Pitching in a Pinch: Baseball from the Inside

by Christy Mathewson, Chad Harbach (Foreword by), Red Smith (Afterword)

Overview

An inside baseball memoir from the game’s first superstar, with a foreword by Chad Harbach

Christy Mathewson was one of the most dominant pitchers ever to play baseball. Posthumously inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame as one of the “Five Immortals,” he was an unstoppable force on the mound, winning at least twenty-two games for twelve straight seasons and pitching three complete-game shutouts in the 1905 World Series. Pitching in a Pinch, his witty and digestible book of baseball insights, stories, and wisdom, was first published over a hundred years ago and presents readers with Mathewson’s plainspoken perspective on the diamond of yore—on the players, the chances they took, the jinxes they believed in, and, most of all, their love of the game. Baseball fans will love to read first-hand accounts of the infamous Merkle’s Boner incident, Giants manager John McGraw, and the unstoppable Johnny Evers and to learn how much—and just how little—has really changed in a hundred years.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143107248
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/13/2013
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Christy Mathewson (1880–1925) was the first national baseball superstar through his seventeen-year major league career, mostly with the New York Giants.

Chad Harbach is the author of the bestselling and critically acclaimed novel The Art of Fielding. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Red Smith (1905–1982) was one of the greatest sportswriters of all time. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1976.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Praise for Pitching in a Pinch:

"This book ... bears Matty's mark and the flavor of the age. It is still, after all these years, a good read."
—John Thorn, official historian of Major League Baseball, The Wall Street Journal

"Pitching in a Pinch is the real thing: baseball as it really was in the early years of the game, an on-the-spot record of how it was played and who played it that will be treasured by older and younger fans alike." —Jonathan Yardley, Sports Illustrated
Praise for Christy Mathewson:

"[Mathewson] gripped the imagination of a country that held a hundred million people and held this grip with a firmer hold than any man of his day or time."
—Grantland Rice

“Mathewson pitched against Cincinnati yesterday. Another way of putting it is that Cincinnati lost a game of baseball. The first statement means the same as the second”
—Damon Runyon

"Introducing a reader to Christy Mathewson seems like a superfluous piece of writing and a waste of white paper. Schoolboys of the last ten years have been acquainted with the exact figures which have made up Matty's pitching record before they had ever heard of George Washington, because George didn't play in the same League.
—John N. Wheeler, in his original introduction to Pitching in a Pitch
 

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Pitching in a Pinch:

"This book ... bears Matty's mark and the flavor of the age. It is still, after all these years, a good read."
—John Thorn, official historian of Major League Baseball, The Wall Street Journal

"Pitching in a Pinch is the real thing: baseball as it really was in the early years of the game, an on-the-spot record of how it was played and who played it that will be treasured by older and younger fans alike."—Jonathan Yardley, Sports Illustrated
Praise for Christy Mathewson:

"[Mathewson] gripped the imagination of a country that held a hundred million people and held this grip with a firmer hold than any man of his day or time."
—Grantland Rice

“Mathewson pitched against Cincinnati yesterday. Another way of putting it is that Cincinnati lost a game of baseball. The first statement means the same as the second”
—Damon Runyon

"Introducing a reader to Christy Mathewson seems like a superfluous piece of writing and a waste of white paper. Schoolboys of the last ten years have been acquainted with the exact figures which have made up Matty's pitching record before they had ever heard of George Washington, because George didn't play in the same League.
—John N. Wheeler, in his original introduction to Pitching in a Pitch
 

From the Publisher