The Wind-Up
The photo I saw of this statue of Christy Mathewson when planning the trip made it look life-sized. I was quite surprised to find out it is only a couple feet high.
Mathewson was a native of Factoryville. He graduated from Keystone Academy (founded by his maternal grandmother and now Keystone College) and in addition to being on the baseball, basketball and football teams, was valedictorian of his class at Bucknell University. He was also a devout churchgoer who promised his mother that he would not play baseball on Sundays. He was a dominant pitcher for the New York Giants in the early 20th century and was one of the five players named to the inaugural Baseball Hall of Fame election. Mathewson's clean-cut, scholarly, image lent a lot of respectability to the game at a time when many players were drunken womanizers.
Mathewson enlisted in the Army in 1918 toward the end of his career. He was serving as a captain in the Chemical Warfare Service in France when he was accidentally exposed to mustard gas. He later contracted tuberculosis and died in 1925 at the age of 47.
The Wind-Up
The photo I saw of this statue of Christy Mathewson when planning the trip made it look life-sized. I was quite surprised to find out it is only a couple feet high.
Mathewson was a native of Factoryville. He graduated from Keystone Academy (founded by his maternal grandmother and now Keystone College) and in addition to being on the baseball, basketball and football teams, was valedictorian of his class at Bucknell University. He was also a devout churchgoer who promised his mother that he would not play baseball on Sundays. He was a dominant pitcher for the New York Giants in the early 20th century and was one of the five players named to the inaugural Baseball Hall of Fame election. Mathewson's clean-cut, scholarly, image lent a lot of respectability to the game at a time when many players were drunken womanizers.
Mathewson enlisted in the Army in 1918 toward the end of his career. He was serving as a captain in the Chemical Warfare Service in France when he was accidentally exposed to mustard gas. He later contracted tuberculosis and died in 1925 at the age of 47.