1905/6 Eddie Collins Pre Rookie Columbia Team Imperial Cabinet

[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.)

[novakjr]

Very nice...I'm kinda chuckling a little about the guy in the upper left corner though...Is that picture attached to the team photo?

[Baseball Rarities]

I knew that Collins played for Columbia, but I would have never been able to identify him in that photo.

[earlybball]

Yeah, it is attached to the cabinet photo. They guy must also have been a player and was probably away when the rest of the team were snapped. As an after thought, he was tagged on later. Either that or he was a disgruntled waterboy who felt he belonged!

[novakjr]

That's still an awesome photo...Attachment or not...I think the attachment's kinda cool, it would be neat to figure who it is. Guessing from the suit and his apparent age, I'm wondering if maybe he were the school president. Maybe it was his copy of the photo? It's a reasonable explanation for the attachment. Or it may have been attached to all photos. If so, how many remaining have the attachment? A lot of fun research to be had with that photo. Great find.

A little research probably shows why Columbia was one of the schools who cancelled the game, and why Yale wanted to lead the reform....Yale beat Columbia 53-0 in 1905.

[novakjr]

A little research also leads me to believe that the attached photo is definitely not the president of Columbia, since in every photo of Nicholas Murray Butler I could find he had a mustache.

[HRBAKER]

It sure was a short trip from semi-handsome to homely for Eddie I must say.

[rdixon1208]

Very cool....congratulations.