
Cooper was a well-known left-handed pitcher who played for the Detroit Stars in the Negro Leagues when this card was issued. In 1928, Cooper was traded to the famed Kansas City Monarchs, where he played until 1929. As manager of the Monarchs between 1937 and 40, he won his league title three times before suffering a stroke early in the 1941 season, prematurely ending his managerial career and, shortly after, his life. Negro League scholars generally rank Cooper among the top two or three left-handed pitchers in the history of the Negro Leagues, and while he sadly was never given the chance to compete in the Major Leagues, his greatness was finally recognized in 2006, when the Committee of African-American Baseball elected him to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
This example, likely Cooper’s first card, is also his most desirable. Despite this, very few public transactions involving this card exist on record in the last few years. In 2012, an SGC 30 example sold at auction for $5,400, while in a 2011 eBay transaction, a severely off-center SGC VG 40 example of the card traded hands for $6,800.
