A Tragic Ending Comes at 45 for Mathewson

An American hero died 74 years ago today.

His name was Christy Mathewson, but most baseball fans called him “Matty” or “Big Six.”

He was only 45, a late casualty of World War I, whose health failed steadily after he inhaled poison gas in France.

He had become Bucknell University’s most famous dropout, leaving college in 1900 to play part of one season with a minor league team, Norfolk, before moving up to the New York Giants.

In 1901 he won his first eight games and finished with a 20-17 record.

Quickly, he became one of the game’s great pitchers. He won 30 or more games four times and 20 or more 13 times.

Between 1901 and 1914, he won 361 games, averaging almost 26 victories a season.

His career victory total, 373, is tied for third on the all-time list.

His greatest gift was pinpoint control and a faultless memory. Hitters often said that when they did manage a base hit off Mathewson, they never saw that same pitch in the same place again.

In the 1913 regular season, he had a 68-inning stretch without walking a hitter.

His greatest performance came in the 1905 World Series against the Philadelphia Athletics. Mathewson pitched three shutouts in the Giants’ five-game victory. His 27 consecutive scoreless innings in one World Series are still the record.

In that Series, he walked one batter, and only one Philadelphia baserunner reached third.

World War I and the end of Mathewson’s career arrived at roughly the same time. In 1918, he became a 38-year-old chemical warfare officer for the Army.

In France, during a poison gas training exercise, he was late in putting on his mask. He was hospitalized for months because of severe lung impairment. After he returned home, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis.

Mathewson’s health deteriorated steadily in the 1920s. In his prime, he had square-jawed, movie star looks. But in a photo taken of him in his last years, he looks 65.

His widow, Jane, died in 1967 at 87.

Mathewson is buried in Lewisburg, Pa., just up the street from Bucknell, where in 1989, 64 years after his death, the university renamed its football/track facility Christy Mathewson Memorial Stadium.

Also on this date: In 1916, Georgia Tech’s football team beat tiny Cumberland College, 222-0. It was 63-0 after the first quarter, 126-0 at halftime. . . . In 1975, Oakland Athletic owner Charles O. Finley fired manager Alvin Dark, explaining Dark was “too busy with church activities.” . . . In 1991, Leo Durocher, a 17-season major league player and a 24-year manager, died at 86.