The Player: Christy Mathewson, Baseball, and the American Century

by Philip Seib

Christy Mathewson (1880-1925) was baseball's first superstar pitcher who still ranks among the all-time leaders in wins, earned run average, and shutouts. Mathewson was in the first group elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, with Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb, and Walter Johnson. At a time when professional ballplayers were regarded as hard-living rogues, Matty was a soft-spoken college boy who espoused clean living and did more than any other athlete to elevate the place of sports in American life. Parents longed for their children to model their lives after his. He even wrote children's books to help instill the values of hard work and determination. With a diverse cast of characters including Teddy Roosevelt, Edith Wharton and Scott Fitzgerald, The Player is an exciting, cinematic evocation of a singular American life -- and what that life means today. Photographs are featured.

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Biography, Nonfiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published August 10, 2003

About the author

Philip Seib is a Professor of Journalism and Public Diplomacy and Professor of International Relations.

Seib's research interests include the effects of news coverage on foreign policy, particularly conflict and terrorism issues. He is author or editor of numerous books, including Headline Diplomacy: How News Coverage Affects Foreign Policy; The Global Journalist: News and Conscience in a World of Conflict; Broadcasts from the Blitz: How Edward R. Murrow Helped Lead America into War; Beyond the Front Lines: How the News Media Cover a World Shaped by War; New Media and the Middle East (2007); The Al Jazeera Effect (2008); Toward a New Public Diplomacy: Redirecting U.S. Foreign Policy (2009); and Real-Time Diplomacy: Politics and Power in the Social Media Era (2012). Seib is also the editor of the Palgrave Macmillan Series in International Political Communication, co-editor of the Palgrave Macmillan Series in Global Public Diplomacy and co-editor of the journal Media, War and Conflict, published by Sage.

Prior to joining the USC faculty in 2007, Seib was a professor at Marquette University and before that at Southern Methodist University.

[source: http://annenberg.usc.edu/faculty/comm... ]

Reviews

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was given this book, the gift-bearer informed me that it was the perfect gift for me, "... a book about baseball AND U.S. history.". Being the grateful recipient of said gift I of course bit my tongue, didn't respond, "How do you separate the two?", and accepted the gift in the spirit it was given. Now, after reading it, I realize how smart my niece is. The book is indeed about both, and without wandering too far from its subject, (Christy, in case there is some confusion), is a very engaging read.

Similar books about this time period in baseball tend to get repetitive and somewhat choppy to read by piecing together newspaper reports and box scores. This author alleviates that problem by also tracking events in the U.S., (and the world as 1914 approaches), while Christy pitches his way through his baseball career. This is recommended for baseball novices, hard core fans and anyone in between as it's a nicely written book.

[bup · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's worth a read if only because Mathewson was one of the five original inductees into the Hall of Fame. Seib makes the case that Mathewson and baseball paralleled, and slightly led, the American character's development in the first twenty years of the 20th century, and he makes it well.

I just wish there had been more to the book - a more thorough picture of Mathewson's life. Starting with a scant 170 pages, he devotes as much time to the atmosphere around Mathewson as to the man himself, including short excursions into the life of hockey player Hobey Baker and the writing of Edith Wharton, as two for-examples. So we're left very few in-the-game stories, and the 1905 World Series, in which Mathewson won three games, is a page or two. Their three successive World Series losses in 1910-1912 are treated as one event mentioned in little more than passing.

Part of Seib's challenge may have been that Mathewson led a pretty clean life, and there are no stories about what a character he was. Still, he was involved in many close games and many feats of renown that deserved more examination. And after all, the reader of this book is going to be a baseball fan. They're going to want lots of minutiae.

[Art · Rating 3 out of 5]

Christy Matthewson was one of professional baseball's first superstars, attracting fans at a time when many preferred amateur ball to the undesirables who played in the big leagues.

But Matthewson, a hard-working role model, helped change all that.

One of the first group elected to the Hall of Fame, he also fought to keep the sport pure as other players began to profit by betting against their own teams.

He volunteered to fight in World War One at the age of 38 and was exposed to poisonous gas that dramatically shortened his life.

I didn't know that much about Matthewson beforehand. But he seems to have been the right player for the changing times and played a big role in taking the sport to the mainstream. His honesty (going so far as to truthfully testify about a play that could cost his team the World Series if his version was upheld), his work ethic and his promotional skills (he wrote children's books and appeared in vaudeville) were admirable. And he was also one Hell of a player.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a must for anyone who loves baseball and history. Seib does an outstanding job of intermingling Mathewson's story and his character on the backdrop of America in the early 1900's. There are many good lessons here - the importance of education, physical and moral strength and how ignoring things that may be problems can become catastrophe's (I.e. gambling in baseball and the Black Sox scandal).

Seib causes you to consider just how good Mathewson was. Just one example: In the 1905 World Series, he pitched in 3 of the 5 games (over 6 days). All were complete game shutouts. Across those 27 innings he gave 14 hits, 1 walk and struck out 18 A's. That's unheard of in today's MLB.

[Stephen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I get what the author intended to do, but this book focuses way too much on American culture/politics and tries to relate it back to Mathewson, often in a very tenuous or tangential fashion. Just write about Christy Mathewson and baseball. That's why we're here. Not American culture at the dawn of the millennia and 1910s, which basically takes up half the book. If I wanted a book on that subject, I would've picked one.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not sure if there are "better" biographies on Christy Mathewson, but I linked the interweaving of his life with changes in the U.S during that time period.

[Daniel DeLappe · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book that could have been so much better. Interesting bits of information are brought up and then passed over. Worth the read if you are a baseball fan, but I wanted so much more

[Jason Hallmark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written biography of one of major league baseballs first true stars. The book is well balanced between his playing career and the times he lived in.

[Dominic Carlone · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was warned by other reviews that this isn't a straight biography of Christy, and the subtitle alludes to that as well. And indeed, it doesn't delve very deeply into his achievements as a baseball player. All that aside, it's a novel idea to capture an era of history with a player's bio as the context and vice versa, but it would probably drive a pure baseball fan bonkers. There are many interesting passages both on the Christy side and the history side, but I think the task Seib sets for himself is a bit too ambitious and his execution desultory at times. Goodreads doesn't give the option to give two and a half stars, but that's probably what I'd give it if I could.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good biography about Christy Mathewson - one of the underrated baseball greats. I've always been a fan of baseball history, but hadn't read much about turn of the century (1890-1910) players. It is written pretty straightforward. Worth the read to any historical baseball fan.

[Monte Lamb · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book takes baseball, Christy Mathewson specifically, American culture, and American History during the first years of the 20th century and show how they were inter-related. It is an excellent book.