Four consecutive complete games. In the 2005 American League Championship Series, White Sox starters Mark Buehrle, Jon Garland, Freddy Garcia and Jose Contreras each finished what they started against the Angels, the first rotation to do that in a single postseason since the 1928 New York Yankees, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Behind that staff stood pitching coach Don Cooper, who died September 22, 2026, at his home in Brentwood, Tennessee, at 70.

That October, the White Sox swept the Houston Astros to win their first World Series title since 1917, according to Yahoo Sports, with a pitching staff that carried a 2.55 ERA through the playoffs, according to CBS News Chicago. Cooper had been the club's major league pitching coach for barely three years by then, promoted in July 2002 after fourteen seasons developing arms in the White Sox farm system.

Donald James Cooper was born January 15, 1956, in New York City and attended Monsignor McClancy High School in Queens before pitching at the New York Institute of Technology, where he was named the East Coast Athletic Conference's Player of the Year in 1978, according to the Society for American Baseball Research. The Yankees drafted him that year in the 17th round, and the Twins later added him in the Rule 5 draft. Across eight different minor league organizations he pitched in 289 games and won 65, including a no-hitter for Class-A Fort Lauderdale in 1978 and International League Reliever of the Year honors with Triple-A Syracuse in 1983. On September 2, 1981, he earned the only win of his four-season major league career, closing out a game against the Yankees by getting the final five outs. He pitched for the Twins, Blue Jays and Yankees between 1981 and 1985, finishing 1-6 with a 5.27 ERA in 44 games.

Cooper joined the White Sox organization as a minor league pitching coach in 1988 and spent the next three decades teaching pitchers how to get outs. He credited his own approach to mentors including pitching instructors Sammy Ellis, Pat Dobson, Hoyt Wilhelm and Johnny Podres, and he taught himself Spanish so he could work directly with the organization's Latin American pitchers, a group that would eventually include Jose Contreras and Esteban Loaiza. Under his tutelage, Mark Buehrle threw a no-hitter in 2007 and a perfect game in 2009, Philip Humber threw a perfect game in 2012, and Lucas Giolito no-hit the Pirates in 2020. The Society for American Baseball Research credits him with developing eleven All-Star pitchers during that stretch, from Loaiza, runner-up for the 2003 AL Cy Young Award, to Chris Sale, who made five consecutive All-Star teams under his watch.

Cooper described the appeal of the job in his own words. "I love being part of young people's lives, helping them achieve the dreams they're dreaming about," he said, reflecting on his years in player development. Away from the mound, he was known among friends as a devoted fan of crossword puzzles and the quiz show Jeopardy.

His duties in Chicago were not limited to pitching. When manager Ozzie Guillen stepped down after the 2011 season to take over the Miami Marlins, Cooper filled in as interim manager for the final two games, splitting them 1-1 before returning to the coach's box the following spring. When the White Sox let him go after the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, he had been the longest-tenured pitching coach in the major leagues and the last member of the 2005 staff still with the club. Rick Hahn, the team's general manager at the time, said, "I would be remiss as the general manager, this organization would be remiss and White Sox fans would be remiss if we didn't take a moment to appreciate the contribution that Don Cooper has made to this organization over the last three decades."

Word of his death spread fastest among the players and coaches who had passed through his bullpen. Guillen wrote on social media, "My career wouldn't have been the same without Don Cooper. Coop was one of a kind and taught me so much about pitchers, pitching, and their mindset," according to Heavy.com. Joey Cora, who coached alongside Cooper on that 2005 staff, called him "not only a great coach, a great Person," adding that "all he wanted to do in life was to help people." Cooper's own family remembered him in different terms: "His fierce passion for baseball, and the coaches and players around him, brought him a life filled with great pride, stories, and accomplishments. This passion was superseded only by his unbreakable love for his family and friends."

What Cooper left in Chicago was not one game but a generation of arms. Two perfect games, two additional no-hitters, and eleven All-Star pitchers were developed by his program between 2002 and 2020. The rotation that finished four straight postseason complete games in 2005 remains the last of its kind in the major leagues, a mark set by a coach who taught a clubhouse full of pitchers, in English and in Spanish, how to throw strikes.