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

With his regular contributions to "Sports Illustrated and National Public Radio's "Morning Edition. Frank Deford is, in the words of "The Sporting News. "the most influential sports voice among members of the American print media." In "The Old Ball Game, America's most beloved sports-writer does a masterful job of chronicling the early days of America's most beloved pastime. At the turn of the twentieth century, every American man wanted to be Christy Mathewson. One of baseball's first superstars, he was over six feet tall, clean-cut, college educated (at a time when only 6 percent of Americans had finished high school), didn't pitch on the Sabbath, and rarely spoke a negative word about anyone. He also had one of the most devastating arms in all of baseball. New York Giants manager John McGraw, by contrast, was ferocious. Nicknamed "the Little Napoleon." the pugnacious tough guy had been a star baseball player who, with the Baltimore Orioles, helped develop 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 title by throwing three straight shutouts over six days, an incredible feat that has never been surpassed by any pitcher since and is often called the greatest World Series performance ever. Both men came to the Giants at that moment when New York itself was becoming the first city of the world--a rambunctious metropolis second only to London in population. Baseball was, likewise, quickly becoming America's game. This was when the sport was still in its reckless infancy, when groundskeepers would doctorfoul lines and outfielders would hide baseballs in ankle-deep weeds 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 association, baseball had its first superstar, the Giants ascended into legend, and baseball as a national pastime bloomed.