[Archive]

Posted By: TBob

Matty came in the league at a time when most of the players were farmhands, oil riggers, coal miners, roughnecks, city slickers, etc. and gave the league instant credibility and class. He was a college graduate at a time when you could count the numbers of college educated players on one hand. Before Matty the game was perceived as roughnecked and brawling and definitely not a game you would take the wife/girl friend and family to on an afternoon. matty changed all that. He was THE hero to thousands of kids, the real life Frank Merriwell. He was a great pitcher who suffered quietly and inwardly when some of the greatest freaks in the history of the game happened while he was on the mound: Merkle's Boner, Snodgrass' Muff, Chief Meyer's dropped pop foul. His tragic and senseless accident which hastened his death adds to the mystique.
Who was the greatest pitcher of all time: Matty or Johnson? Johnson threw harder, pitched for the miserable Senators and endured his own hell in Washington. But for sheer pitching ability, intelligence of hitters, guile, control and mastery on the mound, there was only Matty.