The Old Ball Game (29 page)

And, of course, they both died before they should have, McGraw young, Mathewson far too young. Not much memorializes them, either. A Christy Mathewson Foundation was created upon his death to raise money for tuberculosis. Ring Lardner reluctantly agreed to be its public relations chairman, even though he hated stuff like that. And then, he died of TB himself eight years later. A splendid, ornate Memorial Gateway to Mathewson was built at Bucknell and dedicated in June 1928. Likewise, a monument to McGraw, a “son of these hills,” was dedicated in August 1938 in Truxton when the Giants traveled up there for an exhibition game against a local semipro team. Mathewson went into the Hall of Fame in 1936 with the first class of what are always called “baseball immortals.” McGraw went in the next year, immortalized too.

Neither of the widows ever remarried. Jane lived in Saranac, where Matty died, then moved back to Lewisburg, where she
met him. She attended the induction ceremonies for Matty at Cooperstown and often went back for those annual occasions. She and Blanche McGraw always stayed in touch and saw one another time and again. Blanche lived out her life in New York. She would go up to Giant games at the Polo Grounds and often even journeyed south to visit the team in spring training. She wrote a loving biography of her husband, making sure to stick to the story that Muggsy was not one bit disloyal to her native Baltimore when he kangarooed out. When Blanche would receive letters asking for McGraw's autograph, she would dutifully clip his signature from old canceled checks.

In 1954, when Baltimore returned to the American League after fifty-two years, she came back to Opening Day for the Orioles. Then, too, three years later, on September 29, 1957, she attended the final New York Giants game played at the Polo Grounds. She was given a dozen long-stemmed roses to mark the sad occasion. Blanche died five years later, at the age of eighty-two, having outlived Muggsy by twenty-eight years.

Jane died in 1967. She outlived Matty by forty-two years. Her son, John Christopher, also predeceased her. The same sort of calamities that had beset his father and his uncles fell to him, too. After Bucknell, he became a pilot in the U.S. Army Flying Corps. In 1932, when he was twenty-six years old, he was taking his bride of two weeks on her first airplane ride. The plane rose sixty feet, then crashed. The bride was killed. His left leg was amputated above the knee. Remarried, he was killed in 1950, age forty-three, in a gas explosion at his home in Texas.

John Christopher had no children. So, as with McGraw, there are no Mathewson heirs. All that they both left behind were incredibly vivid numbers and the hazy recollections of the lovely things they accomplished together on the diamond back when the American national sport was just finding itself in New York, and all the innings were in the sunlight.

Of the considerable amount of writings about Mathewson and McGraw, the indispensable biographies
arc Matty: An American Hero
by Ray Robinson and
John McGraw
by Charles C. Alexander.
Where TheyAint
, the story of the Old Orioles, by Burt Solomon, is just as valuable a history of that whole team and era. Philip Seib's
The Player
is the most recent welcome addition to Mathewsonian literature.

Particularly fun reading are two novels.
The Celebrant
, by Eric Rolfe Greenberg, is the story of a family of Jewish jewelers who become especially involved with the good Mathewson and the evil Hal Chase.
Havana Heat
, by Darryl Brock, tells the imaginative tale of Dummy Taylor, as he joins McGraw and Mathewson on their 1911 exhibition tour of Cuba.

Bob Gaines at Bucknell University and Bill Francis at the Baseball Hall of Fame volunteered help with enthusiasm, and so many librarians at the New-York Historical Society were always quick to lend polite assistance as I tried to pick my way through the dusty old years.

I also must thank Rob Fleder, the editor on my original
Sports Illustrated
piece, and Terry McDonell, the managing editor, whose (wise) idea it was to turn a magazine story into what became this book.

—F. D.

Aaron, Hank (“Hammerin'”),
134

Abeal, José,
80

Adams, Franklin P.,
137

Adams, Henry,
91

African Americans,
98
,
99
,
159

Aguinaldo,
56

alcohol consumption,
80
,
82
,
97
,
157
–58,
173
.
See also
beer

Alexander, Charles C,
68

American League,
43
,
44
,
53
,
54
,
56
,
63
,
97
,
105
,
212

peace pact between National League and,
107

reasons for immediate success,
44

American Protective Association,
51

anti-Semitism,
17
,
18
.
See also
Jews

athletes.
See also
baseball players; sports heroes

American attitudes toward,
82
,
132

Aulick, W. A.,
142

Baker, Frank,
164
–67

Baker, Hobey,
131

ballparks,
56

Baltimore,
22
–23,
29
.
See also
Orioles

German immigrants in,
45

“Baltimore chop,”
25

Baltimore Club,
55
,
56

Baltimore Scorecard (1896),
84

Baltimore Shooting Association,
44

Banquet Years,
90

Barnie, Bill,
81

Barnum,
112

baseball.
See also specific topics

Americans improved by,
13

books about,
13
,
74
,
128
,
129

characteristics and unique features,
12
–13

compared with other sports,
12
–15

demands of,
82

in first half of twentieth century,
40

history,
177

popularity,
14
–16

rules,
30
,
40
–41

skills required in,
14

United States and,
11
–15

uplifting qualities,
13

what made it the American national sport,
12

baseball clubs,
105

Baseball Joe books,
128
,
129

baseball players.
See also
athletes; sports heroes

stereotyped as truant dopes,
82

baseball team(s)

first professional,
16

owners of multiple,
17

bat, turn at,
12

batting averages,
40

Bedient, Hugh,
182

beer,
16
,
117

Bender, Chief,
119
,
121
,
163
,
167
,
189

Blaine, Amory,
138

Boston Americans,
105

Boston Beaneaters,
19
–20,
26
,
29
–30,
68

Boston Braves,
106
,
107
,
148
,
191
,
216
,
217

Boston Red Sox,
193
,
213

vs.
Giants in World Series,
179
–88

Bostonian fans,
182
.
See also
Royal Rooters

Brannick, Eddie,
152

Braves Field,
191

Brewerytown,
117
,
119

Bridwell, Al,
140
,
149

Brodie, Steve,
144
–45

Bronx Bombers,
212

Brooklyn,
3
,
56

Brooklyn Bridegrooms,
42

Brooklyn Superbas,
16
–17,
42
,
46
–47,
87

Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers,
101
–2,
132
,
154

Giant-Dodger playoff of 1951,
145

Brotherhood,
27

Broun, Heywood,
156

Brouthers, Dan,
152

Brown, Mordecai Peter Centennial “Three-Fingered,”
138
,
146
,
147

Brush, John (“the Hoosier Wanamaker”),
105
,
107
,
142
,
144
,
155

attacked by Freedman,
17

Cincinnati Reds owned by,
29
,
60

death,
173

finances,
156

Giants purchased by,
17
,
60

Johnson and,
60

locker room built by,
106
–7

McGraw and,
60
,
105
,
173

purification plan,
29

Bucknell College,
20
,
32
–35,
39
,
52
,
78
,
158
,
223

Bucknell University Baseball Team,
35

Bucknell University Football Team,
33

Bulger, Bozeman,
130
,
173

Bunyan, John,
198

Burrows, Edwin G.,
13

Byron, Bill “Lord,”
192

Camp, Walter,
34
,
131

Cantor, Eddie,
30

Carrick, “Doughnut Bill,”
9

“Casey at the Bat” (poem),
49
–50

Cathedral of St. John the Divine,
131
–32

Catholicism,
51
,
131
–32

Cedar Rapids Canaries,
80
–81

Central Park,
103

Chadwick, Lester.
See
Stratemeyer, Edward

Chance, Frank,
109
,
146
,
147

Chase, Prince Hal,
194
–95,
201
,
203

charm and seductiveness,
178
,
201
,
206

fixing games,
201
–3,
205
–6

lack of conscience,
206

Mathewson and,
201
–3,
206
,
207
,
215

McGraw and,
178
,
203
,
206
,
207

as neighbor of McGraws,
178

as playing manager of Yankees,
178

suspended,
203
,
205
–6

Chemical Warfare Service,
203

Chesbro, Jack,
106
,
113

Chicago Cubs,
138
–41

beat Tigers in World Series,
148

games won and lost,
106
,
137
,
148

compared with Giants,
106
,
137
,
139
,
144

vs.
Giants,
144
–47

Giants game forfeited to,
109

owners,
142
–43

Chicago White Sox,
199
,
201
,
207

Christians,
51
,
64
.
See also
Catholicism

muscular,
36
,
131

Christy Mathewson Foundation,
223

Cincinnati Red Stockings (“Reds”),
16
,
29
,
194
,
197
,
200
–201,
207

Clarke, Fred,
108

Cleveland,
80

Cleveland Spiders,
16
–17,
41

coaching,
141

Coakley, Andy,
119

Cobb, Ty,
28
,
138

batting averages,
114

in Hall of Fame,
115

Mathewson and,
114
,
204
,
216

on McGraw,
221

McGraw and,
114
–15,
219

returned to Tigers,
204

temperament and aggressiveness,
114
,
209

World War I and,
203
,
204

Cohan, George M.,
99
,
118
,
161

college sports,
58

Colonial Hotel,
10

Colonial Theatre,
173

Comiskey, Charles,
99
,
211

Connolly, Tommy,
46
,
53
–54

Coogan's Bluff,
102
,
103

Coogan's Hollow,
102
,
103

Cooperstown,
224

Corbett, Gentleman Jim (“Pompadour Jim”),
98
,
112
,
125

Cracker Jack,
102

Crane, Sam Newhall,
136

Cregar, Bess,
214

cricket,
14

Croker, Boss,
5

crowds,
29
–30,
68
.
See also
fans

Cuba,
7
,
80
,
170
–71,
194
,
214

Cuban-American Jockey Club,
171

Cy Young award,
221
–22

Dan Patch,
69

Davis, George,
4
,
9
,
38
,
39
,
51

De Soto Hotel,
64
,
65

deaf-mutes,
69
–70

Decoration Day,
16

Deegan, Billy,
70

Delahanty, Ed,
114

Dempsey, Jack,
210

Detroit Tigers,
53
,
148
,
204