Christy Mathewson

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Christy Mathewson

Pitcher
Batted: Right	Threw: Right
MLB debut
July 17, 1900 for the New York Giants
Final game
September 4, 1916 for the Cincinnati Reds
Career statistics
Record	373-188
ERA	2.13
K	2502
Teams
As Player New York Giants (1900-1916) Cincinnati Reds (1916) As Manager Cincinnati Reds (1916-1918)
Career highlights and awards
373 career wins (3rd all-time) 2.13 career era (8th all-time) 1.059 career whip (5th all time) Won 20 games or more 13 times, won 30 games or more 4 times. Pitched 79 shutouts (3rd all time) Won NL Pitcher's Triple Crown in 1905 and 1908

Christopher "Christy" Mathewson (August 12, 1880 - October 7, 1925), nicknamed "Big Six", "The Christian Gentleman", or "Matty", was a right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball. He played in what is known as the dead ball era and in 1936 was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame as one of its inaugural members.

1 Early life
2 Minor league career & early major league career
3 Major league career
4 Post-playing career
5 Notes
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Early life

Mathewson was born in Factoryville, Pennsylvania and went on to attend Bucknell University. At Bucknell, he served as class president and played on the school's football and baseball teams.^[1] He was also a member of the fraternity of Phi Gamma Delta.^[2]

[edit] Minor league career & early major league career

In 1899, after Mathewson left college, and signed to play professional baseball with Taunton of the New England League. The next season, he moved on to play on the Norfolk team of the Virginia-North Carolina League. He finished that season with a 20-2 record.^[3]

In July of that year, the New York Giants purchased his contract from Norfolk for $1,500.^[4]^[3]. Between July and December of 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.^[3]

[edit] Major league career

Later that month, the Cincinnati Reds drafted Mathewson in the Rule 5 draft. On December 15, 1900, the Reds traded him to the Giants in exchange for Amos Rusie.^[4]

During his 17-year career, Mathewson won 373 games and lost 188. His career ERA of 2.13 and 79 career shutouts are amongst the best all-time for pitchers. Employing a good fastball, outstanding control, and, especially, a new pitch he termed the "fadeaway" (later known in baseball as the "screwball"), Mathewson recorded 2,502 career strike outs against 844 walks. His Giants won the 1905 World Series. That series, he won three games, all of which were shutouts.^[3] The series capped an impressive year for Mathewson as he had already won the National League Triple Crown for pitchers. He claimed the Triple Crown again in 1908, and by the time he left the Giants, the team had captured four more National League pennants, in addition to the aforementioned 1905 appearance in the World Series.^[1]

On July 20, 1916, Mathewson's career came full circle when he was traded to the Cincinnati Reds along with fellow future Hall of Famer Edd Roush. He won one game with the Reds and served as their manager for the next three seasons.

[edit] Post-playing career

In 1918, Mathewson enlisted in the United States Army for World War I. He served overseas as a Captain for that year. During a training exercise he was accidentally gassed and consequently developed tuberculosis.^[1] Although he returned to serve as a coach for the Giants from 1919-1920, he spent a good portion of that time upstate fighting the aforementioned illness.^[3] In 1923, Mathewson got back into professional baseball when he served as part-time president of the Boston Braves. Two years later, he died in Saranac Lake, New York. He is buried at Lewisburg Cemetery in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.

[edit] Notes

Members of the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Washington Senators wore black armbands during the 1925 World Series. [1] Mathewson had died on the day the Series began.

Along with Henry Mathewson, he holds the major league record for combined wins by brothers playing for the same team: Christy 373, Henry 0.

His jersey, denoted as "NY", has been retired by the Giants. Uniform numbers were not used in those days.

In 1999, he ranked number 7 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, the highest-ranking National League pitcher.

ESPN selected his pitching performance in the 1905 World Series as the greatest playoff performance of all time^[5].

Christy Mathewson Day is celebrated as a holiday in his hometown of Factoryville, Pennsylvania, on the Saturday closest to his birthday.

Bucknell's football stadium is named "Christy Mathewson-Memorial Stadium."

As noted in The National League Story (1961) by Lee Allen, Matty never pitched on Sunday--cf. Hank Greenberg refusing to play on Yom Kippur. This really worked no hardship on the Giants during Matty's career, since, in the eight-team National league, only the Chicago Cubs (Illinois), Cincinnati Reds (Ohio), and St. Louis Cardinals (Missouri), played home games in states that allowed professional sports on Sunday anyway.

He is the subject of an Off-Broadway one-man show starring Eddie Frierson.

In 1936, Christy Mathewson was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame as one of the famous "First Five" inductees into the HOF, along with Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson and Honus Wagner.