Archetype of the Christian celebrity athlete: Lessons from Christy Mathewson
Even as religious participation is on the decline in America, Christian celebrity athletes still seem to be as easy to find as ever. Gathering teammates for a pre-game prayer, pointing a grateful finger to the sky after a touchdown, or making the sign of the cross while stepping on home plate — these familiar aspects of American sports are one of the few displays of religiosity in the public square that are still given some respectful space. Athletes who attribute their accomplishments to God are more palatable than politicians who do the same, at least as long as their principles aren’t contradicted by poor sportsmanship or their off-the-field lifestyle. Reporters wanting the post-game scoop may be disappointed if a player responds with “I’ve gotta give all the credit to God.” But most politely pivot to the next question and leave the religious sentiments uncommented upon.
However, critics can and do pile it on when athletes mix conspicuous religiosity with polarizing social issues — or make it too tacky. Wearing eye black with Bible verses written on them provoked taunts as well as an NCAA rule change when Florida quarterback Tim Tebow turned the practice into an internet sensation. Fans may go along with an athlete who’s “got religion” as long as it “works.” But the “Tebow pose” disappeared as soon as its namesake’s career fizzled. If a celebrity athlete is good enough, their faith can be inspiring. Yet, it’s hard to imagine an outspokenly religious mediocre athlete enjoying the same benefit of the doubt. Civil liberties advocates would just as soon see such expressions of faith removed from the public square, assuming that such spaces should be strictly secular. By contrast, ecumenical and interreligious movements like Interfaith America advocate instead for a continued, pluralistic and inclusive space for religious life in college and university settings. Faith is an integral part of students’ complex identities, and can have a place in sports, as long as it is rethought. How would a Muslim student, let alone an atheist, be able to participate in a team prayer offered in Jesus’s name, for instance? Even when an activity may be student-led, there is the risk that this can feel coercive or sectarian. Rather than expect athletes to compartmentalize their spirituality, how can students of all faiths find meaningful ways to integrate the values and ethics of their faith into their sport?
It turns out there is often a real need for athletes to have ethics and character discussed and modeled more explicitly. Collegiate and professional sports are both, admittedly, an area in need of an ethical reality check. I was mesmerized by the Netflix documentary “Swamp Kings” (2023), which tells the story of the unprincipled coaching culture of the Florida Gators during the 2000s within the already fanatical climate of Southern football. It took a village to enable Urban Meyer’s football program to cross all of the ethical lines that they crossed. The fans, too, were off the charts in a way reminiscent of the Roman colosseum, and it is easy to see how the coaches and athletes simply delivered what the spectators and administrators wanted — a winning machine. Tebow’s admission that the Florida program may have “gone a little too far at times” comes across as a gross understatement. Even in retrospect this mild-mannered evangelical Christian athlete seemed hesitant to call a spade a spade. Did he go along with all the craziness because at least the team prayed in the locker room?
There is something truly spellbinding about winning that makes us buy into the idea that athletes and coaches can be permitted to go a little too far as long as things are “working,” meaning they are winning. They can also be permitted to go a lot too far, as in the hazing and sexual abuse scandals at Northwestern University, Penn State, and USA Gymnastics. Even beyond the Division I level, the overall financial strains of higher education have turned college athletic departments into an extension of the admissions department, which sets up the real possibility that a winning record and high recruitment numbers may be allowed to overshadow systemic problems in coaching culture or student-athlete behavior.
The backdrop of bad examples makes exceptional athletes with character shine all the more. This is no doubt why athletes who are devout and grounded in their faith are fascinating. Competition is inherently in tension with communal values, and in order to keep team sports from becoming cut-throat, we need heroes to show us why “life is bigger than basketball” or any other sport. We caught glimpses of this in the midst of Caitlin Clark’s record-breaking culmination of her collegiate career at Iowa. What the nation saw in Clark was a basketball player with exceptional character, explaining through tears on television, “I want my legacy to be the impact I can have on young kids.” Some commentators have aptly pointed out that in her case these values are grounded in her Catholic faith.
Whenever we put athletes or coaches on a pedestal, we have to be honest with ourselves about what we are celebrating. We may say that we want character, but what we really want is winning plus character. And that’s okay, in and of itself. When I was confirmed, I received a youth devotional that had a memorable entry in which the author explained that “God is not honored by mediocrity.” That is to say, God made the athlete to be excellent, and holding back and not using your gifts out of a sense of false modesty or misplaced humility could actually prevent the Christian from realizing their God-given gifts or their vocation in life. This epiphany has stuck with me ever since, and helped me overcome some timidity that might otherwise have held me back in my career and life. God is honored by the alignment of excellence an character in all our pursuits.
One of the early archetypes of the celebrity Christian athlete is legendary pitcher for the New York Giants, Christy Mathewson (1880-1925). His story of character and athletic excellence recently fascinated me enough to read three biographies about him, as well as Mathewson’s own book, “Pitching in a Pinch: Baseball from the Inside” (1912). I first learned about Mathewson from Ken Burns’ documentary, “Baseball” (1994), which highlights his role in resuscitating professional baseball’s reputation in the early 1900s, when amateur college players were celebrated, while the pros were deemed unrespectable. The biographies I read were Ray Robinson’s “Matty: An American Hero” (1993), Philip Seib’s “The Player: Christy Mathewson, Baseball, and the American Century” (2004), and Bob Gaines’ “Christy Mathewson, The Christian Gentleman: How One Man’s Faith and Fastball Forever Changed Baseball” (2015).
There are merits to all of the books, but the best in terms of writing is Seib’s, particularly because he goes into detail on Mathewson’s role investigating the “Black Sox Scandal” and his earlier allegations against Hal Chase for throwing games. That was the critical test for Mathewson’s character and is not as well explained in the other books. Robinson’s book is also a thorough-going historical study. Gaines’ book is accessible, as well as the closest thing to a spiritual biography, as it focuses on Mathewson’s Christian faith. However it is not as well written, does not go as far in depth on some of the historical context, and at points feels saccharine and sentimental. A baseball player known as the “Christian Gentleman” warrants a more compelling and critical theological analysis of how his faith developed and motivated his decisions and the conscious cultivation of his public persona. I recommend Seib’s book first, but also recommend reading Gaines’ book together with Seib’s for a more complete view of Mathewson that takes his faith seriously.
All three books only scratched the surface of what really interested me, though, which was how Mathewson created the role of the Christian celebrity athlete, which we now take for granted. He was a pioneer in this regard and did not have an established tradition to follow. Three things stand out that makes Mathewson worthy of emulation for today’s Christian athletes: he understood his obligations as a role model to youth, in life as well as sports; his moral influence in the game was through his consistent example; and he took personal risk to uphold high standards of ethics and sportsmanship.
Obligations as a role model. Frank Merriwell was a fictional character of a popular series of stories and dime novels created by Gilbert Patten in 1896. Merriwell was athletic, intelligent, faithful, and played fair. The public found Christy Mathewson to be the real-life embodiment of these virtues — which were conspicuously lacking in professional baseball. Merriwell was also representative of the wider movement known as “muscular Christianity,” promoted by youth organizations like the Boys Scouts and the YMCA, as well as Theodore Roosevelt and Billy Sunday. Whatever Mathewson thought of this broad and effuse cultural philosophy is unclear, as he steered clear of politics as well as ideological debates. Nevertheless, Mathewson found his calling to provide a good example to youth, on and off the field. He seems to have kept himself at arm’s length from the popular movements that might have otherwise co-opted him. This is perhaps why he chose to write his own books for youth, including “Catcher Craig,” “Pitcher Pollock,” “First Base Faulkner,” and “Second Base Sloan.”
Gaines explains that Mathewson did not court celebrity, but that after he realized he was famous and that people were looking to him as an example, he instinctively understood he had an obligation to be a good influence for his young fans. “I feel strongly that it is my duty to show youth the good, clean, honest values that I was taught by my mother…. That really is all I can do.” Mathewson was aware that he was being idolized by children across the country and he leaned into that responsibility. His youth talks drew analogies between baseball and life. Gaines recounts his speaking engagement at a boys juvenile asylum in New York, where moral character was the theme. “I might lecture you boys about control being the big thing in life, but just now I’ll talk about pitching, and in that, also, control is everything.”
Influence through example. Mathewson had an awkward entry into professional baseball, as he was a poor fit for its rough culture. Rather than adjust to fit the culture, he gained respect for being who he was and also had a knack for relating to other people as they were. He could seemingly relate to anyone and everyone. Manager John McGraw is credited for facilitating Mathewson’s acceptance by his Giants teammates in the early days, and the two became friends. On the field, McGraw was Mathewson’s polar opposite, known as the pugilistic “little Napoleon.” Off the field, both of these men and their wives were close friends, and the four even shared an apartment in New York for years, playing cards in the evenings.
Mathewson diligently read and reflected on scripture throughout his life, memorizing hundreds of Bible passages, which he could recite effortlessly. Though he was praised from the pulpit and the press box in his day as “the Christian Gentleman,” he himself was never known to be preachy or moralistic. In contrast with his contemporary Branch Rickey, who was known to quote the Bible, Mathewson did not quote from the Bible superfluously.
Long before the “color line” had been crossed, Mathewson maintained close friendships with Native American baseball players, such as Jack Meyers, Charles Bender, and Jim Thorpe. Racial slurs were commonplace among spectators and players alike during baseball games, and Matty seems to have internalized the pain experienced by his teammates. According to Gaines, Matty scolded himself anytime he slipped up and referred to Meyers as “Chief” — then an acceptable nickname applied to any Native American player — and did not subscribe to the prevailing notions of racial hierarchy of the day.
Seib points out that “Second Base Sloan” depicts a friendship between the white character Wayne Sloan and the Black character Junius Tasker, and even points out the hypocrisy of the racist double standards of the supposedly enlightened North. Yet, Mathewson stops short of directly questioning the assumptions of racial inferiority espoused by Wayne. Gaines notes that unlike John McGraw, who expressed frustration about baseball’s failure to end the unspoken ban on African Americans in the major leagues, and even tried to bend the rules on occasion, Mathewson’s advocacy in changing the racism embedded within the culture of baseball remained only indirect at best. Mathewson assumed that athletics and friendship were the great equalizers with regard to class and race, and modeled this in his own life, yet ultimately opted to stay out of the ideological debates of the time.
Personal risk. As manager of the Cincinnati Reds in 1918, Mathewson accused Hal Chase of “indifferent playing” after it became clear that Chase was fixing games. Though the National League hearing on Chase found him not guilty, later allegations of his broader involvement in game fixing emerged. Chase was traded to the Giants, where John McGraw, who liked Chase personally, allowed him to finish the 1919 season. Mathewson maintained his suspicions, however, and if he discussed them with McGraw, it was done discreetly. Chase’s contract was not renewed and his professional career was over after that year.
Nonetheless, Mathewson was animated to address what had, to him, become the main problem threatening the integrity of baseball. After a tip came in that there was an attempt to fix the 1919 World Series between the Reds and the Chicago White Sox, Mathewson would aid journalist Hugh Fullerton in comparing notes from the press box on plays that looked irregular. Fullerton’s subsequent expose article forced baseball to investigate the matter, which led to the banning of the eight White Sox players who had been involved in or aware of the plot to throw the series. Seib notes that Mathewson’s conclusion afterwards was that the lax attitude of baseball’s establishment had brought the scandal on themselves.
“They whitewashed one case and invited it,” Mathewson commented, referring to Chase’s earlier acquittal.
In reading Seib’s account of Matthewson’s behind-the-scenes role in these efforts to clean up baseball, it becomes clear that Mathewson was risking his reputation and professional relationships to uphold high ethical standards in his sport. Mathewson had effectively lost his earlier case against Chase, and it took time for public opinion and major league baseball to acknowledge the seriousness of the later World Series gambling scandal. This cannot have been without strain on Mathewson. Yet, it was ultimately a defining moment for his character, as he demonstrated that his commitment to clean sportsmanship was worth his own personal risk.
Seib concludes, “Even before people described his wonderful athletic skills, they talked about his demeanor and his integrity. He transformed baseball by his presence, which incorporated a dignity and moral stature the game had not known. Adhering to his own standards of sportsmanship, he didn’t quarrel with umpires, he didn’t taunt opponents, and he didn’t throw at batters. Instead, he rose above the rowdy, loutish status quo and lifted baseball with him…. In victory Mathewson was admirable. In defeat he was magnificent.”
Though no historical figure can stand up to close scrutiny without blemishes, even Mathewson’s losses offer insights on how to model faith in the vocation of the athlete. His legacy as an archetype of the Christian athlete invites perennial reevaluation by today’s athletes and others looking to fix the challenges and problems of collegiate and professional sports.