Rip Collins

Once described as a pitcher with a million dollars worth of talent and 25 cents worth of enthusiasm, Collins apparently played baseball only to support his real pleasures: hunting and fishing in the off-season, bright lights and parties during the season. He claimed to have become a beer drinker at age six, and his nickname came from a pre-Prohibition brand of whiskey. A four-sport star at Texas A & M, Collins won 14 games as a Yankee rookie in 1920, matched that figure with the Red Sox in 1922, and again with the Tigers in ’24. He later became a law enforcement officer in Texas.