Expansion
Following the July 5, 1972 acquisition of hockey stick and baseball bat maker Hespeler-St. Mary's Wood Specialties Ltd. from the Seagram family, the company expanded into the bat market, with Major League Baseball finally approving their bats on March 27, 1986. The bats gained popularity with such players as Tony Fernández, Buck MartÃnez, Tim Raines, Paul Molitor, Kelly Gruber, Jesse Barfield, Cecil Fielder, Joe Carter, and Hubie Brooks, and were the first Canadian-made bats used in major league play. The factory maxed out production capacity to gain 30% market share in baseball bat sales by 1988, remaining number two behind Louisville Slugger. A move of the production facilities in 1996 coincided with the decline of professional use of Cooper bats.
Read more about this topic: Cooper Canada
Famous quotes containing the word expansion:
“Every expansion of government in business means that government in order to protect itself from the political consequences of its errors and wrongs is driven irresistibly without peace to greater and greater control of the nation’s press and platform. Free speech does not live many hours after free industry and free commerce die.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
“We are caught up Mr. Perry on a great wave whether we will or no, a great wave of expansion and progress. All these mechanical inventions—telephones, electricity, steel bridges, horseless vehicles—they are all leading somewhere. It’s up to us to be on the inside in the forefront of progress.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“The fundamental steps of expansion that will open a person, over time, to the full flowering of his or her individuality are the same for both genders. But men and women are rarely in the same place struggling with the same questions at the same age.”
—Gail Sheehy (20th century)