St. Petersburg, Fla., March 4, 1948. The New York Yankees turned out for spring training. Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Phil Rizzuto, Hank Bauer, Eddie Lopat, Allie Reynolds. They would go down in baseball history as some of the greatest ever to play the game.

And right there with them during that spring training was Scranton native Joe Collins, fighting to earn a place on the team that would create a dynasty. Bob Brown, George McQuinn and Steve Souchock vied with Mr. Collins for the position of first baseman. The only one to bat and throw lefty, Mr. Collins stood a shot.

He made the roster, and he played with the greats, from DiMaggio to Mantle. But as he put it, "It was 25 guys on a team, and every one of them from one year to another knew only one thing - winning."

"We didn't know any other word but winning," Mr. Collins told The Scranton Times later in his life. "It was the only thing we knew." And win, they did. In 1949, Casey Stengel arrived to manage the Yankees for the start of a 15-year stretch that produced 10 world championships. But none of it came easily. "We had no thoughts of losing," Mr. Collins said in 1977, "and looked hard at any young player who didn't come up to play and to win."

Mr. Collins played locally for the 20th Ward Boosters in the Scranton Association. During World War II, he spent three years in the Navy, becoming an ensign at Pensacola and then piloting planes out of Pearl Harbor. He spent 10 years in the Yankees farm system before being called up to the majors.

"When I got to the stadium in 1949," he told The Scranton Times, "I knew it would be just as tough staying as it was getting there." He never felt safe, he said, "because the Yankees always had four or five good first basemen hanging around somewhere." The incentive of being on a winning team, combined with hard work and a lot of talent for hitting home runs, kept Mr. Collins in Mr. Stengel's lineup. In Peter Bolendock's book "Dynasty," Mr. Collins is remembered as one of the many players who "came to play and win in Yankee Stadium."

"I had worked too hard in the minors to blow it," he said in 1977. "Don't forget, in those days, you didn't make the majors in one or two years as you can do today. I remember players with great talent who gave up early in the minors, and when I finally made it, I was determined to stay."

Mr. Collins had a career batting average of .256 with 86 home runs and 404 runs batted in, according to his New York Times obituary. His best season was in 1952 when he hit 18 homers with 59 runs batted in. His four home runs in World Series games were crucial, coming at times when the Yankees needed them most.

For 10 years, he was good enough that Mr. Stengel couldn't let him go. And he was versatile, too. The legendary manager once said of Mr. Collins, "that feller was good enough to play the outfield for me in a World Series when I was stuck." Mr. Collins did play the outfield many times, but it was at first base that he felt most comfortable.

During the 10 years Mr. Collins played with them, New York won six World Series championships. But the Yankees had a history of trading older players in time to bring up younger players. In March 1958, the Yankees sold Mr. Collins to the Philadelphia Phillies. A few hours after he was told of the deal, Mr. Collins retired from baseball.

"If I can't be a Yankee, I'm through with baseball," he said. Joe Collins died in 1989 at the age of 66.

CHERYL A. KASHUBA is a freelance writer specializing in local history. Visit scrantonhistory.com.

Contact the writer: localhistory@timesshamrock.com.

Joseph E Collins