Career
Mathews was born in 1851, in Baltimore, Maryland, and he played as a teenager with the Maryland club of that city, and he made the team a dangerous one. For the 1871 season, he and some other Maryland players signed with the Fort Wayne Kekiongas. On May 4, 1871 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, he pitched a shutout in the inaugural game of the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NA), the first professional league. Mathews umpired a few games between 1871 and 1888 and signed with the regular staff of the Players League in 1890, returning to the AA in 1891.
Over his 16-year career, he had 297 wins, 248 losses, 525 complete games, with a career earned run average of 2.86. He had 1,528 strikeouts compared with 532 walks. He won 20 games 8 times, including 42 in 1874 with the New York Mutuals of the National Association, and is the only player to win 50 games or to pitch 100 games in each of three major leagues. He is the 25th winningest pitcher in MLB history.
Mathews died in 1898 in Baltimore, at the age of 46, of paresis caused by syphilis, and is interred at New Cathedral Cemetery, also in Baltimore.
Read more about this topic: Bobby Mathews
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