Any SABR members here?

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Posted By: Greg Buckley

Hello all:
I have an autographed bat from an elderly patient of my father-in-law. The gentleman (whose name is Harry Kowenhoven) signed the bat with the inscription "1934 Brooklyn Dodgers", but my research shows that he never played in the majors. He did, however, have a contract with Louisville Slugger and had bats made to his specifications. The copy of his Louisville Slugger contract that I have indicates that he played for the old House of David baseball teams. I have found a reference to him in what I think is a SABR publication index. The search result is "Harry Kowenhoven LOG0003E". Does that number or reference mean anything to anyone?

Any help would be appreciated.

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Posted By: jay behrens

Plenty of SABR around here. Not sure what the code is. You want to go to the SABR web site http://sabr.org and cotnact someone there that might now what it means. Where did you get that coding from? I have most SABR books given to members from 1988 to date, so if it refernces something in one of thsoe books, I should be to find it.

Jay

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

of the Louisville Pee Wee Reese chapter..........maybe he played under another name? Or maybe he just did 1934 spring training but nothing else? baseball-reference.com doesn't list him at all so I have to believe he doesn't have any ML stats. If you could find out who was at 1934 spring training or maybe he played in the Dodgers farm system somehow. Minor League records are harder to obtain. Is the bat a H&B that has been engraved with his name on the barrel?

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Posted By: Greg Buckley

I found it doing a Google search.

The search result:
http://www.pacificnet.net/~sroney/SABR-L/index2000.html

would seem to indicate that it was a SABR publication index.

I will check with the folks at SABR. I would like to find out more about this gentleman.

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Posted By: Greg Buckley

I found it doing a Google search.

The search result:
http://www.pacificnet.net/~sroney/SABR-L/index2000.html

would seem to indicate that it was a SABR publication index.

I will check with the folks at SABR. I would like to find out more about this gentleman.

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Posted By: Greg Buckley

Tom:
His name and signature are engraved into the bat. He apparently went back to the factory a few years ago and they were able to make some new bats to the specifications that they ahd on file back in the 1930's.

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Posted By: hankron

It's possible that he played in the Dodgers system and played for them in spring training. It's also possible that he actually was on the Dodgers regular season squad for a game or two and didn't play. Retired minor league players were very proud of having played for a Major League team, even if the stint was brief. In my Major League autograph collection, I have players who's major league careers were literally one at bat or one pitching out. And they were damn proud!

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Posted By: hankron

I forgot to add that in the olden days, a player might sign his initial contract with the Major League team then, of normal course, be assigned to the minors in the hope that he would eventually work his way up. You can find old Major League team contracts where the player never played in the bigs.