1) Matty never saw live action in Europe as a soldier. His death was as a result of a tragic and sad training fiasco.
2) The first draft was passed very late in the war, unlike WW2. Most Americans felt this was "Europe's war" and were reluctant to fight. There was sympathy for the Germans not only because of the large German-American population in the U.S. but also many Irish-Americans despised the British. The Allies had a very successful well-tooled propaganda machine which centered on atrocities in Belgium by German soldiers (retaliating for sniper file from civilians on their troops) and the sinking of the Luisitania in which some American passengers died (now it has been discovered that there were actually large shipments of armaments aboard headed to England), but it was not until the famous "Zimmerman telegram" in which a German official promised Mexico huge chunks of land in the Southwest if they attacked America that sentiment changed.
I think the general sentiment prior to that time was to follow George Washington's old urgent plea to "avoid foreign entaglements at all costs." This might have played a part in American ballplayers following the lead of many non-sporting men to avoid the war.
P.S. I have no axe to grind here, my grandfather and his little brother both volunteered and heroically fought in the War for the United States, being decorated for bravery at the front, despite the fact their parents were immigrants from Axis countries (Germany and Austria).
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