| Christy Mathewson | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Mathewson in 1910 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pitcher | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born:(1880-08-12)August 12, 1880 Factoryville, Pennsylvania, U.S. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Died: October 7, 1925(1925-10-07) (aged 45) Saranac Lake, New York, U.S. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Batted: Right Threw: Right | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| MLB debut | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| July 17, 1900, for the New York Giants | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Last MLB appearance | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| September 4, 1916, for the Cincinnati Reds | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| MLB statistics | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Win–loss record | 373–188 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Earned run average | 2.13 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Strikeouts | 2,502 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Managerial record | 164–176 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Winning % | .482 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stats atBaseball Reference  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Managerial record at Baseball Reference | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Teams | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| As player As manager As coach | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Career highlights and awards | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Member of the National | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Baseball Hall of Fame | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Induction | 1936 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Vote | 90.7% (first ballot) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Christopher Mathewson (August 12, 1880 – October 7, 1925), nicknamed "Big Six," "the Christian Gentleman," "Matty," and "the Gentleman's Hurler," was an American professionalbaseballpitcher who played 17 seasons inMajor League Baseball for theNew York Giants. He stood 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) tall and weighed 195 pounds (88 kg). He was among the most dominant pitchers in baseball history, and ranks in the all-time top 10 in several key pitching categories, includingwins,shutouts, andearned run average.[1] In 1936, Mathewson was elected into theBaseball Hall of Fame as one of itsfirst five members.
Mathewson grew up inFactoryville, Pennsylvania, and began playing semiprofessional baseball when he was 14 years old. He played in the minor leagues in 1899, recording a record of 21 wins and two losses. He pitched for the Giants the next season, but was sent back to the minors. He eventually returned to the Giants and went on to win aNational League record 373 career games, tyingGrover Cleveland Alexander for the third-most career wins of all time. He led the Giants to the franchise's first World Series championship in1905 by pitching a single World Series record threeshutouts. He also holds the record for career shutouts in the World Series, with four.[2] Mathewson neverpitched on Sundays, owing to his devoutChristian beliefs. Mathewson served in theUnited States Army'sChemical Warfare Service in World War I, and was accidentally exposed tochemical weapons during training. His respiratory system was weakened from the exposure, causing him to contracttuberculosis, from which he died inSaranac Lake, New York in 1925.
Christopher Mathewson was born on August 12, 1880, inFactoryville, Pennsylvania, and he attended high school atKeystone Academy.
He attended college atBucknell University, where he served as class president and played on the school'sfootball,basketball, andbaseball teams.[3] Mathewson was also a member of thefraternity ofPhi Gamma Delta.[4] His first experience of semi-professional baseball came in 1895, when he was 14 years old.[5] The manager of the Factoryville ball club asked Mathewson to pitch in a game with a rival team in Mill City, Pennsylvania.[5] Mathewson helped his hometown team to a 19–17 victory, but with his batting rather than his pitching.[5] He continued to play baseball during his years at Bucknell, pitching for minor league teams inHonesdale andMeridian, Pennsylvania.[6] Mathewson was selected to theWalter Camp All-American football team in 1900. He was adrop-kicker.[7]
Mathewson playedfootball at Keystone Academy from 1895 to 1897.[8] He turned pro in 1898, appearing as afullback with theGreensburg Athletic Association.[9] While a member of the New York Giants, Mathewson played fullback for thePittsburgh Stars of thefirst National Football League. However, Mathewson disappeared from the team in the middle of the team's1902 season. Some historians speculate that the Giants got word that their star pitcher was risking his baseball career for the Stars and ordered him to stop, while others feel that the Stars' coach,Willis Richardson, got rid of Mathewson because he felt that, since the fullback'spunting skills were hardly used, he could replace him with a local player, Shirley Ellis.[10]
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In 1899, Mathewson signed to play professional baseball withTaunton Herrings of theNew England League, where he finished with a record of 2–13. The next season, he moved on to play on theNorfolk Phenoms of theVirginia League. He finished that season with a 20–2 record.[11] He continued to attend Bucknell during that time.
In July 1900, the New York Giants purchased his contract from Norfolk for $1,500 (equivalent to $57,000 in 2024).[11][12] Between July and September 1900, Mathewson appeared in six games for the Giants. He started one of those games and compiled a 0–3 record. Displeased with his performance, the Giants returned him to Norfolk and demanded their money back.[11] Later that month, theCincinnati Reds picked up Mathewson off the Norfolk roster. On December 15, 1900, the Reds quickly traded Mathewson back to the Giants forAmos Rusie.[12]
During his 17-year career, Mathewson won 373 games and lost 188 for a .665 winning percentage. His careerearned run average of 2.13 and 79 careershutouts are among the best all time for pitchers, and his 373wins are still number one in the National League, tied withGrover Cleveland Alexander. He employed a good fastball, outstanding control, and, especially a new pitch he termed the "fadeaway" (later known in baseball as the "screwball"), which he learned from teammateDave Williams in 1898.[13]
This reference is challenged by Ken Burns documentaryBaseball in which it is stated that Mathewson learned his "fadeaway" fromRube Foster when New York Giants managerJohn McGraw quietly hired Rube to show the Giants bullpen what he knew. Many baseball historians[who?] consider this story apocryphal.
Mathewson recorded 2,507 careerstrikeouts against only 848walks. He is famous for his 25 pitching duels withMordecai "Three Finger" Brown, who won 13 of the duels against Mathewson's 11, with one no-decision.[14]
Mathewson was a very good-hitting pitcher in his major league career, posting a .215batting average with 151runs, sevenhome runs, and 167runs batted in. In 10 of his 17 years in the majors, he had at least 10 runs batted in, with a season-high of 20 in 1903. He batted .281 (9-for-32) in 11 World Series games.
By 1903, Mathewson's stature was such that when he briefly signed a contract with theSt. Louis Browns of the American League, he was thought to be the spark the Browns needed to win the pennant. The Browns had finished a strong second in 1902, five games behind thePhiladelphia Athletics. They offered him four times what he was making with the Giants. However, as part of the settlement that ended the two-year war between the American and National Leagues, Mathewson and Browns ownerRobert Lee Hedges tore up the contract. Hedges later said that ensuring the return of peace to the game was more important, even if it meant effectively giving up a pennant.[15]
From 1900 to 1904, Mathewson established himself as a premier pitcher. Posting low earned run averages and winning nearly 100 games, Mathewson helped lead the Giants to their first National League title in 1903, and a berth infirst World Series. Though no World Series was held in 1904, the Giants captured the pennant, prompting McGraw to proclaim them as the best team in the world.
Mathewson strove even harder in 1905. After switching to catcher,Roger Bresnahan had begun collaborating with Mathewson, whose advanced memory of hitter weaknesses paved the way for a historic season. Pinpoint control guided Mathewson's pitches to Bresnahan's glove. In 338 innings, Mathewson walked only 64 batters. He shut out opposing teams eight times, pitching entire games in brief 90-minute sessions. Besides winning 31 games, Mathewson recorded an earned run average of 1.28 and 206 strikeouts. He led the National League in all three categories, earning him theTriple Crown.[16]
Mathewson's Giants won the1905 World Series over thePhiladelphia Athletics. Mathewson was the starting pitcher in game one, and pitched a four-hitshutout for the victory. Three days later, with the series tied 1–1, he pitched another four-hit shutout. Then, two days later in game five, he threw a six-hit shutout to clinch the series for the Giants. In a span of only six days, Mathewson had pitched three complete games without allowing a run, while giving up only 14 hits.
The next year, Mathewson lost much of his edge, owing to an early-season diagnosis ofdiphtheria. McGraw pulled over 260 innings from him, but these were plagued with struggle. Though he maintained a 22–12 record, his 2.97 earned run average was well above the league average of 2.62. His 1.271walks plus hits per innings pitched, quite uncharacteristic of him, was due to an increased number of hits and walks.
By 1908, Mathewson was back on top as the league's elite pitcher. Winning the most games of his career, 37, coupled with a 1.43 earned run average and 259 strikeouts, he claimed a second triple crown. He also led the league in starts, innings pitched, complete games, and shutouts, and held hitters to an exceptionally low 0.827 walks plus hits per innings pitched. He even led the league in saves, racking up 5 of them in 12 relief appearances. Unfortunately, the Giants were unable to take home the pennant due to what was ultimately known asMerkle's Boner, an incident that cost the Giants a crucial game against the Chicago Cubs, who eventually defeated the Giants in the standings by one game.
Mathewson returned for an outstanding 1909 season; though not as dominant as the previous year, he posted a better earned run average (1.14), and a record of 25–6. He repeated a strong performance in 1910 and then again in 1911, when the Giants captured their first pennant since 1905. The Giants ultimately lost the1911 World Series to the Philadelphia Athletics, the same team they had defeated for the 1905 championship. Mathewson andRube Marquard allowed two game-winning home runs to Hall of FamerFrank Baker, earning him the nickname, "Home Run".[16] Mathewson, the team's "star pitcher", signed a three-year contract with the Giants in late 1910, for the upcoming 1911, 1912 and 1913 seasons, the first time he had signed a contract over a year in length.[17]
In 1912, Mathewson gave another stellar performance. Capturing the pennant, the Giants were fueled by the stolen-base game and a superior pitching staff capped by Rube Marquard, the "11,000-dollar lemon" who turned around to win 26 games, 19 of them consecutively. In the1912 World Series, the Giants faced the Boston Red Sox, the 1904 American League pennant winners who would have faced the Giants in the World Series that year had one been played. Though Mathewson threw three complete games and maintained an earned run average below 1.00, numerous errors by the Giants, including a lazy popup dropped by Fred Snodgrass in the eighth game (Game 2 was a tie), cost them the championship.[18] The Giants also lost the1913 World Series, a 101-win season cemented by Mathewson's final brilliant season on the mound: a league-leading 2.06 earned run average in over 300 innings pitched complemented by 0.6 bases on balls per nine innings pitched.
For the remainder of his career with the Giants, Mathewson began to struggle. Soon, the former champions fell into decline. In 1915, Mathewson's penultimate season in New York, the Giants were the worst team in the National League standings. Mathewson, who had expressed interest in serving as a manager, wound up with a three-year deal to manage the Cincinnati Reds effective July 21, 1916.[16]
On July 20, 1916, Mathewson's career came full circle when he was traded to the Cincinnati Reds along withEdd Roush. He was immediately named as the Reds'player-manager. However, for all intents and purposes, his playing career was over. He appeared in only one game as a pitcher for the Reds, on September 4, 1916. He faced Brown in the second half of a doubleheader, which was billed as the final meeting between the two old baseball warriors. The high-scoring game was a win for Mathewson's Reds over Brown's Cubs, 10–8.[19]
Mathewson retired as a player after the season and managed the Reds for the entire 1917 season and the first 118 games of 1918, compiling a total record of 164–176 as a manager.[19]
Mathewson married Jane Stoughton (1880–1967) in 1903. Their only son, Christopher Jr., was born shortly after.Christy Mathewson Jr. served in World War II, and died in an explosion at his home in Texas on August 16, 1950.[20] During Mathewson's playing years, the family lived in a duplex on theUpper West Side, atColumbus and85th,[21] alongside Mathewson's manager John McGraw and his wife Blanche. Mathewson and McGraw remained friends for the rest of their lives. In the 1909 offseason, Christy Mathewson's younger brother Nicholas Mathewson died by suicide in a neighbor's barn. Another brother,Henry Mathewson, pitched briefly for the Giants before dying of tuberculosis in 1917.
Mathewson was highly regarded in the baseball world during his lifetime. As he was a clean-cut, intellectual collegiate, his rise to fame brought a better name to the typical ballplayer, who usually spent his time gambling, boozing, or womanizing. As noted inThe National League Story (1961) byLee Allen, Mathewson was a devout Christian and never pitched on Sunday, a promise he made to his mother that brought him popularity among the more religious New York fans and earned him the nickname "The Christian Gentleman". However, the impact of this practice on the Giants was minimized, since, in the eight-team National League, only theChicago Cubs (Illinois),Cincinnati Reds (Ohio), andSt. Louis Cardinals (Missouri) played home games in states that allowed professional sports on Sunday.
In his free time, Mathewson enjoyed nature walks, reading, golf, and checkers, of which he was a renowned champion player. The combination of athletic skill and intellectual hobbies made him a favorite for many fans, even those opposed to the Giants. Sportswriters praised him, and in his prime every game he started began with deafening cheers. Sometimes, the distraction prompted him to walk out 10 minutes after his fielders took the field. Mathewson soon became the unspoken captain of the Giants.
He was the only player to whom John McGraw ever gave full discretion. McGraw told many younger players to watch and listen to his wisdom.
Mathewson garnered respect throughout the baseball world as a pitcher of great sportsmanship. He was often asked to write columns concerning upcoming games. In 1912, with the editing and ghostwriting aid of sportswriter John Wheeler, Mathewson published his classic memoirPitching in a Pinch, or Pitching from the Inside, which was admired by poetMarianne Moore and is still in print.[22][23] Years later, Mathewson co-wrote a mildly successful play calledThe Girl and The Pennant, which was inspired byHelene Hathaway Britton's ownership of theSt. Louis Cardinals.[24] Mathewson went on to pursue more literary endeavors ending in 1917 with a children's book calledSecond Base Sloan.[25]
One of the journalists to unmask the 1919Black Sox,Hugh Fullerton, consulted Mathewson for information about baseball gambling. Fullerton trusted Mathewson for his writing intellect, as well as his unbiased standpoint. As a player and manager, Mathewson also had several seasons of experience playing alongsideHal Chase, a veteran major league player widely rumored to have been involved in several gambling incidents and attempts to fix games.
Representing the only former ballplayer among the group of investigating journalists, Mathewson played a small role in Fullerton's exposure of the1919 World Series scandal.[16]
Late in the 1918 season, Mathewson enlisted in theUnited States Army during World War I. His wife Jane was very much opposed to the decision, but Mathewson insisted on going.[26] He served overseas as a captain in the newly formedChemical Warfare Service (CWS) along withTy Cobb. Mathewson served with theAmerican Expeditionary Forces until February 1919 and was discharged later that month.[27]
Mathewson developedtuberculosis shortly after his military service. It was widely assumed his disease was caused by his work with chemical weapons, largely due to the conventional wisdom that tuberculosis more easily infects lungs that have been damaged bythese gases.[3] This narrative was given further credence from a passage inAl Stump's 1961 biography of Ty Cobb, which says that Cobb and Mathewson were both accidentally gassed during a chemical training exercise in Choignes, France where eight men died; Mathewson purportedly told Cobb afterwards that he had 'got a good dose of that stuff. I feel terrible.'[28] This account has widely been accepted as true, although it is not without its detractors:Branch Rickey, who also served in the CWS alongside Mathewson, flatly denied the incident; other historians have noted that Stump's book, published after Cobb's death, is sensationalized and generally unreliable.[29] Further, some historians question whether the incident ever occurred. Mathewson himself never mentioned a training accident during his lifetime, but acknowledged that he had been exposed to potentially lethal gases on various occasions while demonstrating gas shells to students: "We were careful, but there is no doubt the accumulated gases affected my lungs," he later said.[30]
Although he returned to serve as a coach for the Giants from 1919 to 1921, he spent a good portion of that time inSaranac Lake fighting the tuberculosis, initially at theTrudeau Sanitorium, and later in a house that he had built.[11] In 1923, Mathewson returned to professional baseball when Giants attorneyEmil Fuchs and he put together a syndicate that bought theBoston Braves. Although initial plans called for Mathewson to be principal owner and team president, his health had deteriorated so much that he could perform only nominal duties. He turned over the presidency to Fuchs after the season.
After contracting tuberculosis, Mathewson moved to the frigid climate ofSaranac Lake, New York, in theAdirondack Mountains, where he sought treatment fromEdward Livingston Trudeau at his renownedAdirondack Cottage Sanitarium. He died in Saranac Lake of tuberculosis on October 7, 1925. Mathewson is buried atLewisburg Cemetery inLewisburg, Pennsylvania, adjacent toBucknell University. Members of thePittsburgh Pirates and theWashington Senators wore black armbands during the1925 World Series. Mathewson had died on the day the series began, October 7. According toBaseball, some of Mathewson's last words were to his wife: "Now Jane, I want you to go outside and have yourself a good cry. Don't make it a long one; this can't be helped."
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| Christy Mathewson was honored alongside theretired numbers of theSan Francisco Giants in 1986. |
(compiled per IMDb)[better source needed]
M is for Matty,
Who carried a charm
In the form of an extra
brain in his arm.
· Baseball Almanac
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| Preceded by | No-hitter pitcher July 15, 1901 June 13, 1905 | Succeeded by |
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| International | |
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| National | |
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