1905 world series
A01=Alan D. Gaff
American History
Author_Alan D. Gaff
baseball biography
baseball hall of famer
baseball history
baseball history book
baseball memoir
Baseball Studies
baseball writing
Category=DNBS
Category=NHK
Category=SCX
Category=SFC
Christy Mathewson biography
Christy Mathewson book
Deadball Era
early baseball superstar
early famous baseball player
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_sports-fitness
history of baseball
MLB
National league
New York Giants
Sports
Sports History
Sports Studies
Twentieth Century Baseball
Twentieth Century History
Product details
- ISBN 9781496243270
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 01 May 2025
- Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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If there was a first face of baseball, it was arguably Christopher “Christy” Mathewson. At the opening of the twentieth century, baseball was considered an undignified game played by ruffians for gamblers’ benefit. Mathewson changed all that. When he signed with the Giants in 1900, his contract stated he wouldn’t pitch on Sundays, and he was known for his honesty, integrity, and good looks.
In his first fourteen seasons, as a pitcher for the Giants, Mathewson never won fewer than twenty games in a season, and he almost single-handedly won the 1905 World Series. In 1918, though age thirty-eight and exempt from military service, he enlisted for World War I, where he exposed himself to nearly lethal amounts of mustard gas as he taught soldiers how to put on gas masks. When he returned home, he was diagnosed with lung problems and tuberculosis, which led to his untimely death at the age of forty-five.
After Mathewson’s death, his eulogies were many, but it was impossible to catch the essence of his life in a single newspaper column. Jane Mathewson, his widow, was determined to provide the reading public with a more intimate portrait of her husband and approached prominent sportswriter Bozeman Bulger, who had known Mathewson for twenty years. Bulger wrote a series of articles titled “The Life Story of Christy Mathewson.” His portraits about the player were amplified by original accounts from Jane, and several unpublished chapters from Mathewson himself, which had been discovered among his papers. These combined accounts allow readers to hear from Mathewson and those who knew him best.
A superstar long before that term was coined, Mathewson became an icon of sportsmanship. He was posthumously elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame at its first induction ceremony in 1936. In Baseball’s First Superstar Alan D. Gaff brings Mathewson to life through Mathewson’s own writings and those of others, largely lost to history until now.
In his first fourteen seasons, as a pitcher for the Giants, Mathewson never won fewer than twenty games in a season, and he almost single-handedly won the 1905 World Series. In 1918, though age thirty-eight and exempt from military service, he enlisted for World War I, where he exposed himself to nearly lethal amounts of mustard gas as he taught soldiers how to put on gas masks. When he returned home, he was diagnosed with lung problems and tuberculosis, which led to his untimely death at the age of forty-five.
After Mathewson’s death, his eulogies were many, but it was impossible to catch the essence of his life in a single newspaper column. Jane Mathewson, his widow, was determined to provide the reading public with a more intimate portrait of her husband and approached prominent sportswriter Bozeman Bulger, who had known Mathewson for twenty years. Bulger wrote a series of articles titled “The Life Story of Christy Mathewson.” His portraits about the player were amplified by original accounts from Jane, and several unpublished chapters from Mathewson himself, which had been discovered among his papers. These combined accounts allow readers to hear from Mathewson and those who knew him best.
A superstar long before that term was coined, Mathewson became an icon of sportsmanship. He was posthumously elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame at its first induction ceremony in 1936. In Baseball’s First Superstar Alan D. Gaff brings Mathewson to life through Mathewson’s own writings and those of others, largely lost to history until now.
Alan D. Gaff is an independent scholar and the author of many books, including Lou Gehrig: The Lost Memoir, Bayonets in the Wilderness, Blood in the Argonne, and On Many a Bloody Field. He lives in Indiana.
