Herd mentality: Baseball Hall of Famer Jimmy Collins' time with the Buffalo Bisons and growing up in WNY

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) -- Baseball Hall of Famer Jimmy Collins was born to Irish immigrants Anthony and Alice Collins in Niagara Falls on Jan. 16, 1870. He and his family moved to Buffalo two years later.

Collins attended St. Joseph’s College in downtown Buffalo, which, after a two-year closure from 1891 to 1893, reopened, relocated, and has since been renamed St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute. Collins graduated from St. Joe’s in 1888.

According to his obituary, Collins obtained an A.B. degree from the school, though author and Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) member Charlie Bevis deduced in his 2012 biography of Collins -- the only full-length Collins biography -- that this is likely untrue, and was assumed only because St. Joe’s conferred many of this type of degree in that time. Through his research, Bevis found that the school had only issued diplomas and certificates starting in 1886, reporting that Collins instead received a diploma in commercial studies.

Dan Warner, St. Joe's VP of Institutional Advancement, confirmed the school did stop offering A.B. degrees prior to the alleged date of Collins' graduation.

Bevis, in addition to Buffalo baseball historian Brian Frank, said area high schools of the time likely did not have official school teams, but rather social teams comprised of students who attended the school. Bevis in his biography cited an 1889 game between the Emerald Baseball Club of St. Joseph's College and the Le Couteleulx Club of St. Mary's Institute as an example, with St. Joe's defeating St. Mary's 28-8 in the contest.

Bevis said in a phone call that he took "a lot of flack" from other baseball historians, as well as book reviewers, who thought the biography was too focused on Collins' business history, rather than being a straightforward baseball story.

"Anybody can write about the story of a ballplayer's baseball life, especially today," Bevis said. "You go to Baseball Reference, you get all the statistics, you weave in a bunch of stuff about the team and the city and the other players, and voila, you have a 200-page book that might sell, but it's not really contributing anything to the literature of baseball."

He said that while statistics are essential to a baseball biography, it's equally important to note the player's cultural impact. He added that he doesn't think the Red Sox franchise would have been nearly as successful if not for Collins' business acumen, and that it is a facet of Collins that is vital to understanding who he was -- not just a ballplayer, but a businessman as well.

He notes in the first chapter of the biography that Collins' father was highly motivated to move to a part of the city outside the First Ward. That dream extended to the betterment of his son's life as well, as Anthony Collins hired a tutor for his son James and sent him to St. Joe's for a business education.

Collins used that business education well, both in contract negotiations as well as in his personal endeavors, becoming a successful real estate investor in South Buffalo.

At the age of 18, unrelated to his baseball or business careers, Collins made local news coverage after attempting to deescalate a bar fight on Ohio Street, which ultimately resulted in the death of a Canadian man named William Beauchamp despite Collins' efforts to stop it. The fight took place at a saloon, where now stands Onondaga Park, between Tewksbury Lodge and Hartman’s Distillery. According to September 1888 reports from “The Buffalo Commercial” and “The Buffalo Evening News,” Beauchamp fractured his skull after he was struck and stumbled to the ground while drunk. He was taken to the hospital by police, where he succumbed to his injuries.

Collins worked as a laborer at the time, just prior to joining the Buffalo Bisons.

After playing in local Buffalo leagues in his youth and early adulthood, but prior to his time in Boston, Collins got his first professional experience with the Bisons, for whom he played between 1893 and 1894, while The Herd was part of the minor leagues.

"He played for a couple of semi-pro teams in Buffalo," Bisons historian and founder of The Herd Chronicles Brian Frank said. "One was the Socials; he played for them for a couple of years. They were called the Socials, and the other one was called the North Buffalos, and he played for them for three seasons, and obviously starred for them and that's how he got signed by the Bisons in 1893."

The original incarnation of the Bisons began as a minor league team in 1877, a club which was invited to become a major league team in 1879, which lasted until 1885, just prior to Collins' first game with the Bisons.

In Collins' 1893 debut with the team, in a game against the Erie Blackbirds, he played third base and went 2-for-5 at the plate, according to Frank, who also noted that despite Collins' position in his Bisons debut, he mostly played shortstop that season.

Frank said though the team finished with a 61-53 record and placed fourth in the Eastern League that year, Collins hit .286 with 10 stolen bases in 76 games. The following season, he played in the outfield much of the time, hitting a team-leading .352 average, with a league-leading 198 hits, including 51 doubles and nine home runs, in addition to 18 stolen bases in 125 games.

"Just based on his time in Buffalo with the Bisons, I think he's a Buffalo Baseball Hall of Famer," Frank said. "But certainly the fact that he went on to become what he became, now generally regarded as the greatest third baseman of the late-1800s and early-1900s, really revolutionized that position, is kind of viewed as the first modern third baseman... one word that comes out about him a lot when you read about him defensively is 'graceful,' which I don't think they were using for a lot of third baseman at that time. Before him, it was a pretty stationary position where you stayed by the bag, you guarded the line, you didn't move a lot, and he almost played it more like a shortstop."

The Bisons returned to the minor leagues in 1886, after team president Josiah Jewett sold the team's biggest stars to the Detroit Wolverines and folded the team at the end of the 1885 season. Initially considered to become one of the founding members of the American League in 1901, the Bisons were bumped from consideration in favor of the Boston Americans, of which Collins was a part at the time. The decision kept the Bisons a minor league franchise until the team moved to Winnipeg in 1970. After a few more moves, that iteration of the Bisons has became what is now the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Rail Riders.

Mayor James Griffin in 1979 purchased the Pittsburgh Pirates Double-A affiliate Jersey City A's, moved them to Buffalo, and restored the Bisons as a minor league franchise once again. After the team was sold to Bob Rich Jr. of Rich Products in 1983, the Bisons were relocated to what is now Sahlen Field in downtown Buffalo, as well as moving up to Triple-A ball.

To read more on the legend of Jimmy Collins, click the links below.

Part I: Buffalo's Baseball Hall of Famer: The legend of Jimmy Collins
Part II: Jimmy Collins’ Wake: How a Red Sox Hall of Famer from Buffalo inspired a Dropkick Murphys song
Part IV: The Irish in Boston - Publishes Oct. 24 at 8 a.m.
Part V: Collins' family and legacy - Publishes Oct. 27 at 8 a.m.