Not as much information as presented in the past, but if I end up waiting to have something as substantial as my last Kren article, it might be a while. I am into Phase II of my project and this involves finding evidence of players who may have used Kren bats. While I was at Cooperstown, I found a couple things I thought interesting. The first was a picture of Frankie Frisch with a Kren bat which is shown here.
Next is a photo provided by Tim Byington of his Joe Cronin bat with a mailing label showing the bat was sent to Kren’s to have a model made from it.
At Cooperstown, I also found a copy of postcard that was sent from Honus Wagner to Joseph Kren in 1951 that strongly suggests, by Wagner’s own admission, that he was a user of the Kren line at some point in time. This too is pictured for your reference.
I have built a spreadsheet, and with the help of veteran collector Marcus Sevier, have information on over 100 players and 131 total player entries. This information is sorted by:
Player
Source (bat, catalog, photograph, contemporary reference etc…)
Length
Weight
Model
Markings
Provider of the Information
Other Comments
These three examples above highlight the need to consider and search for a wide variety of sources when doing research along these lines.
Like I said, not a full article, but some nice images and thoughts I felt were worth sharing.
As always, collect what you enjoy and enjoy what you collect.
MEARS Auth, LLC
For questions or comments on this article, please feel free to drop me a line at DaveGrob1@aol.com