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

Frank Deford takes you there. This book is definitely about baseball and it's evolution around the turn of the century, but it also sits you down in the early 1900's. Historical descriptions of the Manhattan of the day are fascinating. You feel as though you're reading the headlines of the day one minute and sidled up next to the personalities of a very tough time in American history the next minute. If you're interested in baseball this book takes you there. It's so well written you can almost taste the dust in the air sometimes. However, don't be afraid to give it a read for it's historical presentations of New York and Baltimore in the early 1900's.

What I liked about the book was that Deford gave the reader credit for knowing baseball and knowing the times of the story. The background information built upon that knowledge. To say this was a glorified article can only be made if one knows that Deford was a sportswriter for SI and others. It was not and many baseball books have taken small subjects. One suggestion (and this covers almost all sports bios) is to give a page of stats for the subjects. It does not have to be extensive, just the teams, records and years played. Just like a photo section, it is something that the reader can often flip to.

Christy Mathewson was one of the 5 inductees in the first class of the baseball Hall of Fame in 1936. John McGraw was inducted a year later in 1937. It can be argued that both were the greatest in their respective positions on the field - Mathewson as a pitcher and McGraw as a manager. It's interesting to note that Mathewson and Walter Johnson were voted into the Hall of Fame one year before Cy Young even though Young retired before either of those pitchers, so why is the best pitcher award named the Cy Young Award and not the Christy Mathewson Award? Frank DeFord does a fantastic job in describing the lives (personal and baseball) of these two greats of the game, as well as the era they lived in. One of the topics I found interesting was the involvement of gambling in baseball at the time. Gambling was already a problem in the 1900s and early 1910s, and perhaps it led to the 1919 Black Sox scandal. Deford writes "the fixed World Series of 1919 was a climax rather than an oddity." (p.116). Deford doesn't cover this topic in great detail but he touches on it throughout the book just enough to give the reader a feel for the gambling atmosphere in the game. Pete Rose's actions would not have raised an eyebrow in that era. I enjoyed this book tremendously. Frank DeFord has an easy-to-read writing style. I did not know much about Mathewson or McGraw before reading this book, so I feel I learned a lot about these greats of the game. I definitely recommend it for anyone interested in baseball.

I bought this book because I enjoy reading Frank Deford. This book captures the mood and scope of the nations sports landscape at the turn of the century and how it's subjects grew to become the most recognizable sports figures in the land. Both McGraw and Mathewson were fascinating individuals who never would have crossed paths in the real world had it not been for baseball. The story of their successful professional and loving and enduring personal realtionship is told beautifully by Deford with insight, humor and an obvious care for his subjects and its time.

John McGraw and Christy Mathewson became two of baseball's most recognizable personalities with the arrival of the 20th century. McGraw made his name initially as a third baseman with the scrappy Baltimore Orioles in the 1890's. Mathewson was one of a very few college players, and found himself being tried as a first baseman along with pitching for the Giants when McGraw was brought to New York to lead the Giants for the next thirty years. Author Frank Deford manages to weave together these two diverse personalities as each left their imprint on the game during their short lives. McGraw died at the relatively young age of 60, although his bouts with the bottle made him appear much older than he was. Matty died at the youthful age of 45 due to tuberculosis, probably the result of breathing poisonous gas during a drill among soldiers while in France during World War I. The information provided on the old Baltimore Orioles can be found in numerous other books, most notably for me, Fred Lieb's history on the Baltimore Orioles as well as the information on Mathewson in other books. However, I feel Frank Deford does a good job in tying together the lives of these two giants of the game who became great friends as well. For all his crustiness, combativeness, and profane mouth, McGraw, who experienced tragedy as a young boy by seeing his mother and several siblings die of diptheria, had a sentimental side to him. He hung three pictures in his office of his favorite players (Christy Mathewson, Ross Youngs, and Mel Ott). The last sentence is not included in the book. Following his playing career Mathewson became manager of the Cincinnati Reds. He suspended one of his players, Hal Chase, because he believed him to be involved in fixing ball games. When Matty returned from France McGraw offered him a job as a coach on the Giants, only to find Hal Chase now a member of the team. McGraw had difficulty adjusting to the times as he bemoaned the modern (at that time) player, while the stature of his old Oriole teammates grew with the advancing years. You can find a lot of the information on these two baseball legends in other individual biographies, but this book will bring these two giants and close friends together in one well done (if you will) dual biography.