1905/6 Eddie Collins Pre Rookie Columbia Team Imperial Cabinet

[uffda51]

Great item. Congrats!

[bcbgcbrcb]

I guess maybe I'm the only one that has any doubts, the facial attributes all seem to match up to Eddie (Eyebrows, nose, mouth, kind of the ears) but somehow I am not 100% sure that it is Collins. I also have a 1906 Columbia baseball team photo picturing Collins but the scan that I have is not clear enough to identify his facial features really well.

[prewarsports]

I agree with Phil. I have an original photo of Eddie Collins as a Football player for Columbia here at the house somewhere (came with the Baseball photo Phil has) and I am positive that is not him in your photo. Columbia was a major university but it was also the name of many towns in America. I think what you have is a City of Columbia (unknown state) City champions team from 1905. I will try and find my Eddie Collins Columbia Football photo this week to scan it.

[Jacklitsch]

The football has "City Champions 1906" written on it. Does that dispell the fact that it is Collins?

[prewarsports]

I am positive that while that IS a beautiful photo, it is not Columbia University and as such does not picture Eddie Collins. Yes teh City Champions would make it an amatuer team or a High School team from a city Called "Columbia", the University trophy balls almost always had scores from the key game on it or just "Champions 1905".

[novakjr]

I totally neglected the City Champs thing because I was distracted by the attached photo. I think I have to agree that this is probably a HS or YMCA team.

Also, upon further study. Collins played in September of 1906 for the A's under the name Sullivan in order to fool the people at Columbia and retain his amateur status...They didn't quite fall for it. He was ruled ineligible for all sports, but was allowed to continue coaching while he finished school. I'm not sure at what point they ruled him ineligible though, and I'm not sure if he coached football there...So even if this were Columbia University, he might not be in the 1906 photo. Also given the fact that this is a Championship photo, that would mean it was taken at the end of the season, at which point, if he were ruled ineligible probably wouldn't have been allowed by the school to be in the photo(of course unless he was also a coach).

If anyone has any more info about when exactly he was ruled ineligible, and what sports he coached, it would be great to have.

[4815162342]

How embarrassing.