Quote of the Day (Roger Kahn, on Pitchers and ‘Competitive Intelligence’)

"Pitchers, of all ball players, profit most from competitive intelligence. It is a simple, probably natural thing to throw. A child casts stones. But between the casting child and the pitching major leaguer lies the difference between a boy plunking the piano and an artist performing." —American sportswriter Roger Kahn (1927-2020), The Boys of Summer (1972)

Thank God the baseball season is upon us now and we can be (temporarily) diverted from polarizing issues.

Today isn’t the first time I’ve pondered the question of pitchers’ intelligence. Late last summer, some readers might recall, I analyzed it briefly in the case of Hall of Fame hurler Greg Maddux.

But today, I’d like to nominate another pitcher as having keen intelligence, along with a fierce integrity that fully matched his fierce competitiveness: New York Giant hurler Christy Mathewson.

“Matty” (dead a century ago now) wasn’t content to overpower hitters with speed; he unsettled them, with pinpoint control of a variety of pitches. He might not have been the first pitcher to analyze batters’ tendencies and tailor his approach to exploit these, but he made it an art form and passed his wisdom down in a book, Baseball in a Pinch.

You couldn’t ask for more different people than the gentlemanly, college-educated Mathewson and the fiery John McGraw, but the Giants skipper knew he could rely on his ace when the game was on the line.

As for integrity? Much was and still is made of the deeply religious Mathewson not pitching on Sundays. But, as manager of the Cincinnati Reds, he also suspended Hal Chase for intentionally throwing games and correctly sized up that that the Chicago White Sox were doing the same thing in the infamous “Black Sox” scandal of 1919.

Surviving footage of this mound master is scant and grainy, but his legend endures, as does his place in the baseball pantheon, with his 373 career victories still ranking third all time.

Flashback, September 1916: Mathewson and Brown, in a Twilight of Mound Gods

The image of Ted Williams clubbing a home run in his final at-bat remains powerful just because it is so different from the way great players normally leave the diamond. Far more typical was the 10-8 game won by the Cincinnati Reds on September 4, 1916, against the Chicago Cubs. Fans hoping for the kind of pitchers’ duels fought the decade before by the starters, the Reds’ Christy Mathewson (pictured here) and the Cubs’ Mordecai “Three-Finger" Brown, were gravely disappointed.

They would have felt far worse had they known that this would be the last time either future Hall of Famer pitched in the major leagues. It wasn’t simply that Mathewson and Brown had once pitched with skill, but with determination and heart. At a time when many baseball players were not just rough around the edges, but even borderline disreputable, these pitchers proved that character counted for something, too.

There’s a sterling post about Mathewson by Callum Hughson on the blog Mop-Up Duty. I particularly like the quote that begins the profile: “Christy Mathewson talks like a Harvard graduate, looks like an actor, acts like a businessman and impresses you as an all-around gentleman.”

It’s possible that no pitcher has dominated his league to such an extent for such a long stretch as Mathewson during his glory years with the New York Giants. Thirteen seasons of at least 20 victories each would leave him with a total of 373 wins for his entire career. Particularly noteworthy was his remarkable control, demonstrated by a ratio of three strikeouts to every walk.

“Matty” may have had his best year in 2008, when he achieved the pitcher’s equivalent of the Triple Crown, leading the National League in wins (37), strikeouts (259) and earned run average (1.43).

We come now to one of the great paradoxes of baseball: how an articulate player deemed the embodiment of the Frank Merriwell ideal of the clean-cut, handsome, noble sportsman could bond with his fiery manager, John McGraw. One quality united the two more than any other, I think: a competitive streak a mile wide. You can see it, along with his extraordinary intelligence, in an off-the-field anecdote related by Hughson: I.e., playing chess at the Pittsburgh Athletic Club against 12 opponents simultaneously--and beating them all!

A number of sources (Hughson included) points to Mathewson’s six-foot-plus frame as the reason for his nickname, “Big Six.“ I prefer an alternate explanation: that, like New York’s famous “Big Six” fire-engine company, Mathewson could end any emergency quickly.

Mathewson’s specialty was his “fadeaway,” what later generations would call a screwball. He saved it largely for tough spots, chiefly because of the wrenching effect its motion left on his arm.
The money pitch of Mordecai Peter Centennial Brown (the middle name an indicator of the year of his birth) was also painful to throw: a curveball that Ty Cobb judged “the most devastating” he ever faced. Brown, however, would grit his teeth and bear the pain to his fingers: after losing two of them in a childhood accident on the family farm, after enduring a youth spent laboring in the mines, he could withstand anything.

“Three-Finger” was the inevitable nickname given to Brown, but given his importance to the Cubs, he might more justifiably have been called “The Neutralizer.” If 2008 was Matty’s best season, so it was Brown’s, as he compiled a 27-9 record. Most amazingly, Brown had Matty’s number, winning six straight games at one point against him. And, in the game that broke Giant fans’ hearts, playing before a Polo Grounds crowd so vociferous that he and his teammates needed a police escort, he shut down Matty and the New Yorkers by getting the victory on the last game of the season.

By 1916, age had taken its toll on the two. Brown had been traded by the Cubs following an injury-plagued 1912 season, then had bounced around among the Reds and the upstart Federal League’s Chicago Whales and St. Louis Federals before returning to the Cubs to finish out the string. After his own subpar 1915 season, Matty was traded to the Reds and became their manager midway through the following year.

As manager, Mathewson inserted himself into only one game: the one against Brown, called by Lee Allen in The Cincinnati Reds “probably the most sentimental hurling duel every staged." The two starters gutted it out in going the distance, but in the modern era of middle relievers and closers, they surely would not have figured in the final score.

But Brown would beat Mathewson in a more important contest: the amount of years left alive. Mathewson’s service in World War I came to a horrifying end when he was exposed to poison gas during a training exercise in France. He died in 1925.

Brown spent much of the last two decades of his life operating a gas station—rather a different fate from the financial nirvana that today’s most mundane hurlers earn--and was dead a year by the time Cooperstown finally got around to enshrining him in the Baseball Hall of Fame. But he didn't need that kind of recognition. To his teammates, he was a wonder of guile and guts.

This Day in World War I History (Poison Gas Introduced as Terror Weapon)

April 22, 1915—The Second Battle of Ypres began at dawn, as the German Fourth Army peppered French and Algerian divisions with bombardment by 17-in. howitzers. Then, suddenly, a greenish-yellow mist drifting toward the French positions signaled a deadly and terrifying innovation in modern warfare: poison gas.

The Flemish market town of Ypres would witness four battles, more than a half million dead that would fill 40 cemeteries, and the destruction of much of its Old World-style architecture from shelling in the course of World War I. But gas warfare posed a unique horror.

The chlorine gas in the second battle at this dangerous point—5,700 canisters containing 168 tons—was unexpected and, at least at first, effective. Lance Sergeant Elmer Cotton described, in chilling detail, how the gas worked on those exposed to it:

“It produces a flooding of the lungs - it is an equivalent death to drowning only on dry land. The effects are these - a splitting headache and terrific thirst (to drink water is instant death), a knife edge of pain in the lungs and the coughing up of a greenish froth off the stomach and the lungs, ending finally in insensibility and death. The colour of the skin from white turns a greenish black and yellow, the colour protrudes and the eyes assume a glassy stare. It is a fiendish death to die.”

Across four miles of trench lines, 5,000 French troops fell dead within 10 minutes. The rest, temporarily blinded, coughing, and coughing, broke and ran, leaving a five-mile gap and 2,000 men who were captured.

France and allies Great Britain and Russia had only one consolation that day: German troops were almost as frightened by this new form of warfare as they were. It didn’t escape their notice that this wind-borne weapon could be blown back on them.

For that reason, the Fourth Army’s advance was uncharacteristically tepid. The German high command, which had not ordered reinforcements, believing that no troops on earth could fail to exploit this situation, were, thus, unable to reap the advantage of what turned out to be their best chance to crack open the Western front in 1915.

As awful as it was, the truly terrible thing about poison-gas warfare turned out to be that both sides began to use it. Not even a full year into the war, the Allies eventually decided that, since theirs was a war over the meaning of civilization itself, they could not allow this weapon to be used against them without retaliation.

By the fall, the British were releasing gas canisters at Loos. Later, the French used phosgene, which was even worse than chlorine gas.

But the Allies would tell you that Germany got there first. They introduced not only chlorine gas, but mustard gas, which resulted in blistering skin, vomiting, temporary blindness, and difficulty in breathing.

Both sides eventually came up with gas masks to counteract the danger. Before that, though, the victims were many—and, in a couple of cases, already prominent or about to be so.

It was the misfortune of New York Giants pitching immortal Christy Mathewson to become exposed to poison gas before he even went into battle. His exposure, though only occurring in a training exercise, had the same deadly effect as in other cases, though more slowly: he ended up contracting tuberculosis as a result, dying seven years later.

Another victim of gas warfare was a corporal in the German army exposed to it under British fire at Flanders in 1918. In an American Heritage article from 1985 on why America didn’t use poison gas in World War II (even though we resorted to the atomic bomb), historian Barton J. Bernstein speculated that the WWI experiences of gas victim Adolf Hitler made him reluctant to expose his troops to the same danger he’d experienced more than two decades ago. The same article noted that Winston Churchill, worried that Hitler would launch gas warfare against Russia, warned that the British would retaliate by using it against German cities, while FDR announced a no-first-use policy.

(The image in this post, by the way, is called Gassed, by John Singer Sargent. The painter created it after visiting a casualty station shortly after a mustard gas attack.)

This Day in Baseball History (Cubs Beat Giants—Yes, Really!—for NL Pennant)

October 8, 1908—In one of the wildest days in one of the wildest seasons in the history of baseball, the Chicago Cubs won a sudden-death playoff by defeating the New York Giants, 4-2, at the Polo Grounds.

Bad blood has, of course, marked the 100-year-old rivalry of the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. But for sheer pressure –even to the point of physical danger—I can’t think of anything that compares with this contest at Coogan’s Bluff, billed at the time as “The Greatest Game Ever Played.” The final score doesn’t even come close to capturing its ferocity. (The photo accompanying this post captures the Giants faithful in an uncharacteristically happy moment that day.)

If there were a Hall of Fame for managerial tempers, then Lou Piniella would find himself safely esconsed amid Leo Durocher, Billy Martin, Earl Weaver, and the petulant patriarch of them all, the New York Giants’ John McGraw. (And if you don’t believe me, then check out his performance as captured on YouTube.)

But maybe the Cubs of “Sweet Lou” (who, let it be noted, received his nickname for the picture-perfect swing of his playing days rather than his –ahem!—infinitely tolerant, forbearing manner toward errant umpires) could have used a little less of their skipper’s fire and a bit more of the sang-froid of their counterparts of 100 years ago. The latter, after surviving a rash of injuries to go 41-10 down the stretch, still had to endure the following on this early autumn afternoon before they could secure a pennant:

* At Grand Central Station, even before getting to the ballpark, mind you, the Cubs, after being continually jostled on a 14-hour train ride, had to put up with catcalls from a crowd annoyed that the game even had to be played. (The circumstances surrounding the pivotal game in their race with the Giants—involving a controversial “boner” by Giants youngster Fred Merkle—were explored in my post from two weeks ago.)

* At the stadium, the Cubs had to squeeze past another line of enemy fans just to enter the park, then watched the same fans—many now additionally infuriated because they’d been turned away at the sold-out venue: a) try to light the wooden fence on fire; b) continue through the fence, even after being soaked by firehoses; and c) fall back after finally repelled by mounted police. (How hard was it to get in, you ask? Well, consider this: Albert Spalding—the organizational genius behind the national pastime—despite possessing four box-seat tickets, a season’s pass, AND a chauffeur-driven car that testified to his importance—was turned away at the gate, and finally entered only after commandeering an ambulance. Moreover, Henry Taft—yes, the brother of the hefty Secretary of War who was running a successful Presidential campaign that very month—had to sneak into the Polo Grounds through the sewers!)

* Only 15 minutes into the Cubs’ batting practice, the Giants’ “Iron Joe” McGinnity rang a cowbell to end the proceedings. (Some say that, not content with this one blatant attempt to discompose the visitors, the pitcher then invaded the space of the Cubs’ Frank Chance, not only stepping on the toes of the player-manager but also launching a cloudburst of spittle and a number of words never heard in the Bible in the immediate direction of the “Peerless Leader.” Chance ignored these provocations aimed at getting him tossed out of the game.)

* Jack Pfiester of the Cubs was so anxious to play that he submitted to the ministrations of a self-taught osteopath, who miraculously snapped a troublesome tendon back in place in the elbow. (The procedure helped, but not enough—Pfeister was knocked out of the box in the first inning.)

* The Cubs had to face on the mound the great Christy Mathewson, then in the midst of perhaps the greatest season (37 wins) of his legendary career.

* As the arm-weary (he’d thrown 100 innings in September alone) Mathewson faltered and the Cubs scored, the Giants’ faithful poured abuse on the Chicago team—a cascade of insults and curses that these battle-hardened vets had never heard before.

* Cubs catcher Johnny Kling, on a single play, evaded “two beer bottles, a drinking glass and a derby hat,” according to the New York Journal.

* The Giants’ team physician, Joseph Creamer, had unsuccessfully attempted to bribe umpire Bill Klem to throw the game—thereby prefiguring, by a decade, the “Black Sox” scandal that nearly destroyed the game.

* When the Cubs won, they sprinted to center field to get out of the park—but not before: a) Pfiester was knifed in the shoulder; b) Chance was punched in the throat; and c) three other Cub players were also hit.

Even in the clubhouse, the victorious team was not safe, as many Giant fans—sort of like the crazed vampires in I Am Legend—began to shout, break windows and hurl themselves against the door.


It’s hard to believe this week, with the Cubs adding to their 100-year record of futility, but they dominated baseball in the early 20th century, winning a record 530 games, four pennants, and two World Series from 1906 through 1910. “Whoever heard of the Cubs losing a game they had to have?” Chance had asked. Who indeed?

Certainly nobody that year, when the Chicago crew not only beat out the Giants but also the Pittsburgh Pirates (with the nonpareil shortstop Honus Wagner) for the pennant and the Ty Cobb-led Detroit Tigers for the World Series.

But in baseball, glory is transitory—not just for players, but even more so for franchises.