Background and career
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 1906 to 1930 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 any player with 3,000 hits. 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. In 1939, Collins was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Edward Trowbridge Collins Sr. was born on May 2, 1887, in Millerton, New York, a 384-acre village in Dutchess County.
Collins 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. Collins 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.
After spending all but 14 games of the 1907 season in the minor leagues, Collins 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. Collins 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 seventh 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. Collins 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 1914. In 1913, the Federal League formed as a direct competitor to the American League. In an effort to retain Collins, Athletics manager Connie Mack offered him a five-year guaranteed contract the longest guaranteed contract 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.
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. Years later, Collins would say he had no pity for the eight players who were banished because he said they knew what they were doing. In 1920 on September 4th, during the second game of a doubleheader, the official scorer conflated the offensive statistics for Collins and his teammate Buck Weaver. As Collins had gone 2-for-4 and Weaver had gone 0-for-3, this led to Collins' career hit total being inaccurately recorded as 3,313 for decades. Despite the correction in official records, the Hall of Fame has not updated the hit total on his plaque. In August 1924, Collins was named player-manager of the White Sox and held the position through the 1926 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.
On June 3, 1925, Collins collected the 3,000th hit of his career to become the sixth player in major league history to join the 3,000 hit club, doing so for the White Sox off pitcher Rip Collins of the Detroit Tigers at Navin Field on a single. Incidentally, this was also the first game in which there were two current members of the 3,000 hit club playing in the same game, as Ty Cobb played center field.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
