Christy Mathewson's Marching Orders

Christy Mathewson was born in 1880 in Factoryville, PA and died in 1925 in Saranac Lake, NY. He pitched from 1900 to 1916, and is considered one of the four or five greatest pitchers of all-time. With 373 victories and a 2.13 ERA to go with his clean living ways, Mathewson was the idol of millions. He was one of the five original members elected to the Hall of Fame in 1939 (along with Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson, Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner).

While working in a chemical lab in France during World War I, he was exposed to a poisonous gas that severely damaged his lungs. In 1925, at the age of 45, Mathewson contracted tuberculosis, a direct result of his exposure to those chemicals, and died. These are Mathewson's orders to report for duty in the Great War that ultimately took his life, seven years after the war's end.