The deadball era is an interesting period in baseball history, filled with a lot more variety than we see in the game today. With players like Christopher Christy Mathewson, Ty Cobb, and Frank Baker playing in low-scoring games, this time period is interesting enough to fill a baseball history book. But this is just a brief and incomplete introduction.
The Era
The start of this age in baseball is somewhat controversial, but it essentially refers to the beginning of the twentieth century. It is called the deadball era because of the low-scoring games and a deficiency of homeruns. Just to illustrate the extremity of this, a man named Frank Baker hit a total of twelve homeruns in one season and was then nicknamed “Home Run” Baker. Players in the past five years have been hitting up to 54 homeruns in a season.
There were many factors contributing to these low scoring games of the deadball era, including the foul strike rule, the ball itself, the spit ball, and ballpark sizes. But if the start of the age is controversial, the end of it is even more so, attributing its end to changes in the ball, to Babe Ruth, to park size, and more. What nobody argues about, however, is the talent of Christy Mathewson.
The Player
This man had many nicknames, among them, “Big Six,” “The Christian Gentleman,” and “Matty.” He was in the first five to enter the baseball Hall of Fame. Standing at almost six foot two and weighing in at almost 200 pounds, Christy Mathewson was and still is one of the greatest baseball players to have ever lived. He pitched over eighty shutouts, meaning that he pitched the whole game, preventing the team from scoring any runs. Three of those shutouts were in one series against the Philadelphia Athletics. He still holds the fifth best earned run average (ERA) of all time. All of this is enough for him to make it into any baseball history book.
And besides all of his baseball accomplishments, this player earned his nickname as The Christian Gentleman because of his refusal to play on Sundays and his generally clean, role-model lifestyle. He even wrote children’s books at one point.
As a time period long gone and so different from now, a baseball history book would be the best way to familiarize yourself with this rough and rule-free period in America’s most beloved sport and one if the sport’s most beloved players.