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.

Segment Three: Pitching - The Art

Palazzo:
You are legendary for your control, (Mathewson pitched 68 consecutive innings without allowing a base on balls... a big league record that lasted until Greg Maddux broke it in 2001). Tell us how it was to be a young pitcher in 1901, when wild pitches and walks were the norm and you had to rely on guts and a good fastball to win (and win you did with 20 wins that year for a 7th place team). And how did the transition to control pitcher take place?

Matty:
When I first came to New York I had wonderful speed and I used it all the time. So anxious was my manager to win games at that time --- he did not curb or caution me. As a result, I got a very sore arm. It pained me so that I could not sleep at nights and I thought I would never be able to pitch again. They did not realize just how bad my arm was and called on me to pitch when the work caused me excruciating pain. I then began to think... If I did not protect my own arm --- nobody would, and I wouldn't last two years. That thought gave me the idea of developing a slow ball so that I could reserve my speed until I needed it.

Just about the time McGraw came here and began to advise me, I discovered that my slow ball was just as effective as my speed. That saved my arm and has enabled me to earn a living for many years. I never got back the speed I had before they allowed me to pitch with a sore arm. Later on, as my mind grew more mature, I discovered that a pitcher wastes half his energy in throwing balls that do not count. To avoid this, I had to have control and be able to put the ball just where I wanted to and make the batters hit it. In other words, I realized that a pitcher should not try to be more than one-ninth of the team unless a crisis arises. Then the reserve strength can be used.

I did not always have good control. At first, I was wild. By constant practice, however, I learned to get the ball where I wanted to and that helped to save my arm. According to statistics, I believe, the average pitcher throws 130 balls to a game. The pitcher who can get by with half that many, therefore, will last just twice as long. Every ball pitched takes just that much strength out of the body. I did not waste any more than I could avoid. It was my ambition to last ten more years. I succeeded in doing that and felt that I had done the best by baseball that I could.

Palazzo:
Do you have any thoughts you would like to share on "the art of pitching?"

Matty:
In my experience as a pitcher I have come to the following conclusions:

First - a pitcher needs very little power, provided he has control and uses his strength intelligently. Great speed is always prized and so is a sharp breaking curve. If these things go with good control and good judgment they are immensely valuable, but by themselves they are worth very little. For my part, I would rather have a pitcher who has only moderate speed and a fair curve, but knows how to use them. In my own time I have seen many boys with overpowering speed come and go. Indeed, their fast balls might make batsmen gape in wonder. But their catchers would be gaping too - at the various directions in which the ball was speeding. A pitcher's speed is worth nothing if he cannot put the ball where he wants it. To me control is the first requirement of good pitching.

Second - I have found that a pitcher, in order to make the grade in the major leagues, must be able to use his intelligence. Every individual batsman represents a new problem. A pitcher must make a study of each of his opponents. He must be clever enough to recognize their weak spots, and his memory must be strong enough to catalogue these weaknesses for future reference.

These are the two major points I would cite to aspiring pitchers. Of course, I would also mention the need for good conditioning and healthy habits. These are not only requirements for a pitcher, but they are fundamentals that apply to every athlete. I smoke occasionally and from time to time I will take a glass of beer. These are things which seem harmless enough to me, if indulged within proper bounds. There are fanatics in my trade who will insist that the slightest infraction of training habits will affect an athlete's work. There are others who point out notable examples of successful athletes who chronically violate all the rules for good training. I do not endorse either of these extremes. It seems to me a professional athlete should be mature enough to determine his own capacities. The true professional knows that he will pay dearly if he is not in physical condition to perform.

I began speaking of speed and control, and I would like to return to that subject. It is never easy for a player to evaluate himself, but I have given much thought as to where my strengths and weaknesses rest, and I believe I can make a rather fair commentary on my abilities. At one time I had very good speed, probably greater than I now possess. At the time I was attending Bucknell University I pitched in the New England League. Though that competition was certainly not equal of the major leagues, I believe my fast ball was better than it is now. I have always thought my curve was my best pitch. At least it has been my favorite. I took to the slow ball quite naturally. I made no deliberate effort to develop this pitch. It was, I suppose, part of my natural equipment. But it is a pitch that I can control very well - and, as I have said before, I place great emphasis on control. In 1908, a year in which I yielded only 42 bases on balls in a total of 416 innings, it was this pitch that I relied upon most.

In any discussion of pitching it is necessary to mention the spitball. It is a pitch, however, for which I personally have little respect. I have never seriously tried to use it, and am quite satisfied to have no part of it.

There are times in a pitcher's career when he feels that his entire repertoire of pitches is working effectively. That, you can be sure, is a happy day indeed. And a rare one, too - I hasten to add.

On several occasions in my career I have been blessed with such good fortune. The 1905 World Series is the one that I recall most happily. My control during the three games I pitched was all that I have ever hoped for it to be. I nicked the corners and capitalized on opponents' weaknesses to my heart's content. In the three games I worked I surrendered no runs. The Athletics made but fourteen hits off me in all the games together. That was a series in which every good fortune was mine. I have often wondered if I might not have found it tougher going had the Athletics' pitcher Rube Waddell been well enough to play.

There is quite a difference between pitching a game in which your team is racking up a score, and facing an opposing pitcher who is holding your batsmen scoreless. Waddell is one of the best. I'm sure it was to my advantage that I didn't face him in those games.

Lest the reader think I have too exalted an impression of myself, I believe it proper for me to mention a game in which I did not fare well. You know, every pitcher has his good days and his bad days. It would be an arrogant man indeed who did not recount some of his failings as well as successes in viewing his career. There was a game against the Cubs in 1906 in which I was about as ineffective as I believe I have ever been. There were three of us who pitched that day, but most of the damage was done against me. The nineteen runs the Cubs scored against us were primarily charged to my record. You can be sure on that day I would not have been so free with advice on how to pitch. The fact is that curve ball, fade-away and all, I managed no control over Cubs' batsmen.

There is another aspect of my career which reveals a failing on my part. I have never been able to deal successfully with Joe Tinker. Though Tinker's average is closer to .250 than .300, he has been better than a .300 hitter against me. I would rather face Wagner or Sherwood Magee or Heinie Zimmerman - each a batting champion in his own right - than the generally weak-hitting Tinker. It was Tinker, whom I'm sure every fan recalls, who delivered the telling blows against me in the playoff game of 1908 which gave the pennant to the Cubs.

So it goes with each of us - there is none of us so good that he is infallible. Though my pitching theories have served me well for the most part, there have been bad days, too - days in which I could have used some advice. Fortunately, the brighter events of my career stand out in my memory.

One of the most notable of these is the no-hit, no-run game that I pitched in 1901. I beat St. Louis that afternoon. What meant most to me was the fact that after that game I felt I had really made a place for myself in the major leagues. I was considered a freshman that season, but I had been shuttled about a bit before I was settled with the Giants. I had pitched for Norfolk in the Virginia League where I won 21 games. That won me my chance with the Giants. However, after losing three games, I was sent back to the minors. Cincinnati drafted me, but apparently didn't prize my abilities too highly. They traded me back to the Giants. When I started that 1901 season, I was determined to give my all to make the grade. With that no-hit, no-run game settled in the record book, I felt I had made a respectable beginning.

Four years later I was again fortunate enough to pitch a no-hit game. We faced Chicago on that afternoon. My thoughts at that time were concentrated more on winning the game than making an individual record. We had only a one-run lead. As I walked to the mound in the last of the ninth, a strange memory intruded my thoughts. I recalled a no-hit game Earl Moore had pitched in 1901, the same year I had pitched my first no-hitter. Though he didn't surrender a safe hit, Moore had been the victim of walks and errors and the game had gone to ten innings. Chicago had beaten Cleveland, and though Moore was credited with a no-hit game he was the losing pitcher. Though Moore's misfortune dominated my thoughts, it had no effect on my pitching. I won my second no-hit game.

Strange impulses can grip a man as he stands on the pitcher's mound. There may be thousands of people in the stadium, but for all practicable purposes the pitcher is alone. I mention this in relation to another subject which has been more or less of a sore point with me. It has to do with those occasions when a pitcher, who has been working well all afternoon, will suddenly surrender a series of hits in a late inning. Often, at this point, the fans will start demanding that the manager take him out. I have heard more than one manager severely criticized by the fans for going along with a pitcher under these circumstances.

It is my theory that the fans in instances such as this are too severe on both the pitcher and the manager. They are, in fact, ignoring the rules of chance that dominate the game. It is a mathematical certainty that over the course of any given season, batsmen, including pitchers and weak hitters, will compile an over-all average of .250 against pitchers (take or give a few points). I am a great believer in these averages. Sooner or later they catch up with all of us. That may very well account for a pitcher, who is effective all during a game, giving up a series of three or four hits. He is the victim of the bunching-up of the averages. Mind you, I am not saying this is always the case. Of course, a pitcher may have weakened and lost all effectiveness. But in many instances where I have heard the fans sounding off on a pitcher or manager, I know this to be the reason underlying the pitcher's seeming trouble.

In pitching or winning my games, how much figure does brainwork cut? I don't quite know myself. I do know that no pitcher, however powerful or agile, can hope to become a great performer without being thoroughly equipped "from the shoulders up." The steel arm is desirable, the good eye is even more desirable. Without the little filling of gray matter that is popularly supposed to inhabit the skull, a pitcher might just as well pack his suitcase and go back to the quaint little village where he was first discovered...

It is not the iron in the arm, because lots of longshoremen could snap a pitcher's arm in two with a single twist; --- it's the combination of brain and body, the perfect co-operation of mind and muscle, that makes a man a successful Big League twirler. I have often been told by my good friends that a pitcher is about ninety per cent of the game, and I have never failed to assure them that nothing could be further from the truth. A winning pitcher helps a baseball team a whole lot, of course, but there are eight other boys on that team, and nobody knows it better than the winning pitcher.

As a matter of fact, it would be impossible to establish the mathematical relation of the pitcher to a ball club. Figures in baseball are often misleading. One pitcher may work brilliantly for thirteen innings only to have a 1 to 0 defeat marked-up against his record ("Red" Ames comes to mind), while one the following day another pitcher may luckily win a 10 to 8 game. It is a matter of record that in the season of 1909, Leon Ames of the Giants, in finishing a seventeen-inning game and participating in two extra-inning ties, pitched thirty consecutive innings without allowing a run and yet he did not win even one of those games! If it were true that pitching is ninety per cent of the strength of a ball club it would be logical to assume that the team having the best staff of pitchers would always win the pennant. That is not true. If you are a baseball fan who pays attention to records you will notice that the teams which win the pennants always have several players who lead in their respective departments. And this does not necessarily include the pitchers. For instance, the Baltimore Club, back in the early nineties, won three successive pennants with pitchers whose names can scarcely be remembered. The hackneyed cry of, "What we need are pitchers," could very well be changed to, "What we need are hitters, base runners and fielders." Without them there can be no pennants...

Palazzo:
How did you develop your "fadeaway" pitch?

Matty:
In my early college years I pitched professionally for the Honesdale Reds, near my hometown of Factoryville. I played that summer for $20 a month plus room and board and it was there that I learned how to throw the fade-away from a fellow named Davey Williams. Davey was a lefty and he was warming up one afternoon at the old Silk Mill Flats (in Honesdale, where we played) and he kept flinging the ball wildly past Judge Schurholtz, who was catching him at the time (we called him "Judge" because he was studying to be a lawyer). I asked him what he was trying to throw and he told me that it was a tricky pitch that he couldn't control. He had learned it from a colored fellow over the winter and it was an "opposite break" curve. In other words, if I threw it correctly I could throw a left handed curve ball with my right arm! He never controlled it but I decided to work on it as a freak pitch for "the pinch." It was a good decision too, because had it not been for THAT pitch I do not know whether or not George Davis would have kept me with the New York Club that first time I came up to the Big League for a "try-out." By that time I had had the opportunity to hone my skills from Honesdale with summers in Taunton and Norfolk.