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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;BaseballGames, post: 9843001, member: 7826&quot;]A curious thing, this, in many ways.</p><p>A single-signature Jack Cooney souvenir mini-bat is pretty odd to begin with.&nbsp; 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.</p><p><a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=cooney001j--" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=cooney001j--" rel="nofollow">https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=cooney001j--</a> </p><p><br /></p><p>Johnny Cooney, a pretty good major-leaguer from the early 1920s into the mid-&#039;40s -- and a totally different player than Jack -- had retired as a player and was &quot;merely&quot; one of the coaches for the &#039;48 Braves.&nbsp; 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).&nbsp; Johnny&#039;s stats here:</p><p><a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/coonejo01.shtml" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/coonejo01.shtml" rel="nofollow">https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/coonejo01.shtml</a>&nbsp; </p><p>Anyway, this Cooney seems never to have been known as &quot;Jack&quot; nor signed his name that way.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>We&#039;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.&nbsp; More expert opinions may disagree.</p><p><br /></p><p>Those experts will best be found in the Net54 Baseball &quot;Memorabilia&quot; section, here:</p><p><a href="https://www.net54baseball.com/forumdisplay.php?f=5" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.net54baseball.com/forumdisplay.php?f=5" rel="nofollow">https://www.net54baseball.com/forumdisplay.php?f=5</a> </p><p>Register there (it&#039;s free) and post your questions to that crowd.&nbsp; The most telling evidence may be the details of the Louisville Slugger logo, which has changed subtly many times over many years.&nbsp; That could offer a more narrow window for an estimated date of production.&nbsp; Perhaps someone there might even know the story behind your item.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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