Bobby Mathews

[Cubsfan97]

I think he certainly deserves a thread. Had 297 career wins including the NA, won the very first NA game, a shutout at that. Played 16 years between the NA, NL and the AA. He is credited as one of the inventors of the spitball. Only player to win 50 games in 3 different leagues. And yet this guy is not a HOFer.

I've heard that the 19th century is iffy when it comes to the Hall, but certainly he deserves entry. Im sure if he had 3 more wins credited to him he would have been in many years ago.

What are all your thoughts and opinions on him?

[ItsOnlyGil]

I do not put much emphasis on what the HOF does or doesn't do. However, with that being said, Mathews would not be one of my top candidates among 19th century players worthy of recognition, in part because out of 545 games pitched he won almost 300 of them. This is just over half.
During his fifteen season tenure, in my estimation, he put together three good NA seasons in a row; then he did that again for the Athletics near the end of his career. In the interim, my view is that he did nothing else worthy of comment.
Sorry for all of this negativity, that is not generally my outlook, see? --------->

[Brian McKenna]

The biggest strike against Mathews is that his success was mainly in the NA and AA. I'm not saying that these leagues are good or bad just that they're recognized by very few today. Because of the relatively little success achieved in the NL, I don't think officially having 300 wins would help his cause much - for the reason noted above..

[Beady]

Haven't we discussed Matthews in some thread somewhere? I tried to search for it but can't find it.

Here's my view. Hall of Famers are a dime a dozen, what are there, 250 of them? Bobby Matthews was much more special than that, and in fact I'm not sure there has ever been another player like him. Instead of Matthews wishing he were in the Hall of Fame, I think it's the Hall of Famers who probably wish they had been more like Matthews. Just consider this list of 1870's pitchers:

Asa Brainard, Candy Cummings, Cherokee Fisher, Bobby Matthews, Dick McBride, John McMullin, Charlie Pabor, Al Pratt, Al Spalding, Bill Stearns, Rynie Wolters, George Zettlein.

Now, those were the leading NA pitchers during the seasons of 1871 and 1872. You could look it up, and you would see that eleven of the twelve were gone from the major leagues forever before 1878, and in most cases sooner. During the middle 1870's established pitchers found it impossible to adapt to the development of new techniques, especially the curve ball, the adoption of underhand throwing in place of the true pitch and then the gradual start of the trend toward unrestricted overhanded pitching, and so they were replaced by a young generation of pitchers who had grown up with the new techniques. Their entire species was destroyed in a great mass extinction that not even Cummings, the father of the curve ball, could survive.

But there was one survivor. Bobby Matthews had been the first pitcher to learn the curve from watching Cummings, and in the same way he was the only one who learned to adapt to the new world of pitching and came back to enjoy an improbable second career. Like the others, he ran into hard times around 1876 and the next few years, but unlike everybody else he plugged away, kept his head above water and adapted. When he returned to the National League with Providence in 1879, he was easily the dean of League pitchers. And by the time he finished his productive career in 1886, he had actually outlived a large majority of the pitchers active in 1879. The rule is survival of the fittest, and they don't come any fitter than Bobby Matthews.

The mass extinction of the middle '70's is probably a unique event in baseball history, but throughout the 19th century pitchers' careers were very short, because of the extremely heavy workloads they were subjected to and the stress in constantly adapting to radically new rules and improved techniques. I have a lot of respect for the men who had the physical stamina and mental resilience to survive for long periods pitching under these conditions, and of them all, with the possible exception of Jim Galvin (“the League can make any rule they choose, I can stand on my head, if necessary, and pitch"), Bobby Matthews is my favorite.

[Cubsfan97]

Beady, that is a very interesting way to look at Mathews. Reading what you wrote has really made me believe in this guy even more.

As for BMK, I understand what you are saying about people not recognizing the NA or AA, but it is a shame that he doesnt get his due. I personally think he would be in if he did get 300, cause, well everyone else is in, but thats just my opinion.

[Brian McKenna]

Even so - no one else counts NA victories in major league win totals.

David makes a good point about Mathews surviving the transitions in pitching during its early evolution. Very few jumped eras.

There was a whole new core of pitchers after overhand pitching became in vogue 1883-84. The same could be said to a lesser extent after the mound was pushed back in 1893.

[Beady]

There was a whole new core of pitchers after overhand pitching became in vogue 1883-84. The same could be said to a lesser extent after the mound was pushed back in 1893.

Do you think so? I thought the mid '70's was unique, but I haven't really examined it closely. It would be an interesting study.

Of course, pitchers' careers were so brief that there was a constant churning of staffs all the time. The major rules changes were frequent -- for example, there was a complex of changes in 1887 that some pitchers had trouble adjusting to - and everybody was in constant danger of arm damage. So sorting out why a particular pitcher or a group of pitchers lost it can be hard to determine because there are so many possible reasons.

On the other hand, if you could stay healthy and keep your skills even marginally viable it was probably easier to stay in the big leagues because pitching staffs increased in number as time went on.

[Cubsfan97]

Even so - no one else counts NA victories in major league win totals.

David makes a good point about Mathews surviving the transitions in pitching during its early evolution. Very few jumped eras.

There was a whole new core of pitchers after overhand pitching became in vogue 1883-84. The same could be said to a lesser extent after the mound was pushed back in 1893.

True, no one counts them, but I dont think there are any pitchers who have 300 wins, that wouldnt have them if they took away NA numbers. I just think the voters back then would have seen 300 and immediately put him in.

[Brian McKenna]

Well I guess it's not a bad as I originally thought. Comparing top two pitchers from each NL club in 1882 and then 1885:

Gone by 1885
Fred Goldsmith
George Derby
Lee Richmond

Out of Rotation by 1885
Larry Corcoran
Monte Ward
Hugh Daily
George Bradley
Frank Mountain

Still Chugging in 1885
Hoss Radbourn
Jim Whitney
Mathews
Pud Galvin
Jim McCormick
Stump Wiedman
Tim Keefe
Mickey Welsh

[ItsOnlyGil]

The Hall has, in my estimation, a history of excluding players from their ranks who did not meet their unspecified behavioral standard. Players like Browning, Mullane, Matthews and others appear to fit this mould. And what was Mathews perceived crime? I believe that he opted to play for the highest bidder, in this case a "minor league" team, in the middle of his career.

http://www.thebaseballpage.com/players/mathebo01.php

[Rube Waddell]

Very interesting post. Makes me wonder if Al Spalding's lack of adaptability wasn't the main reason he left the game as an active player.

[Beady]

My understanding is that Spalding quit at such an early age precisely because he saw he couldn't catch up to the new techniques. In another way, of course, Spalding was the ultimate survivor, a man as flexible as anybody could be. He managed his retirement on his own terms, moving to first base while he was still a good pitcher and then retiring to run the ball club and his sporting goods business.

I have seen an interview Spalding gave the Chicago Tribune probably around 1878 or 1879 in which he expressed his preference for the old straight-arm pitching style. He said that the fastest of the old pitchers such as Cherokee Fisher and George Zettlein could throw as hard as anybody now active, and they didn't break up their catchers the way the new-style pitchers did. I don't actually recall whether or not he mentioned the wear on the arm of the pitcher himself that the new techniques caused, but he did comment on what it did to the catchers.

[bluesky5]

Bump