Sundays with Matty

Bob Palazzo interviews Christy Mathewson with the help of Eddie Frierson

Well - we got our scoop! As promised, through the efforts of his good friend Eddie Frierson, I was able to interview Christy Mathewson. Matty has a lot to say and he says it well. From opponents, to personal triumphs and failures, he shares with us his approach to the game of baseball and philosophy of life.

Eddie Frierson as Matty

The questions and answers have been grouped into six big (or "big six") segments, in homage to his world famous nickname. The sections are: "In Matty's Opinion", "Matty's Take on Others", "Pitching - The Art", "Pitching - Of a Different Variety", " The Early Years and Nicknames", "It's Personal". A different section will appear each Sunday until all have been posted. In addition, there will be a special feature that will be posted after week six. There has been no editing, other than grammar.

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to sit back, let your mind travel, and imagine yourself with this baseball giant as he shares his innermost thoughts on baseball with you.

Section Five: The Early Years and Nicknames

Palazzo:
Tell us about your college football days at Bucknell and how you got your nickname of Gum Boots.

Matty:
For many years I saw references to "Gum Boots" in various publications. That is actually a misprint. My nickname in College was "Gun Boots" and was given to me because I had a certain proficiency in kicking a football. I was a fullback and drop kicker for Bucknell and was blessed with an ability to boot field goals (then worth the same as a touchdown - five points!) from as far out at 45-50 yards when most fellows had trouble from 30 out. In fact, it was football that gave me my first big break in baseball.

In the Fall of 1899, I travelled with the Bucknell Football Team to Philadelphia to play the University of Pennsylvania. I was just turned 19 that August and while sitting in the lobby of our hotel the morning of the big game with Penn, an man known as "Phenom" John Smith, whom I had met the previous Spring at the annual Bucknell Alumni baseball game, walked up to me with a contract calling for $80 dollars a month to play for him in Norfolk the next summer. I was a bit miffed at this price as the previous year I had signed to play for $90 a month in Taunton. Mr. Smith reminded me that I never got paid a dime more than to survive in Taunton and his $80 would be guaranteed.

In the football game that afternoon our team from Lewisburg was extremely unmatched - yet I was fortunate enough to drop-kick two long-range five-point field goals - a feat that no Bucknell TEAM had ever accomplished before. "Phenom" John sought me out after the contest, pulled the contract out of his pocket that I had signed earlier that morning, and said to me, "I liked the way you kicked those field goals out there today. And because of that I am raising your pay to the $90 a month that you should have gotten this past summer with Taunton!"

Mr. Smith took out his fountain pen and crossed the $80 stipulation out right then and there and wrote above it - $90. And the Norfolk team PAID it, too. Perhaps that's one of the reasons why I was so successful there. I was happy. I won 21 games in Virginia before mid-July and the Giants called me up. Nearly 16 years later, not long before my trade to Cincinnati, while traveling with the New York Giants through Norfolk one day, I saw that contract framed in a store window... Still with that $80 mark crossed out and $90 written above it.

Palazzo:
I understand you played infield with the Giants for a while in 1902. Why?

Matty:
In my first full year with the Giants, Horace Fogel (who didn't want the job as manager) tried using me in the field on days that I didn't pitch because he felt, as did I, that I could place my bat on the ball with regularity and (with the lack of solid batsmen on our team in those days) why not try it? In fairness to Mr. Fogel, contrary to popular accounts, he never intended for me to become a position player every day like, for example, Ruth. But our team was lacking and, as manager, he had a need and saw a way to try to bolster it. He was not an unintelligent man (as some have tried to depict him).

Horace Fogel's funniest mistake was not when he tried to make a first baseman out of me but it was in releasing Jack Doyle, our regular first baseman, for "purposely hitting into a triple play!" - We were playing in Boston. Jack lined to the Boston second baseman, with runners on first and second bases. Fogel wired to Andy Freedman that Jack "had purposely hit into a triple play." Freedman wired, "Release him if that's the way he's playing!" The joke was on Fogel and Freedman. Washington got Doyle at his New York salary and gave him a $500 bonus!

Palazzo:
How did you get your nickname "Big Six?"

Matty:
I don't honestly know where the nickname came from. I always thought it was because I was a rather large man - over six feet, but I was later that my friend Sammy Crane first attributed the name to me comparing me to the "Big Six" Fire Company of New York City. "The Big Six of pitchers..." I have never really cared for the nickname. But through the power of the press, "Big Six" is what I became known as throughout the country and in many parts of the world.