No one American athlete in any sport has ever summed up the values of his era more than the pitcher Christy Mathewson. This "Greek God in flannels" as the publicists liked to call him appeared on the major league diamond during the first years of the 20th century as if in answer to the national yearning for a gentleman-hero. Baseball gloried in its rough-necked hard-drinking roustabout spirit when Mathewson first stepped upon its muddy fields. "He handed the game" wrote dean of sportswriters Grantland Rice "a certainindefinable lift in culture brains personality." Mathewson would be remembered today even if he had lacked those golden attributes of body and spirit. At a point when baseball was a pitchers game dominated by such immortals as WalterJohnson Grover Cleveland Alexander Chief Bender and Rube Waddell Mathewsons strong right arm made him a star second to none. Over a period of sixteen full seasons of play with the New York Giants he won twenty or more game thirteen years and thirty or more games four years. In 1908 he pitched his team to victory a record making thirty seven times.

Surprisingly however the golden boy of baseball developed a reputation for hard luck. Fred Merkles infamous baserunning blunder cost Matty and the Giants a pennant in 1908 that would have capped off his greatest season and "Snodgrasss Muff" lost a World Series for Mathewson when the outfielder failed to catch an easy fly.These disappointments were minor however next to the central tragedy of his life. One of a number of baseball players who volunteered for service in World War I he returned from France with his lungs weakened by poison gas and then came down with tuberculosis. After recuperation in a sanitarium he decided to return to baseball as president of the Boston Braves. That decision cost him his life. After a relapse brought on by being overworked he was dead at forty-five.

The 8 x 5 military transfer card presented here offers a rare sampling of Mathewsons writing including two samplings of his name. In filling out the personal data requested by the document Mathewson has written Mathewson Christopher on the name line his address 129 Market St. Lewisberg Pennsylvania emergency contact Mrs. Christy Mathewson wife wifes address 129 Market St. Lewisberg Pa. date of commission Aug. 24 occupation Base Ball Team Mgr. and date of birth 1880. His listing of occupation as manager dates the piece to the 1916-18 period. Mathewsons blue fountain pen writing is consistently bold rating 8-9 out of 10. The card itself was intended to be folded in half thus bears a vertical fold line at center. The card is corner mounted in an impressively large 25.5 x 36 framed display along with a limited edition 16 x 20 photo from the Francis P. Burke Collection. This fine Mathewson artifact is unique in character and colossal in terms of collector appeal.

Includes full LOA from PSA/DNA.