some Asian and Latin American countries, but in those days the name pretty much reflected the only powerhouse in the world. As grandiose as it was, the name “World Series” fit the optimistic mood of the fast-growing republic. McGraw ratcheted up his feud with Johnson and refused to let his Giants play the defending champions from Boston in 1904, but the following season McGraw was persuaded to behave and the Giants won the resumption of the World Series.
The new century had its stars, known all over the country: Ty Cobb, the Georgia Peach; deceptively stocky Honus Wagner; the durable pitcher Cy Young, who would win 192 games for Boston in the first eight years of the American League. The most popular player of all was Christy Mathewson, out of Bucknell College in rural Pennsylvania, who kept his promise to his mother that he would not pitch on the Sabbath and soon became the first national example of the gentleman athlete, contradicting baseball's rowdy image.
Known as Big Six—either for his height of six feet, one and a half inches, or a popular fire engine or early automobile— Mathewson threw a pitch he called the fadeaway, which broke the opposite way from the normal right-handed orbit. He pitched virtually every third game, ultimately winning 373 and losing 188.
The composed Mathewson and the tempestuous McGraw became close friends, the original odd couple, sharing a Manhattan apartment along with their wives. Although Mathewson could be distant, the public respected him for his pitching, his high standards,and his handsome features. Then he became baseball's foremost casualty of war.
When the Great War broke out in Europe in 1914, the United States tried to ignore it, and did not enter the conflict until April of 1917. With war dragging on, America faced a challenge to its isolationist posture. When anonymous young Americans began to die in the forests and fields of Europe, the American sport faced pressure to respond. In May of 1918, the United States adopted a “work-or-fight” policy for able-bodied men, the first time any American sport had been under public pressure to respond to a national crisis. Since baseball had postured itself as the embodiment of national values, its players were under pressure to either join a defense industry or volunteer for the military. For most of them, the war would be a brief inconvenience, but Eddie Grant, the Harvard graduate and captain of the Giants, became the only major-leaguer to die directly from combat, when he was killed in the Argonne Forest while fighting to rescue the Lost Battalion.
In August of 1918, at the age of thirty-eight, Mathewson signed up for the war out of a sense of responsibility. By now he was the manager of the Cincinnati Reds because his close friend, McGraw, had made sure he had a job when his arm wore out. Mathewson joined the Chemical Warfare Services, along with two other future members of the Hall of Fame—Tyrus Raymond Cobb, thirty-two, the eleven-time batting champion, and Branch Wesley Rickey, thirty-eight, the cerebral college man, once a marginal catcher but now the president of the Browns.
These three relatively elderly soldiers were sent to France, near the Belgian border. Mathewson arrived with the flu, which would soon kill millions of people around the world, and then, in a training exercise, Mathewson accidentally inhaled murderous mustard gas. Later he took another dose of gas near the front. After the Armistice on November 11, 1918, Mathewson returned home a weakened and aged man and he later caught tuberculosis, dying at forty-five.
Cobb was the antithesis of Matty and Rickey, two college men and respecters of the Sabbath. An umpire-baiter, spike-sharpener,fan-fighter, and teammate-battler with racist tendencies, Cobb became the first great hitter of the century. A review of his records suggests his career average was .366, not the traditional .367. Unpopular with opponents and teammates alike, Cobb confirmed the image
The new century had its stars, known all over the country: Ty Cobb, the Georgia Peach; deceptively stocky Honus Wagner; the durable pitcher Cy Young, who would win 192 games for Boston in the first eight years of the American League. The most popular player of all was Christy Mathewson, out of Bucknell College in rural Pennsylvania, who kept his promise to his mother that he would not pitch on the Sabbath and soon became the first national example of the gentleman athlete, contradicting baseball's rowdy image.
Known as Big Six—either for his height of six feet, one and a half inches, or a popular fire engine or early automobile— Mathewson threw a pitch he called the fadeaway, which broke the opposite way from the normal right-handed orbit. He pitched virtually every third game, ultimately winning 373 and losing 188.
The composed Mathewson and the tempestuous McGraw became close friends, the original odd couple, sharing a Manhattan apartment along with their wives. Although Mathewson could be distant, the public respected him for his pitching, his high standards,and his handsome features. Then he became baseball's foremost casualty of war.
When the Great War broke out in Europe in 1914, the United States tried to ignore it, and did not enter the conflict until April of 1917. With war dragging on, America faced a challenge to its isolationist posture. When anonymous young Americans began to die in the forests and fields of Europe, the American sport faced pressure to respond. In May of 1918, the United States adopted a “work-or-fight” policy for able-bodied men, the first time any American sport had been under public pressure to respond to a national crisis. Since baseball had postured itself as the embodiment of national values, its players were under pressure to either join a defense industry or volunteer for the military. For most of them, the war would be a brief inconvenience, but Eddie Grant, the Harvard graduate and captain of the Giants, became the only major-leaguer to die directly from combat, when he was killed in the Argonne Forest while fighting to rescue the Lost Battalion.
In August of 1918, at the age of thirty-eight, Mathewson signed up for the war out of a sense of responsibility. By now he was the manager of the Cincinnati Reds because his close friend, McGraw, had made sure he had a job when his arm wore out. Mathewson joined the Chemical Warfare Services, along with two other future members of the Hall of Fame—Tyrus Raymond Cobb, thirty-two, the eleven-time batting champion, and Branch Wesley Rickey, thirty-eight, the cerebral college man, once a marginal catcher but now the president of the Browns.
These three relatively elderly soldiers were sent to France, near the Belgian border. Mathewson arrived with the flu, which would soon kill millions of people around the world, and then, in a training exercise, Mathewson accidentally inhaled murderous mustard gas. Later he took another dose of gas near the front. After the Armistice on November 11, 1918, Mathewson returned home a weakened and aged man and he later caught tuberculosis, dying at forty-five.
Cobb was the antithesis of Matty and Rickey, two college men and respecters of the Sabbath. An umpire-baiter, spike-sharpener,fan-fighter, and teammate-battler with racist tendencies, Cobb became the first great hitter of the century. A review of his records suggests his career average was .366, not the traditional .367. Unpopular with opponents and teammates alike, Cobb confirmed the image
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