Christy Mathewson

Christy Mathewson, 1910.

The Life, Times, and Career of Hall of Fame Pitcher Christy Mathewson

Christy Mathewson, often known as "Big Six," "The Christian Gentleman," and "Matty," is an iconic figure in the history of baseball. His remarkable career as a pitcher in Major League Baseball (MLB) during the early 20th century left an indelible mark on the sport. This essay delves into the life, times, and career of Christy Mathewson, exploring his early years, his rise to stardom, his impact on and off the field, and his enduring legacy.

Early life and background

Christopher Mathewson was born on August 12, 1880, in Factoryville, Pennsylvania. Growing up in a rural setting, he developed a strong work ethic and a love for sports, particularly baseball and football. Mathewson's talent on the baseball field became evident during his high school years, and he continued to excel at Bucknell University, where he played multiple sports. His exceptional performance on the mound caught the attention of professional scouts, setting the stage for his illustrious career in MLB.

Rise to stardom

Mathewson's professional career began in 1900 when he signed with the New York Giants. Under the management of John McGraw, Mathewson quickly emerged as a dominant force in the National League. His unique pitching style, characterized by a devastating fadeaway pitch (now known as the screwball), set him apart from his contemporaries. In 1901, Mathewson won 20 games for the first time, a feat he would accomplish in 13 different seasons throughout his career.



The pinnacle of Mathewson's career came in the 1905 World Series. Facing the Philadelphia Athletics, he pitched three complete-game shutouts, leading the Giants to victory and cementing his status as one of the greatest pitchers of all time. His performance in the World Series remains one of the most remarkable achievements in baseball history.

Impact on and off the field

Christy Mathewson's influence extended beyond his on-field accomplishments. Known for his integrity, sportsmanship, and intellectual approach to the game, Mathewson became a role model for aspiring athletes. He was one of the first players to emphasize the importance of education and proper conduct, earning the nickname "The Christian Gentleman" for his clean-living lifestyle.

Off the field, Mathewson was a prolific writer and a successful businessman. He co-authored a book, Pitching in a Pinch, which provided insights into the art of pitching and the mental aspects of the game. His writings and public appearances contributed to the growing popularity of baseball in the early 20th century.

Later years and legacy

Mathewson's career began to decline in the late 1910s due to health issues and the physical toll of years of pitching. He retired from playing in 1916 but remained involved in baseball as a coach and executive. In 1918, during World War I, Mathewson served in the Chemical Warfare Service, where he was accidentally exposed to mustard gas. The exposure led to severe health problems, including tuberculosis, which ultimately contributed to his untimely death at the age of 45 on October 7, 1925.



Despite his premature death, Christy Mathewson's legacy endured. He was among the first five players inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936, alongside legends such as Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb. Mathewson's contributions to baseball were celebrated not only for his statistical achievements, but also for his exemplary character and the positive influence he had on the sport.

Conclusion

Christy Mathewson's life and career are a testament to the timeless appeal of baseball and the enduring impact of a true sportsman. His remarkable achievements on the field, coupled with his integrity and intellect, set a standard for future generations of athletes. As one of the most revered figures in baseball history, Mathewson's legacy continues to inspire and captivate fans of the sport, ensuring that his contributions will never be forgotten.

T206 baseball card set

The 1909-1911 T206 baseball card set: A comprehensive overview

The 1909-1911 T206 baseball card set, often referred to as the "White Border" set, as well as "The Monster" due to its sheer size of 524 cards, is one of the most iconic and sought-after collections in the history of baseball card collecting. Produced by the American Tobacco Company (ATC), this set includes some of the most legendary figures in early baseball and has become a cornerstone for collectors and historians alike. This essay explores the origins, design, key cards, and enduring legacy of the beautiful, eye-appealing T206 set, truly a work of art in its own right.

Origins and production

The T206 set was produced by the American Tobacco Company (ATC) between 1909 and 1911 as part of a marketing campaign to promote its various cigarette brands, including Piedmont, Sweet Caporal, and Old Mill. Cards were inserted into cigarette packs, encouraging smokers to purchase more packs to complete their collections. This marketing strategy not only boosted cigarette sales but also left a lasting legacy in the realm of sports memorabilia.



Design and composition

The T206 set is known for its distinctive white borders, which set off the colorful lithographed portraits or action poses of players. The cards measure approximately 1.5 by 2.625 inches, a standard size for early 20th-century tobacco cards. The set features 524 known cards, depicting players from 16 major league teams and a few minor league teams.

Each card front showcases a player portrait or action pose, accompanied by the player's last name and the city of their team. The back of each card displays an advertisement for one of the ATC's cigarette brands. The combination of vivid artwork, detailed player depictions, and commercial advertising makes the T206 set a fascinating snapshot of early baseball and early 20th-century American culture.

Key cards and notable players

The T206 set is renowned for several key cards, all of whom depict Hall of Fame members, that have become legendary in the collecting world:

Honus Wagner card

Honus Wagner: The Honus Wagner card is the most famous and valuable card in the set, and arguably in all of baseball card collecting. Only around 50 to 60 copies are known to exist. Wagner, a shortstop and later coach for the Pittsburgh Pirates, reportedly objected to his likeness being used to promote cigarettes, leading to the card's limited production and immense rarity.

Ty Cobb: The set includes four different variations of Ty Cobb, one of the greatest hitters in baseball history. The set's cards of Cobb, who played for the Detroit Tigers, are highly prized by collectors due to his on-field achievements and the striking imagery on the cards.

Christy Mathewson: Mathewson, a dominant pitcher of the era who threw for the New York Giants, is featured in three different poses. His cards are sought after for their historical significance and the artistry of the depictions.

Walter Johnson: Another pitching legend, Johnson, of the Washington Senators, is represented in two poses in the T206 set. His cards are valued for their rarity and for commemorating one of baseball's greatest pitchers.
   

Challenges of collecting

Collecting the T206 set poses several challenges. The sheer number of cards, coupled with all the variations and rarities, makes completing the set a daunting and very expensive task. Additionally, the condition of the cards can vary widely. Many T206 cards have survived the past century with significant wear and tear, making high-grade examples extremely valuable.

Legacy and impact

The T206 set's legacy extends beyond its value in the collecting world. It represents a formative period in baseball history, capturing the faces and feats of early 20th-century baseball heroes. The cards are cherished not just for their monetary worth but for their cultural, historical, and artistic significance.

One of three different Christy Mathewson cards

The set has also influenced the design and production of modern baseball cards. Contemporary card manufacturers often draw inspiration from the T206 set, releasing tribute sets and incorporating vintage designs into new products. This enduring influence underscores the T206 set's status as a timeless icon in sports memorabilia.

Conclusion

The 1909-1911 T206 baseball card set stands as a testament to the enduring allure of baseball and the rich history of American sports collecting. From the legendary Honus Wagner card to the intricate portraits of early baseball stars, the T206 set offers a window into a bygone era. For collectors and historians, it remains a cherished link to the past and a cornerstone of the hobby.

Welcome to the 2022-2023 school year!

Welcome to the 2022-2023 school year! I can't believe, and I'm sure you're with me on this one, how quickly summer went! I'm scratching my head here, still trying to figure it out. Perhaps even more perplexing for me is that we're in the year 2022, quickly headed into 2023. I'll be turning the big 4-0 later on this year. Time sure does fly. I remember the 1999-2000 school year like it was yesterday. I was a junior in high school, and I remember all the fear and anxiety across the globe about machines, ATMs, clocks, calendars, etc. possibly not working when we reached the year 2000. Now here we are, nearly 23 years later. Wow.

Oh, well. In any case, here we are. A new school year. A new start of sorts.

First day of school of 2022-2023 for me, September 1. Celebrating with my very first Yeti for hot, industrial-strength coffee all day! Who’s ready to learn and grow?! Let’s do this! Cheers, all!

 

My summer went well. Back in late June, I took a stroll through my church's cemetery for the very first time, and I was genuinely amazed at the centuries-old history and the scenic beauty that is present there.

In early August, I went on a trip to Door County, Wisconsin with my parents for a few days. I can't even remember the last time I was up there, it had been so long. We stayed at the Open Hearth Lodge in Sister Bay. A very nice place. We really enjoyed our stay there. For those of you not very familiar with Door County, it's that "left thumb" of Wisconsin on the map. It runs along Lake Michigan. It's about 2.5 hours or so from the Milwaukee area. Door County's economy is heavily dependent on tourism and the manufacturing and marketing of specialty foods and beverages. Beautiful state parks, county parks, beaches, shops, restaurants, wineries, farms, and other tourist attractions dot the county. While Door County is home to a diverse variety of farming and agricultural goods, it is perhaps most famous for its cherries. Door County's famous cherries are put into anything and everything from pies and other baked goods, to jams, salsas, wines, even coffees and liquors. We came home with bags of gourmet munchies and coffees.

Here's a picture of an alpaca I took at the Wisconsin State Fair, which takes place each year in early August. I love both alpacas and the Wisconsin State Fair. Usually, I'll go to the Fair multiple times per year. I'll usually buy advanced tickets at a discount, and I love to just walk the grounds, people watch, and check out some of the bands and vendor booths without any particular agenda. This year, however, I only made it to the Fair twice. You can check out more alpaca pictures at my Instagram page.

Also in August, I spent a good amount of time building out some new pages on this blog to offer even more personal finance resources for students and teachers. It was a fun project to work on, and it's a subject I'm particularly passionate about.

Near the end of August, I went up to Appleton with my mom for a cousin's wedding. We stayed at the Hilton Appleton Paper Valley hotel, located in the heart of downtown, for two nights. I can't remember the last time I was up to Appleton, either. What a happening college town. A lot to see and do at any given time. On Friday night, local car enthusiasts and car clubs cruised downtown in front of our hotel in their classic, muscle, hot rod, and modified cars. That was fun to see. On Saturday morning, we checked out a large farmers market taking place downtown in front of our hotel. It stretched for blocks, and they closed the streets for it. A lot of variety, anything from produce and baked goods to coffee and specialty foods. And then of course, there was the wedding, the very reason why we were up there! That was a lot of fun. I hadn't seen my cousins and other family in a number of years. It was a good time to reconnect and recommit, and we all vowed to keep in touch and see each other more often. On Sunday morning, I went to Mass at St. Joseph Parish, right next door to our hotel. A beautiful church, it was built in 1867. The church also has a prayer garden with a statue of Blessed Solanus Casey, and I appreciated the opportunity to pray there for a while, as well.

Throughout the summer, I spent a little time here and there building my baseball card collection. The sports card market is back on fire, and I'm feeling like a kid in a candy store after having visited some card shows and shops this summer. I'm having a blast reliving my days collecting as a kid!

Finally, I continued throughout the summer working on both my Ph.D. dissertation studies and my spiritual life since rediscovering my Roman Catholic faith back in December after nearly 20 years.

Before I forget, here are a couple silly breaking news headlines I created through a fun tool at ClassTools.net over the summer.

Well, here's to another successful school year! Wishing you all the very best! Don't squander this precious opportunity, this precious time you have right now to truly learn, grow, and develop. Here's to you. Happy 2022-2023!

How was your summer? Did you go on any fun trips? Did you learn anything new? How is the new school year treating you so far? I'd love to hear all about it, so feel free to share in the comments section below!

Sports card market on fire

The sports card market appears to be coming back strong.

I've been seeing occasional articles and hearing things popping up in the news during the last year or so suggesting that the overall market for sports cards, which had largely been in the dumps for many years, is all of a sudden back on fire. I know I've been seeing a resurgence in card and memorabilia shows here in the Milwaukee area. The pandemic, apparently, has a lot to do with this sudden and exciting revival. Several factors are at play here, from what I've been hearing and reading: Older collectors are rediscovering the hobby, getting back to collecting players that they grew up with. Meanwhile, these older collectors are getting younger ones, today's kids, interested in collecting. And - the pandemic has caused the factories to produce less new cards, so values for cards that are coming out now are instantly surging because their print runs are much shorter.

In this post, I'll discuss some of the main trends and currents happening in the market at the moment, as well as offer some tips on how to be careful with your money. These are all based on both my own recent research and experiences in the marketplace, as well as on informal conversations I've been occasionally having with collectors, dealers, show organizers, and shop owners around the Milwaukee area. Fortunately, what I've been researching and experiencing myself seems to be largely in line with what's been coming up in these discussions with others, and vice-versa, so hopefully we can present a pretty accurate picture here for you of what's going on. I've been warmly embracing this renaissance of the hobby for the last few months, checking out a few shows here and there, along with a shop near my home. These are exciting times for the sports card market, indeed, and I've truly been like a kid in a candy store. It's all bringing back fun memories from my childhood.

What I don't address in this post is the subject of graded cards, which could easily take up a whole separate post of its own. That may be a future project here.

Some 1980s and 1990s card values are suddenly on the rise - I grew up in the 80s and 90s. I mostly collected baseball cards as a kid, and that's still true today. Baseball is my #1 love, but I also got into basketball and football cards to some extent, as well. The problem with all cards produced during this era is that there were far too many made. Even today, in 2022, you can walk into virtually any card shop, and you'll find tons of unopened packs, boxes, and sets of cards from this era, still factory sealed as if they came off the assembly line just yesterday (I wouldn't recommend testing out the 30+ year-old chewing gum, though). These shops can't give this stuff away, there's just so much of it. Don't get me wrong. They're still fun to open and pick through. I just bought a total of 30 packs between 1990 Fleer and 1990 Score baseball a couple weeks ago at a local shop near my home. I spent a total of $15.00, or just $0.50 per pack. I had a lot of fun going through them, and I found a good number of star cards to hold on to - Ryan, Ripken, Griffey Jr., Maddux, Glavine, Yount, Molitor, Bonds, Clemens, Biggio, Sandberg, Gwynn, Ozzie Smith, etc. They're not worth a whole lot, because there are so many copies out there, but they're still worth a few bucks. But something interesting is happening in the 80s/90s realm right now. Although the supply is enormous, there's a resurgence in demand, driven largely by collectors in my age group that grew up with this stuff. Additionally, more and more players from this era have been entering the Hall of Fame in recent years, further driving up overall values and interest.

Beware of the highly-volatile fluctuations in values of today's modern cards - I've heard this from many of the dealers, shop owners, and collectors I've been talking to. Today's kids and their parents, especially, should beware, since it's largely today's kids that are collecting today's newest cards. Makes sense. There's a lot of betting taking place on the values of today's cards, led largely by the efforts of Wall Street investors (literally - a lot of these guys are stock brokers or day traders) who have entered the hobby looking for the next big investment or business opportunity. As a result of their involvement in the hobby, there's a lot of speculation going on with these newer cards. And the average collector - the average kid and family - can easily find themselves stuck in the middle of this Wall Street -style pricing war, and find themselves out a lot of money in the end. These investor types are trying to bank on what they're betting will be tomorrow's new superstars. They're scarfing up as many cards as they can get their hands on, and they're willing to fork out big, big bucks for them. As a result, they're driving up values across the board, taking some of them to insane, unrealistic heights - thousands and thousands of dollars per card. There's no doubt that people are making some serious money on all of this, including the occasionally-lucky working class kid and family that just happens to be holding one or more of these cards. But many who have been in the hobby for years are seeing a bubble ready to pop. The problem is that these cards, whose values have been artificially driven up to tens of thousands of dollars in some cases, can easily sink down to nothing tomorrow with an injury, scandal, or lost championship.

If you're collecting newer cards, then, it's best to apply some old-fashioned investing principles, since you're likely going toe-to-toe with big Wall Street money on the other end of the deal. For starters, buy low and sell high. If a card is already priced unrealistically high and you don't own it yet, it's best to stay away from it at that price. Again, one injury, scandal, or lost championship can bring it down to zero in a blink of the eye. Also, always assume that your collection is worth nothing until you have actual cash in hand. Values on paper don't necessarily mean anything. And that goes for anything you may own - cars, homes, antiques, coins, etc. You need to find a buyer who's willing to pay for your item in order to turn it into cash.

For a much safer bet, true vintage (1970s and prior) continues to be where it's really at - Anything 1970s and older is usually a safe bet. These cards don't have the overproduction problems of the 80s and 90s, and they don't have the stock market -style speculation problems like the new stuff. Because these players are long retired, deceased, already in their sport's hall of fame, etc., their careers and stats are firmly set in stone, for all eternity. There's no fear of these athletes ending up on the injured list today, or losing a championship tomorrow. Everything they did or failed to do is fully known to us. For the ones still living, barring any future scandal or crime they may find themselves in, there's really nothing they can do now that will make their card values fluctuate. And barring any sudden surge in demand for a particular year/player (living or deceased), which would be pretty doubtful, these values are going to be consistently stable. Now, there's both an upside and a downside to these stable values. The upside is that we shouldn't have to worry about these values ever falling much. On the flip side, however, they're most likely not going to ever climb much, either. They're largely stuck for good in a kind of equilibrium. Therefore, those who are devoted to collecting vintage are usually in it for reasons other than pure investment/monetary gain. Perhaps they just want to be able to say they own cards of true, true legends of the game. Maybe they really enjoy the artwork and layout of certain cards and sets - there were some really beautiful, visually-appealing sets that came out in the 1950s, for example, and during the tobacco card era of the 1880s-1910s. Some of these collectors may be strictly into collecting vintage team sets and/or hometown favorites. And still some may have the goal of building complete sets from their own childhood years.

Do you collect sports cards? Is this post pretty accurate at the moment? Why or why not? What advice and resources would you offer our readers here? Feel free to weigh in with your thoughts, observations, tips, and experiences in the comments section below. We'd love to hear from you!