In his preface to the original 1912 publication of "Pitching in a Pinch," the book's ghostwriter, John Wheeler, wrote that "introducing a reader to Christy Mathewson seems like a superfluous piece of writing and a waste of white paper." Who, back then, did not know the baseball idol of the age? Today, when not a soul breathes who saw him pitch, Matty's reputation might have been expected to follow the path of his signature pitch, the fadeaway (a reverse curve that broke away from a left-hand batter). But Mathewson has stayed famous, as the man with the most wins in the National League (373) and as one of the first five men elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936—along with Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson and Honus Wagner.
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