Featured Jack Cooney 1914 Louisville Slugger Mini-Bat

Discussion in 'Antique Discussion' started by wlwhittier, Jul 12, 2024.

  1. wlwhittier

    wlwhittier Well-Known Member

    Jack (John R.) played for the Lincoln Nebraska Tigers as a pitcher, circa 1914. This bat can't be anywhere near contemporary to his time, an' I notice that many listed older mini-bats are only 14" long; this one is 16"; for that difference I suspect it to be either older than the 14" ones (less wood, for economy?) or newer (to differentiate them from the 14" originals?).
    But I'm majorly ignorant about things Baseball, so am hoping some of y'all will be able to offer wisdom about this beauty. It looks like it was made yesterday; the finish is flawless, the gold is embossed, not surface-printed, an' is also without blemish. The bat was turned from perfectly straight-grained wood, of a specie unknown to me. A display-gem, which I'm gonna list on eBay.
    Thanks for lookin'!

    P1410889.jpeg P1410888.jpeg P1410887.jpeg P1410886.jpeg P1410892.jpeg P1410891.jpeg P1410890.jpeg
     
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  2. Kronos

    Kronos Well-Known Member

  3. wlwhittier

    wlwhittier Well-Known Member

    Perfect...Thanks, Kronos!
    I gotta wonder if the '48 NL Braves fellow was the same Jack Cooney; 34 years later! That's a long time to be an active player, methinks.
     
  4. komokwa

    komokwa The Truth is out there...!

    bats were much smaller back then.......... or so they say...:playful::playful::playful::jawdrop:
     
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  5. BaseballGames

    BaseballGames Well-Known Member

    A curious thing, this, in many ways.
    A single-signature Jack Cooney souvenir mini-bat is pretty odd to begin with. That Jack Cooney (full props to anyone good enough to play pro ball at all) was kind of a wash-out at even low-level minor-league ball in his brief career 110 years ago.
    https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=cooney001j--

    Johnny Cooney, a pretty good major-leaguer from the early 1920s into the mid-'40s -- and a totally different player than Jack -- had retired as a player and was "merely" one of the coaches for the '48 Braves. Why the auction reported on Worthpoint included his name as (presumably) a selling point is a mystery in itself, when that team had so many better (and better known) players who could have been mentioned (Spahn and Sain, yes, but several other genuine stars whose names surely appear elsewhere on that bat). Johnny's stats here:
    https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/coonejo01.shtml
    Anyway, this Cooney seems never to have been known as "Jack" nor signed his name that way.

    We've seen souvenir mini-bats in many sizes produced over a great many years, so we think (souvenir mini-bats not our specialty) the 16-inch, 14-inch size tells us nothing. More expert opinions may disagree.

    Those experts will best be found in the Net54 Baseball "Memorabilia" section, here:
    https://www.net54baseball.com/forumdisplay.php?f=5
    Register there (it's free) and post your questions to that crowd. The most telling evidence may be the details of the Louisville Slugger logo, which has changed subtly many times over many years. That could offer a more narrow window for an estimated date of production. Perhaps someone there might even know the story behind your item.
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2024
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