[earlybball]

Hi Guys, just had this piece delivered and could not contain my excitement after doing a little research this morning. When I purchased it, the scans were fuzzy and I could not be sure Collins was featured until it arrived.

It is an imperial cabinet featuring the 1905/6 Columbia University football team featuring their stand-out starting quarterback Eddie Collins (top row, third from right) just before he embarked on his HOF baseball career. Given that there are not many early images of Collins known, I thought you guys might like to see young “Cocky” before his 25 years of service wore him down.

In addition to picturing baseballs all-time greatest 2nd baseman, the cabinet is interesting on another level. Columbia’s 1905/6 season also played a major part in football’s reform, helping make it the sport it is today.

In 1905, President Roosevelt, a keen football fan dating back to his time as a tough tackler for the 1880 Columbia team, called a meeting with college officials at the Whitehouse to try and curb unsportsmanlike behavior in football. The president had become increasingly concerned over the number of severe injuries and a spate of deaths attributed to the full blooded sport over the previous few years.

Roosevelt’s’ ultimatum was to either clean up the sport or ban it. In 1906 Columbia University was one of a handful who chose the latter and cancelled its football program making this the last image of a Columbia football team for some years to come.

It turns out in fact that football across the entire country came within 2 association votes of being eradicated (Yale lead the contingent in support of the continuation of football as a sport while Columbia lead the eradication campaign). Fortunately though, rather than being permanently banned, the reform movement won-out which ultimately lead to the formation of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA.)