"Baseball's First Superstar" by Alan Gaff

When Christy Mathewson burst upon the scene with the New York Giants in 1900, baseball had a less-than-perfect image. It was a rowdy game played by roughnecks known for their consumption of alcohol and chewing tobacco, said Alan Gaff, author of Baseball’s First Superstar.Mathewson’s good looks and his quiet, easy-going manner made him a hit with the ladies, Gaff said. “Women came to baseball games,” he noted, adding that “opposing clubs would schedule Ladies Days for games in which Christy would pitch and women would come in throngs.”On the field, Mathewson racked up big numbers. In his first 14 seasons with the Giants, he won at least 20 games every season. In 1905, he led the Giants to a championship, winning three games in the World Series that year without surrendering a run.Gaff also provides a history of baseball’s growth in the early 20th century. The sport was heavily supported by the big newspapers of the day, especially those in New York. Sports sections carried accounts of big-league games that reached millions. As the game gained popularity, larger ballparks were required to accommodate the growing crowds that attended. In New York, the Giants started games just an hour after the closing of the stock market, encouraging the Wall Street crowd to frequent the ballpark.Mathewson was smart, said Gaff. He could recall situations with opposing batters years later in vivid detail. John McGraw, his longtime manager on the Giants, said that “Mathewson’s real greatness in the game was the example he set for young fellows and the impression he left on the minds of the public. He gave our profession a dignity that it needed and was slow to acquire.”Before achieving fame as a baseball player, Mathewson was a member of the Bucknell University football team, where he starred as both fullback and drop kicker. He spent three years at Bucknell before becoming a professional baseball player. The school’s football stadium is named after him.