Edward Trowbridge Collins, Sr., nicknamed “Cocky”, was born May 2, 1887 in Millerton, New York.
An aggressive and confident second baseman, Eddie Collins starred in the famous $100,000 infield in Philadelphia. He played 25 seasons in the Major Leagues and for 10 seasons batted over .340, helping him earn membership in the exclusive 3,000-hit club.
Welcome to the Baseball History Podcast: Featuring This Week in Baseball History, baseball dictionary and a tour of baseball cities. I’m your game announcer Bob Wright.
This is game 24 of the 2009 baseball season
In the first inning let’s take a look at This Week in Baseball History for the 1 week of June.
June 6
1925 White Sox Eddie Collins, at the age of 38, becomes the sixth major leaguer to collect 3000 hits when he doubles off Washington’s Walter Johnson.
Edward Trowbridge Collins, Sr., nicknamed “Cocky”, was born May 2, 1887 in Millerton, New York.
An aggressive and confident second baseman, Eddie Collins starred in the famous $100,000 infield in Philadelphia. He played 25 seasons in the Major Leagues and for 10 seasons batted over .340, helping him earn membership in the exclusive 3,000-hit club.
An Ivy League graduate, Collins was one of the smartest players of his day, and he knew it.
He was one of the most accomplished all-around ballplayers ever to play the game. They called Collins “Cocky,” not because he was arrogant, but because he was filled with confidence based on sheer ability.
Collins starred as captain of Columbia University’s baseball team until he was barred from playing his senior year because he had disguised himself as “Eddie Sullivan” to play professionally.
Still, Eddie’s game smarts earned him the unprecedented position of undergraduate assistant coach for the Lions’ 1907 squad. By this time, the baseball bug had a firm hold on Collins, and the youngster postponed his plans for a legal career to rejoin the Athletics after graduation in 1907, appearing in 14 games for Philadelphia that summer.
At the plate, the 5’9″, 175-pound left-handed batter possessed a sharp batting eye, and aimed to hit outside pitches to the opposite field and trick deliveries back through the box. Once on base, Collins was a master at stealing, even though his foot speed wasn’t particularly noteworthy. A believer in the principle that a runner steals off the pitcher and not the catcher, Collins practiced the art of studying pitchers–how they held the ball for certain pitches, how they looked off runners–all the pitcher’s moves. He focused especially on the feet and hips of the pitcher, rather than just his hands, and thus was able to take large leads off first base and get excellent jumps.
Bill James wrote, “Collins sustained a remarkable level of performance for a remarkably long time. He was past thirty when the lively ball era began, yet he adapted to it and continued to be one of the best players in baseball every year…his was the most valuable career that any second baseman ever had.”
Collins became a regular player in the majors in 1908. That first full season, he split time at five positions, hitting .273 in 102 games. He converted to second base full-time in 1909 and from there his remarkable career took wing. It was no small coincidence that when Collins became the starting second baseman, the team also took off. Eddie played every game in 1909, hitting .347 as the club rose to second, chasing the pennant-winning Tigers to the wire.
The young second baseman finished second in the league in hits, walks, steals, and batting average. He led all second basemen in putouts, assists, double plays, and fielding average.
In 1910 the club broke through, winning the first of four pennants in a five-year stretch. Eddie led the American League in steals, was third in hits and Runs Batted In, and fourth in batting, while leading in most fielding categories.
Philadelphia beat the Cubs in five games to give Connie Mack his first world title. Collins was the star of the series, hitting .429 and hitting safely in each contest.
In 1911 the A’s, with the “$100,000 Infield” of Home Run Baker, Jack Barry, Collins and Stuffy McInnis now intact, repeated as world champs, besting Detroit by 13 1/2 games, and downing John McGraw’s Giants in six.
After finishing fourth in hitting, batting .365 during the year, and leading the league’s second basemen in putouts, Eddie had a modest series, batting .286 with four errors. Still, the A’s had successfully defended their championship and, just 24, Collins had experienced little but success in his few years of prep, collegiate and professional play.
Eddie’s plainly evident self-confidence could rub people the wrong way. As educated and ostensibly sophisticated as he was, cockiness could lead to actions that in hindsight at least were not entirely smart. In 1912, the only year in a stretch of five that the A’s didn’t win the pennant, some of his teammates groused about Collins’ loyalties and priorities.
In the wake of the 1911 World Series triumph, Eddie accepted a $2,000 commission to write a collection of ten articles for American Magazine on the inner workings of the game. In one, he explained how opposing pitchers had been tipping off their deliveries. The unhappiest of the A’s argued that, alerted, the foes had corrected the give-away weaknesses. While Eddie led the league in runs, and posted a .348 average with 63 stolen bases, in 1912 the dissension in the clubhouse was at least in part attributable to the gifted second baseman.
The bright, confident, and successful Collins was given to a litany of less than “rational” practices and observances. At the plate he kept his gum on his hat button until two strikes, then would remove it and commence chewing. He loathed black cats, and would walk or drive out of his way to avoid crossing paths with one. If he saw a load of barrels, he believed he’d make one or two hits that day. Finding a hairpin meant a single, two hairpins a double.
In 1913 the A’s returned to form, winning their third World Series, in five games over the Giants, as Collins hit .421, with five runs, three Runs Batted In, and three steals. His regular season featured 55 steals, 73 Runs Batted In and a robust .345 average.
In 1914, the A’s repeated as American League champs, and Collins was honored as the Chalmers Award winner, given to the league’s most valuable player. Unfortunately, the bat that drove in 85 runs and registered a .344 clip was utterly absent in the Series. Philadelphia was stunned in four straight by the “Miracle” Braves, with Collins batting .214.
In the aftermath of the upset, his team’s harmony fractured by overtures from the Federal League, Mack began to clean house. On Tuesday, December 8, 1914, Collins was sold to the Chicago White Sox for a reported $50,000. As part of the deal, the White Sox agreed to pay Collins a salary of $15,000 per year. By 1919, his salary had been trimmed to $14,500, but it was still more than double that of any of his Chicago teammates.
The White Sox had spent the first half of the 1910s languishing between fourth and sixth place. Eddie’s tenure in Chicago lasted twelve years. For all twelve seasons, he was a genuine star. For the last two and a half, he was player/manager.
A sub-.500 team in 1914, the White Sox steadily rose in the standings. The 1915 club finished third. Eddie was second in the league in batting, led in walks, was third in steals and was fifth in total bases while leading second basemen in both assists and fielding average.
In 1916, the White Sox chased the Red Sox all summer, finishing a mere two games back. Eddie led the league’s second basemen in double plays and fielding average, while on the offensive side, he was second in triples, third in walks, and fourth in steals.
In 1917, the White Sox won the pennant by a convincing nine games, even though Eddie’s average dipped to .289.
In that year’s Fall Classic, Collins enjoyed his third great World Series with a .409 average, and scored the first run in the sixth and final game by outthinking the Giants defense. Though immortalized as the “Heinie Zimmerman boner,” it was actually catcher Bill Rariden, first baseman Walter Holke and pitcher Rube Benton who were the real goats. In a rundown between third and home plate, Rariden allowed Collins to slip past him, and Holke and Benton neglected to cover home plate. With a foot pursuit his only option, the lumbering Zimmerman failed to catch Collins as he slid across home with what proved to be the Series winning run.
Like many other players, Collins’s 1918 campaign was cut short by U.S. involvement in the Great War. On August 19, 1918, Collins joined the U.S. Marines, missing the final 16 games of the season. He served chiefly at the Philly Naval Yard, received a good conduct medal, and was honorably discharged on February 6, 1919, in time for spring training.
The 1919 White Sox finished with a record of 88 and 52, besting Cleveland by three and a half games. Eddie hit .319 and drove in 80 runs while leading second basemen in putouts and double plays.
The 1919 White Sox were the greatest he ever saw because, in part, they won despite widening dissension. Collins later said. ”The club was torn by discord and hatred during much of the ’19 season. From the moment I arrived at training camp from service, I could see that something was amiss. We may have had our troubles in other years, but in 1919 we were a club that pulled apart rather than together. There were frequent arguments and open hostility. All the things you think–and are taught to believe–are vital to the success of any athletic organization were missing from it, and yet it was the greatest collection of players ever assembled, I would say.”
Although Collins, like many others, heard that the “fix was on” during the 1919 Series, he refused to believe the rumors, and said he was not suspicious of the actions of any of the eight players later accused. Collins later marveled, “Even today, no one realizes how subtly conceived and executed the whole thing was. Sure, I heard that the fix was on, but I looked on it as just idle gossip and completely preposterous.”
After the scandal gutted the club, Collins still starred. He was one of the few bright lights for the decimated White Sox in the early twenties. He filled in as player/manager for 27 games during the 1924 season, and assumed the role full-time for the 1925 and 1926 campaigns. The club finished fifth in each of his full years at the helm. Injuries cut into his playing time in both of these seasons.
Deposed as White Sox manager on November 11, 1926, Collins was released as a player two days later. He signed with Philadelphia six weeks later, and emerged as a solid pinch hitter in 1927. From 1928 through 1930 he mostly coached, finally playing his last game at age 43 on August 2, 1930.
He concluded his career with a .333 batting average, 1,821 runs scored, 3,315 hits, and 744 steals.
Eddie coached full-time for Philadelphia in 1931 and 1932 before joining the Boston Red Sox as Vice-President and General Manager.
Due to deteriorating health, Collins turned over the General Manager’s reins to Joe Cronin after the 1947 season but remained as vice president.
A cerebral hemorrhage in August 1950 left Eddie partially paralyzed and visually impaired.
Eddie Collins was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939.
Eddie Collins died March 25, 1951, at age 63 in Boston, Massachusetts.
A large part of this biography comes from the SABR Baseball Biography Project written by Paul Mittermeyer. It can be found online at http://bioproj.sabr.org
In this inning we’ll open up the Baseball Dictionary
Under the letter: T
Triple Play
A defensive play in which three players are put out as a result of continuous action, providing there are no errors committed between putouts. Though rare today, Hugh S. Fullerton in American Magazine, June 1912, wrote: ” There are records of eight triple plays made by one man unassisted, and about twenty triple plays are made in each league every season.”
A modern player Brooks Robinson, holds the record for hitting into the most triple plays: four.
Many ardent fans have never seen a triple play, including this Game Announcer.
1st use comes from on October 30, 1867 article in th Detroit Advertiser and Tribune by Peter Morris. “Gus Stillwagner, on first base, made a handsome triple play, by catching a fly ball, and putting two men out running their bases.”
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