all those “little things” that get a player to the big leagues and, importantly, keep him there.
There has been flux in the Cardinals’ outfield for several years, no player sticking for longer than three or four years. Will Matt Koperniak get a chance to roam that precious green at Busch Stadium? For now, he prepares by staying in what he calls “attack mode” every trip to the plate. And if he does get to St. Louis, Koperniak will become only the 64th NESCAC grad to don a big-league uniform (much fewer with biology degrees). He’s living a distinctive life, writing a unique story, one fundamental act at a time.