The Old Ball Game: How John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, and the New York Giants Created Modern Baseball

At the turn of the twentieth century, Christy Mathewson was one of baseball’s first superstars. Over six feet tall, clean cut, and college educated (at a time when only a tiny fraction of Americans had even finished high school), he didn’t pitch on the Sabbath and rarely spoke an ill word about anyone. He also had one of the most devastating arms in baseball. New York Giants manager John McGraw, by contrast, was ferocious. Nicknamed “the Little Napoleon,” the pugnacious tough guy was already a star infielder who, with the Baltimore Orioles, helped develop a new, scrappy style of baseball, with plays like the hit-and-run, the Baltimore chop, and the squeeze play. When McGraw joined the Giants in 1902, the Giants were coming off their worst season ever. Yet within three years, Mathewson clinched New York City’s first World Series for McGraw’s team by throwing three straight shutouts in only six days, an incredible feat that has never been surpassed by any pitcher and is invariably called the greatest World Series performance ever. Mathewson and McGraw came to the Giants at that moment when New York itself was becoming the first city of the world – a rambunctious metropolis, runner-up only to London in population, and home to both the tallest building and the most crowded slums in the world. Baseball was, likewise, quickly becoming America’s game. This was when the sport was still in its reckless infancy, when groundskeepers would hide extra balls in ankle-deep weeks in case they couldn’t find the ball in play. Mathewson and McGraw helped bring baseball into the modern era by refining the sport’s tactics. Because of their wonderful odd-couple association, the Giants ascended into legend, and baseball as a national pastime bloomed.

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