Edward Trowbridge Collins Sr. (May 2, 1887 – March 25, 1951), nicknamed "Cocky", was an American professional baseball player, manager and executive. He played as a second baseman in Major League Baseball from to for the Philadelphia Athletics and Chicago White Sox. A graduate of Columbia University, Collins holds major league career records in several categories and is among the top few players in several other categories. In 1925, Collins became just the sixth person to join the 3,000 hit club – and the last for the next 17 seasons. His 47 career home runs are the fewest of anyone in it. Collins is the only non-Yankee to win five or more World Series titles with the same club as a player. He is also the only player to have been a member of all five World Series championships won by the Athletics during the franchise's time in Philadelphia.
Collins coached and managed in the major leagues after retiring as a player. He also served as general manager of the Boston Red Sox. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939.
Early life
Collins was born in Millerton, a 384-acre village in Dutchess County, New York. He was an Ivy League graduate who was notable for his offensive skill set and base-stealing capabilities. He graduated from Columbia University (where he was a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity) at a time when few major league players had attended college.
He started his professional baseball career on September 17, 1906, when he signed with the Philadelphia Athletics organization at the age of 19. At the time of his signing, Collins was still a student at Columbia, and he played some of his early minor league games under the last name of Sullivan so that he could protect his collegiate status. Collins had lost his collegiate eligibility when it was discovered he played with Plattsburgh and Rutland in the 1906 Northern Independent League. He then signed with the Athletics and made his debut.
Major league career
Philadelphia Athletics
After spending all but 14 games of the 1907 season in the minor leagues, he played in 102 games in 1908 and by 1909 was a full-time player. That season, he registered a .347 batting average and 67 steals. He was also named the A's starting second baseman in 1909, a position he played for the rest of his career, after seeing time at second, third, shortstop, and the outfield the previous two seasons. In 1910, Collins stole a career-high 81 bases, the first American League player to steal at least 80 bases in a season, and played on the first of his six World Series championship teams.
Collins ranks 11th in the major leagues for most hits of all time with 3,315, and 7th for most stolen bases of all time with 745. He is one of five players to steal six bases in a game, and the only person to do so twice, with both occurrences happening within eleven days, on September 11 and September 22, 1912, respectively. He was part of the Athletics' "$100,000 infield" (and the highest-paid of the quartet) which propelled the team to four American League (AL) pennants and three World Series titles between 1910 and 1914. He earned the league's Chalmers Award (early Most Valuable Player recognition) in .
In 1913, the Federal League formed as a direct competitor to the American League. To retain Collins, Athletics manager Connie Mack offered his second baseman the longest guaranteed contract (five years) that had ever been offered to a player. Collins declined, and after the 1914 season Mack sold Collins to the White Sox for $50,000, the highest price ever paid for a player up to that point and the first of only three times that a reigning MVP was sold or traded (the others being Alex Rodriguez in 2003 and Giancarlo Stanton in 2017, both to the New York Yankees). The Sox paid Collins $15,000 for 1915, making him the third highest paid player in the league, behind Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker.
Chicago White Sox
In Chicago, Collins continued to post top-ten batting and stolen base numbers, and he helped the Sox capture pennants in 1917 and 1919. He was part of the notorious "Black Sox" team that threw the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. Collins was not accused of being part of the conspiracy and was considered to have played honestly, his low .226 batting average notwithstanding.
In August , he was named player-manager of the White Sox and held the position through the season, posting a record of 174–160 (.521). His two full seasons were the only winning seasons enjoyed by the White Sox from 1921 to 1936.