The Cranston Cooneys
The Cooney family of Cranston was Rhode Island's first family of baseball. Jimmy Cooney (1865-1903) was a Major League shortstop from 1890 through 1892 for the Chicago Colts (later Cubs) and Washington of the National League. His three-season major league batting average was .242. Prior to the Major Leagues he played for Bridgeport (SNEL,EL), Haverhill (NENL), Oshkosh (NWES) and Omaha in the Western Association. From 1892 through 1899 Cooney played for Providence, by then a minor league team, and in 1900 played in the Connecticut State League for Bristol. He had four sons following in his footsteps on the diamond. Henry "Hank" was the oldest and played baseball for Portland and Fitchburg/Manchester in the New England League. He also played alongside his brother Jimmy for the Worcester Busters. The next oldest Frank was an well known amateur player for Cranston Print Works in the Tim O'Neil leagues.
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Jimmy "Scoops" was the first to follow his father to the "Big Leagues" as a second baseman/shortstop with six teams. He reached the Majors in 1917 with the Boston Red Sox spending part of the season with them before playing with the New York Giants in 1919. He then spent four years with the Milwaukee Brewers of the American Association, setting a personal mark with 12 consecutive hits in 1923. Cooney came back to play once again in the Major Leagues with the St. Louis Cardinals (1924–1925), Chicago Cubs (1926–1927), Philadelphia Phillies (1927) and Boston Braves (1928). His most productive season came in 1924 with St. Louis, when he hit a career-high .295 in 110 games. In a seven-season career, Jimmy was a .262 hitter and the 6th player in modern era to turn unassisted triple play (1927). He also had a hand in two more triple plays in his career.
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The most successful and youngest of the "Cranston Cooneys" was Johnny Cooney. He was a three-time All-State first baseman at Hope High (1917-19). He had a 20 year Major League career as a pitcher and first baseman. Johnny played for the Boston Bees/Braves (Braves, 1921–30, 1940–42; Bees, 1938–40) and also with the Brooklyn Dodgers (1935–37, 1943–44) and New York Yankees (1944), while hitting a .286 batting average. He made 159 appearances as a pitcher from 1921 through 1930, all with Boston, winning 34 and losing 44 for a .436 winning percentage with 224 strikeouts and a 3.72 ERA. A sore arm forced him to give up pitching; after a four-year absence from the majors and an American Association batting title, he joined Casey Stengel's Dodgers in 1935. Cooney's best seasons as a regular came with the Stengel-managed Braves, .318 in 1940 and .319 in 1941. Stengel later compared Cooney favorably to Joe DiMaggio as a fielder. Johnny spent the last two decades of his baseball career as a full-time coach for the Braves in both Boston and Milwaukee (1946–55) and the Chicago White Sox (1957–64), retiring after the 1964 season.
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