Pitching in a Pinch: Or, Baseball From the Inside

It's difficult to think of an athlete today as universally beloved as a player and respected as a person as Christy Mathewson was nearly a century ago. Mathewson was, by all accounts, the finest pitcher of the first decade of the 20th century, and is widely considered one of the brightest and most interesting baseball thinkers of any era. Mathewson's Pitching in a Pinch was an instant hit when first published a century ago. For boys of that generation it was cultural currency like the Harry Potter stories are for kids today: every boy had read it, everyone knew Matty's stories, and everyone could quote his lines about courage, leadership, and teamwork by heart. The Boy Scouts of America issued a special edition for its members. If you were a boy a century ago, you probably loved Matty, and you definitely had read his book. And today it's not hard to understand why. Pitching in a Pinch is a wonder: Mathewson weaves together strands including how-to advice on strategy and techniques for playing the game, funny stories about the other stars of his day, and his approach to winning on the field and off. From the Introduction by John N. Wheeler: "Besides being a national hero, Matty is one of the closest students of baseball that ever came into the Big League. By players, he has long been recognized as the greatest pitcher the game has produced. . .In this book he is telling the reader of the game as it is played in the Big Leagues. It's as good as his pitching. . ."