In a time when Giants walked the earth and roamed the Polo Grounds of New York, none was more honored than Christy Mathewson. Delivering all four of his pitches, including his famous “fadeaway” (now called a screwball), with impeccable control and an easy motion, the right-handed Mathewson was the greatest pitcher of the Deadball Era’s first decade, compiling a 2.13 ERA over 17 seasons and setting modern National League records for wins in a season (37), wins in a career (373), and consecutive 20-win seasons (12). Aside from his pitching achievements, Mathewson was the greatest all-around hero of the Deadball Era, a handsome, college-educated man (Bucknell University) who lifted the rowdy world of baseball to gentlemanliness.

In a time when baseball was known for hard-living, hard-drinking baseball players, there was Christy Mathewson to prove that there was another way for athletes to live. He was the role model after whom every parent wanted their children to shape their lives. “Matty” was the basis, many say, for the idealized athlete Frank Merriwell, an inspiration to many authors over the years, and the motivation for an Off-Broadway play based on his life and writings. “He gripped the imagination of a country that held a hundred million people and held this grip with a firmer hold than any man of his day or time,” wrote contemporary sportswriter Grantland Rice of the New York Giants star.

The oldest of six children of Minerva and Gilbert Mathewson, a Civil War veteran who became a post-office worker and farmer, Christopher Mathewson was born on August 12, 1880, in Factoryville, Pennsylvania, a small town in the northeastern part of the state, not far from the New York border. The blond-haired, blue-eyed Christy was always big for his age—he eventually grew to 6-feet-1½ and 195 pounds—and his playmates called him “Husk.” At age 14 he pitched for the Factoryville town team. Christy continued pitching for semipro teams in the area while attending Keystone Academy, a Factoryville prep school founded by his grandmother. In September 1898 Mathewson enrolled at Bucknell in Lewisburg, 75 miles west of Factoryville. He pitched for the baseball team and played center on the basketball team, but football was his chief claim to fame at Bucknell, which played a rugged schedule that included powerhouses such as Penn State, Army, and Navy. For three years Christy was the varsity’s first-string fullback, punter, and drop kicker; no less an authority than Walter Camp, the originator of the All-America team, called him “the greatest drop-kicker in intercollegiate competition.” Majoring in forestry, Mathewson also was a top-flight student who excelled in extracurricular activities, serving as class president and joining the band, glee club, two literary societies, and two fraternities.

Before the start of the Bucknell-Penn football game in the fall of 1899  (in which Matty kicked two long-range field goals, then worth five points apiece, the same as touchdowns), an old major-league pitcher named Phenomenal Smith signed him to a contract with Norfolk of the Virginia League for the following summer. Reporting right after final exams, Mathewson became an immediate sensation in the Virginia League, amassing a 20-2 record by mid-July. After the last of those victories, Smith took Matty aside in the clubhouse and offered him a choice between being sold to Philadelphia or New York of the National League. Mathewson chose New York, thinking the Giants needed pitching more than the Phillies, and made his major-league debut on July 17, 1900, one month shy of his 20th birthday. Using his famous “fadeaway” pitch – what today would be called a screwball – the 6-foot-1, 195-pound right-hander baffled batters with pinpoint control. Mathewson won 20 games in his first full big league season in 1901, posted at least 30 wins a season from 1903-05 and led the National League in strikeouts five times between 1903 and 1908. He set a modern era record for wins by an NL pitcher with 37 in 1908, a year when he completed 34 of his 44 starts en route to more than 390 innings pitched. In the postseason, Mathewson pitched three shutouts in three starts in the 1905 World Series. From 1903-14, Mathewson never won fewer than 22 games in a season and led the NL in ERA five times.

As his career wound down, Mathewson was traded to the Cincinnati Reds in 1916, finishing his career on September 4 of that year in a match-up against longtime rival Three Finger Brown. In 17 seasons, Mathewson finished with 373 wins against just 188 losses – a figure that leaves him tied with Grover Cleveland Alexander for the most wins in NL history and third-most all-time. In 1918, Mathewson enlisted in the Army during World War I. While serving as a captain in France, he was accidentally gassed during a training exercise. He spent the next seven years battling tuberculosis and died on Oct. 7, 1925 at age 45. In 1936, he joined Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb and Walter Johnson as the first class of baseball Hall of Famers in Cooperstown, New York.

Offered is a Christy Mathewson signed presentation copy of his first children’s book, “Won in the Ninth,” published in 1910 by R. J. Bodmer Company of New York.  The Hall of Fame New York Giants pitcher signed his name in black fountain pen at the bottom of a 3½ x 4¼-inch white paper label on the interior front cover of the hardcover book, with the legend in black type “Presentation Copy No. 399 Won in the Ninth to Mr. Robert Collins with the Compliments of”. The first edition hardcover is promoted on the first interior text page as “Won in the Ninth by Christopher Mathewson The Famous Pitcher of the New York Giants the First of a Series of Stories for Boys on Sports to be Known as The Matty Books Edited by W. W. Aulick The Well-Known Writer on Sports Illustrations by Felix Mahony”. The green cloth hardback book features the legend “Won in the Ninth Christy Mathewson” in dark green embossed type on the front, with a 3¼ x 5½-inch tipped-in black & white photograph of Mathewson pitching at the center of a green background plate. The inside front and back cover binding are reinforced with white binder’s tape, while the interior is loose from the binding at the title page, and the page edges are brown with age, but the majority of the book’s interior is clean and crisp. The final 15 pages of the book are illustrated plates entitled “The Fade-Away and Other Deceptive Curves as Held and Delivery by Christy Mathewson” with black & white photographs and illustrations of Mathewson’s hand holding a baseball in various ways, excerpted from the earlier book “How to Play Baseball”. This item comes with a LOA from JSA.

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